Top Five Pointless Conventions

Lots of things we take for granted in everyday life do not serve any reasonable purpose. Today, ODHSNM considers some of the most egregious.

Encore

So you’re watching a band. They’ve been on for a while and they haven’t played their most popular songs.

What’s this? They’re walking off the stage? But...but...NO! You must return! We, the audience, demand it!

What is the point of an encore? Everyone knows you’re going to do it. Band - you are not spontaneously responding to the audience. You’ve got a LIGHT SHOW sorted out for this bit, FFS.

Audience – you could all sit there in total silence and they’d still come back out and play the same three songs they intended to play all along. They're not going to waste that light show. 

Perhaps once an encore was a spontaneous response to audience demand. Now – like most of the grammar of pop music - it’s a ridiculous bit of play-acting nobody can remember why they do. Just don’t bother. 

Outside Broadcast

Suppose there has been some big news event, with a political element to it. Cue TV reports beginning:

“I am standing here outside Number 10 Downing Street...”

WHY? That is the last place on earth where anything relating to this news event is likely to happen. Nor are we convinced by the presence of a TV crew there that you are somehow at the heart of what is going on. You read a press release (or whatever) and drove the crew over there, the same as everyone else!

Why is it considered necessary to put a man in a coat in front of a well-known monument or some building that has a bearing on the story in question? Do you think we can’t grasp the idea of “politics” without a picture of the Houses of Parliament?

The 9 to 5

OK, not everybody works those particular hours, but the vast majority of us do. This is incredibly inefficient and detrimental to our collective well-being.

Rush hour, peak time fares, lunchtime queues, “all our operators are busy at the moment” – these are all side-effects of the idea that we all trying to do the same things at the same times.

Couldn’t we all stagger our working hours to avoid getting in each other’s way?

Yours sincerely

 Perhaps this valediction is in irreversible decline with letter-writing heading for extinction, but I for one will not miss it.

Firstly, at 37 years of age, I still struggle to spell it. Secondly, the whole sincerely/faithfully thing is a tiresome pinhead for pedantic angels to dance on.

But thirdly and most important, what the hell does it mean? In what sense am I claiming to be “yours”?

“I remain, Sir, your obedient servant”...? Is that what it’s derived from? If so, that’s not really how I want to sign off a letter. Because I don’t.

Parliament

Ha ha! A pun on the word “convention”.

But seriously, in what way is (i) the ability to get selected by a party machine as a candidate and (ii) the ability to make lawyerly speeches in the big green debating club in any sense correlated with (iii) having ideas about social and economic organisation that are likely to do any good and (iv) being competent to implement them?

It may have been suitable for a 19^th century Britain run by gentlemen for gentlemen, but it looks pretty preposterous today. 

PLEASE BE ADVISED - The convention that the photo and the text should be in some way related has been bypassed - this is a picture of a pelican put through Glitche.

Speed Awareness

This weekend just gone, I went on a speed awareness course.

The first irony of many to be encountered across this post is that I was aware of precisely how fast I was going when I got nicked, back at the end of July – ie 37 mph.

What I was not aware of was that Truvelo Combi (pictured) cameras take pictures of you from the front if you pass them at a speed above the limit. I had always thought they were the ones that took your number going in to a “measured mile” type of speed trap and then got you on the way out if you’re too quick. 

Naturally, I had intended to slow down sharply right before passing the second camera.

So I had already learned something valuable a long time before going on the course.

I shall spare you any further details of my lawbreaking. Suffice to say I was eventually faced with the following options:

• A £60 fine and 3 points on my licence
• Go on a 4.5-hour speed awareness course, which costs £75

Considering the price of car insurance these days – and the risk of recidivism on my part (to which we will return later) – it was a no brainer.

Not only that, I thought it would give me something funny to write about here for you, my beloved readers. I was hoping for:

• A “scared straight” police lecture to take the piss out of;
• A local government health and safety boreathon to take the piss out of; or
• At least one or more foul-tempered 50+ Yorkshire arseholes who think that arguing with the poor schmuck giving the presentation will lead to the law being immediately changed in their favour and their course fee returned, with an apology for wasting their valuable time. To take the piss out of.

My hopes in these regards were to be dashed, although there was (inevitably) a little dash of each. Just not enough to really get stuck into.

Potentially ironic photograph

It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife, innit? That is to say, debatably ironic but primarily just a little bit disappointing and wearing.

To give them their due, the pair who ran the session were very entertaining – given the subject matter and the fact that most people there were being forcibly detained under pain of punishment for the first time since school. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, no less.

I did also learn a couple of things:

• Unless there’s a sign to say otherwise (or you’re on a motorway or dual carriageway) the presence of street lighting = 30 mph speed limit. “Built up area” means nothing in this regard.
• A multi-lane road is only a dual carriageway if there’s a central reservation – and this is important because there is a different national speed limit for single carriageways and dual carriageways (ie for cars, 60 mph and 70 mph, respectively).

I expect you knew all of that, right?

As you would expect, we also heard some harrowing stories about how cars going too fast had killed people, saw some harrowing videos of cars going too fast killing people, collectively imagined what it would be like be driving a car too fast that had killed some people etc.

For me however the problem was this. Even after 4.5 hours of listening, nodding along and generally taking it all in, I didn’t really feel as though I had done anything wrong.

I got done driving past a speed camera around 7pm in the evening. There was nobody around.

On one side of the road beyond the pavement, there was a brick wall with woods on the other side of it. The wall is approximately 6 feet high on the other side of it. So nobody is about to dive into the road from that side.

On the other side is a grass verge, a pavement, a small wall, a big open lawn and finally a block of flats.

The view is very good; there are no junctions or other hazards. There are streetlights. I’m checking all this on Google StreetView as I write, so this is not just how I remember it.  

I am not saying that I shouldn’t have been done because of all these things. I’m saying I can’t understand why there is a speed camera there, unless it is just an instrument of revenue-raising or tyrannising drivers with the threat of constant surveillance.

I just cannot see a real safety reason for that camera to be there - or for a lot of other cameras to be where they are. Which makes one think: "Yes, I understand and agree with everything you've said. But what has it got to do with the situation I found myself in, which was completely unlike everything you've talked about?"

Honestly, I wanted to come out of that course a changed man. For £75 you expect an epiphany, not just a couple of cups of coffee and a free pencil. I’m not sure I was even supposed to take the pencil.

But I didn’t.

I’m not an habitual speeder – on a scooter one rarely has the opportunity to break the limit. But I still believe in my stomach that the risk of getting caught or having an accident is sometimes outweighed by my need to be somewhere, fast. I can’t help it. It’s pre-rational.

I’ll probably still believe that right up until something awful happens.

Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?

The White Caterpillar – Part 2

We last saw Roger of Sicily dumping his scooter in a snowdrift, and setting off on foot to walk home in the blizzard of February 13, 2013.

Part 3 – The First Ice Field

All things considered, I was not as disheartened at the prospect of figuring out how to get home from the outskirts of central Leeds in a snowstorm as you might expect.

Firstly, I was quite well-dressed for the occasion – not a statement I have regular cause to make. I had on waterproof trousers, a water-proof and insulated coat, heavy gloves and – last but not least – a crash helmet. I was only wearing ordinary office shoes though, to which I will have cause for laudatory return to later.

I was unlikely to get too cold. However, walking in all that get up is fairly difficult.

The overtrousers are prone to a continuous downward trajectory, usually settling with the gusset a good six to eight inches below the ideal level. That means the upward lift of the armoured leg is more demanding than when otherwise unencumbered. Melting snow added to the weight.

I quickly gave up on wearing the crash helmet, as it made me look insane. I started off by carrying it, like a lady’s handbag. After half a mile or so, I realised that it now had about an inch of snow in the bottom of it. So I strapped it to my backpack instead.

Do you have a Buff? I have a Buff. It’s like a scarf for people who are not ponces. Mine is black with red flames on, because I am a rock and roll outlaw.

I pulled mine over my head in an LA gangsta bandana style. On viewing my image in a window – so on reflection in two senses – in fact, I looked more like an out-of-breath Hairy Biker Simon King.

Not like this...

...like this

Style, of course, was not my primary concern. Keeping my ears warm was.

So off I went, and I was soon trudging up a hill with no footpath – that is, I was walking in the road as there was no traffic coming at all.

And on and on it went.

I stopped at the occasional bus stop to catch my breath.

Eventually, I glanced behind and there was a bus coming! I started to run to the nearest bus stop.

Running after walking uphill in snow for a mile or so while wearing a lovely warm set of protective clothing was not – I soon discovered – something that made me go any faster. But I carried on anyway.

I’m the kind of person who would rather be half an hour early than a minute late. Knowing that the bus was coming – even if it would have had to suddenly accelerate to light speed to overtake me (a velocity Transdev's fleet has yet, to my knowledge, ever to attain) – I had to get to the bus stop as quickly as possible. Even if (i) that meant I moved in a manner that got me there no more quickly but used considerably more energy and (ii) it meant I had a long wait gasping for breath and watching the distant bus approaching.

I checked the distance I had walked the next day. It was just over a mile. It felt more like ten.

Part 4 – Hell Ride to Stanningley

As the first bus approached, my heart sank – 508!

But what’s that right behind it? Holy shit, it’s only ANOTHER BUS! And a 671!

The 671 goes to Greengates before turning off to Bradford city centre. Greengates is only a couple of miles from where I live. I can catch another bus from there or walk it, I thought. It will be a nice opportunity to catch my breath.

I got on board. The bus was largely deserted. There were maybe another seven or eight people on there.

I was steaming. That’s not some kind of metaphor. I was quite literally wreathed in a mist coming off my body. I doubt it was pleasant for the other passengers.

We had got to the crest of a hill where the road descends to Rodley when another bus driver – without bus – banged on the window.

He told the driver (and a woman passenger heading to Calverley who had by this time attached herself to the driver in a semi-official, self-appointed capacity as co-driver and general source of unsolicited advice) that there was NO WAY we could go down there, as there were a load of buses piled up unable to get out of the bottom of the dip.

And so began our journey to the outer limits.

The outer limits of West Yorkshire bus route 671, at any rate. We continued straight ahead.

Around 90 minutes later, we finally came into Rodley – probably about half a mile from where we had left the route.

We had been on a fairly wide diversion, which I – having nothing better to do than sit and try to dry my gloves, Buff and helmet out – followed closely on Google Maps.

What did we do before Google Maps, ladies and gentlemen? I suppose we got lost more. And were unable to follow and critique the improvisations of lost bus drivers.

Turns out, when heavy snow falls, a lot of people want to get home quickly. And the upshot of this is that nobody gets home quickly, because all the roads immediately grind to a halt under the weight of the extra traffic.

Weirdly, some of the roads we took were completely gridlocked and others were completely empty. Another reason to have Google Maps on at all times – you’re not then restricted to the four roads that everyone knows about.

Kasparek and Harrer: drying out

Returning to “The White Spider” I remembered reading that mountaineers typically resorted to drying out their wet clothes by wearing them, hoping that body heat would do the rest of the work.

Hanging over the back of the bus seat in front of me was clearly not having much of an effect on my gloves, so I put everything back on with the intention of steam cleaning my gear dry.

Very soon, I was shivering with cold but unwilling to take the soaked equipment off, as I would end up even colder.

We passed through Stanningley – past the big camping shop, where I wondered if I had time to hop off the bus and nip in for crampons – and into Farsley. Kids threw snowballs at the bus, as the heroic, off-route driver refused to pick them up. Soon we were crawling into Rodley. Very very slowly.

In the next thrilling and mercifully final instalment, Roger of Sicily returns heroically home – to be confronted with a two-year-old screaming for crisps. 

The White Caterpillar – Part 1

I am reading a book called “The White Spider” at the moment.

Yes, a book! Not an out-of-copyright free Kindle ebook. It was a birthday present.

It is the story of the first ascent of the north face of the Eiger, by one of the party that did it in 1938. By all accounts, it was a pretty unpleasant experience – mollified only by the fact that they, unlike a lot of the other people who attempted to climb it, did not die.

Well, yesterday I experienced my own snowbound odyssey. It wasn’t perhaps quite as steep, or cold, or risky, or indeed historic as Heinrich Harrer’s – but at the time, it felt not too dissimilar.

Even though I did end up on a bus for quite a lot of it.

So I am calling my own adventure “The White Caterpillar”, for the following reasons:

• Caterpillars are less dangerous than spiders (unless eaten)
• Caterpillars are a bit fat and generally unsuited to strenuous physical extertion – like me

I should point out at this point that the White Caterpillar has nothing to do with the “white slug” referenced in The Inbetweeners movie... I was fully trousered – double trousered in fact – the whole time.

Part 1 – The Ascent

I don’t know if anyone else saw it yesterday morning (February 13) but the sky was uncommonly red when I was walking the dogs around 7am. So red, in fact, that everything took on a pinkish hue, much as I would imagine it would in the aftermath of an atomic blast.

In both these sets of circumstances – red sky in the morning and immediately after a nuclear explosion – shepherds are exhorted to take warning. Some people say sailors – I say shepherds.

Alas! I did not take the hint. I merely commented on how pretty the sky was, hopped onto my oft-mentioned scooter and zipped away to work. As per my undertaking at the end of “Horsforth and my balls...”, I was wearing full waterproofs.

Now, it’s about 10 miles by road from my house to my office and the journey in was uneventful.

Part 2 – Leeds to Kirkstall

It soon began to snow. I wasn’t worried. It does that a lot around here, and usually it’s only the last 100 metres of my journey home (ie the road I live on) that causes a problem. Everything else is a main road and they tend to stay clear.

I kept an eye on a planter in the middle of the road outside my windows to monitor the progress of the snow.

First, the soil was coated with snow. That’s nothing to worry about, I thought.

Then the leaves of the flowers went white.

By lunchtime, the cobblestones between the two carriageways was getting a dusting, but the roads themselves were still clear. I had no cause for concern.

I had intended to leave about 2pm, so I could get home before it started to get colder/darker/snowier and so I could get some work done when I got back. I didn't believe that there would be a problem. After all, snow had been forecast - the gritters would have been out...

By about 1.45pm, the snow was encroaching onto the road from the edges and it looked like a blizzard was in progress. I decided that it was now or never. The main roads would still be fine.

I jokingly said to some colleagues as I left that I would probably be dead in 30 minutes.

As soon as I was on my bike, I realised it wasn’t fine.

Visibility was appalling – my helmet was continually steaming up, and even when I could see through it, my vision was impeded by the barrage of snow.

But worse still was the road surface. Maybe half a mile out of Leeds city centre and the snow was being compacted into ice. I was on Burley Road, which is very undulating (not unlike the motion of a caterpillar). I should have gone down Kirkstall Road. Maybe that would have been better.

Vehicles with front-wheel drive were swishing their back ends left and right. Vehicles with rear-wheel drive were only going forward at 10-20 degrees off straight. No one was going more than 10mph.

I was soon going along with both feet on the ground to try to steady my fishtailing back wheel, stopping repeatedly to let anyone coming up behind me pass, so that if I came off there would be no one to run me over and so as not to have anyone lose control and run into the back of me.

By the time I got to Kirkstall Hill, I was – for want of a better expression – shitting myself, as cars and lorries skidded around and ploughed into one another. I gave up on Kirkstall Lane, rang Elvira – who was expecting me to get home so she could leave Tancred with me while she picked Roger Jr up from school.

There was no way I could make further progress. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of losing control and coming off my bike – which I was. I was more worried about someone else losing control and hitting me.

I pushed the bike on foot into a car park – approximately 300 metres and it took me at least 15 minutes as I had no grip from my shoes and the bike weighs about 18 stone. It was like dragging an unconscious fat man on a skateboard across an ice rink, with a runaway Zamboni careering towards you.

I locked up, and set off on foot.

Come back tomorrow for the second exciting episode of Roger of Sicily’s attempt to get home in bad weather!

Isle of Sodor Railways loses franchise

"Eccentric" Hatt

PRESS RELEASE

Department for Transport, 12/10/12

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin will announce this morning that the Isle of Sodor Railway Company’s franchise for operating passenger and freight services will be not be renewed and will come to an end next April.

Mr McLoughlin cited Isle of Sodor Railways’ appalling record on punctuality and safety – derailments on the network total 255 for the last year alone – as the decisive reasons for rejecting the bid put in by eccentric chairman, Sir Topham Hatt, better known to the public as “The Fat Controller”.

Many critics have laid the blame for the company’s performance on Sir Topham’s “Very Useful Engine” artificial intelligence system, which allows locomotives to make their own route planning and other decisions – frequently in competition with one another.

The Secretary of State also pointed to extensive financial irregularities within Isle of Sodor Railways, which is incorporated in the neighbouring tax haven, the Isle of Man.

Concerns have frequently been raised about the amount of rolling stock and track maintained by Isle of Sodor, which is vastly out of proportion to the needs of an island no more than five miles in length.

Mr McLoughlin will later today hand the franchise to the US-based Consortium For Putting in an Offer for Running Sodor’s Railways – SodOff.

Chuggington: Safety concerns

One of the lead backers of SodOff is the Arizona city of Chuggington. Commentators have noted that Chuggington’s record on accidents is just as bad as Isle of Sodor’s.

Confronted with these concerns, the Secretary of State said in a statement: “They offered shit loads more money.”

Asked for a comment, senior partner at transport engineering consultancy Pig, Rabbit and Cat, Ian “Daddy” Pig said: “Oh. I didn’t expect that to happen”, before jumping up and down in a muddy puddle.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

• Sir Topham Hatt is the brother of rogue investment banker Sir Stetson “Cowboy” Hatt, the former chief executive of RBS, who has not been missing since 2009. Sir Stetson was last seen leaving Claridges and getting on board Bertie the Bus with 15 teenage Lithuanian prostitutes.
• Sir Topham first developed the “Very Useful Engine” system in the late 1930s. He spent much of the previous decade in Italy observing how Mussolini made trains run on time. That period is widely believed to be the source of the ardent anti-communism which inspired his desire to run a railway without workers. His feelings about the labour movement led Sir Topham to become a dedicated supporter of Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, and he was interned for much of the Second World War on Zingzilla Island.

Missing banker Thomas Goldstein

• Although Isle of Sodor Railways maintains that “Very Useful Engine” is a closely-guarded software secret, allegations that trains are animated with the souls of dead business partners of Hatt, revived by unspeakable necromantic rites, have continually depressed share prices. Longstanding acquaintances of the Hatt family have claimed to see uncanny similarities between certain company assets and the renowned German financiers, Thomas and Percy Goldstein, who vanished in 1936.
• Spokesman for SodOff, Tinkie Winkie the Teletubbie commented on the DfT’s decision: “Tinkie Winkie bag!”. The FTSE100 and Dow Jones both immediately rose by 100 points. 

Contact DfT press office for further information.

London – Not as bad as expected

A few weeks ago, I scoffed at the thought of going to London during the Olympics. And right now, I am on my way home after having done so.

Like most people whose sole window on reality is what they see on TV and read on the internet, I had expected something resembling all-day Tokyo rush hour supervised by the Army with corporate blackshirts snatching anyone who looked out of place through secret doors - an early glimpse of the UK’s inevitable descent into dystopian, totalitarian nightmare.  

However, it wasn’t like that at all. It was much like any other day in London. That’s not saying much, but it certainly wasn’t 1984.

To tell the truth, I was a little disappointed not to see a single missile launcher or have to dive out of the way of a speeding dignitary in a Zil Lane. Indeed, the number of people in tracksuits I saw was no higher than a typical day’s viewing in Leeds.

I even saw a little shop with a set of Olympic rings in the window. I took a picture – no doubt scaring the shit out of the owner, taking me for a LOCOG goon – but I thought twice about sticking it on here. Let it never be said that Oh Dear. How Sad. Never Mind. is a snitch. Bloggers and social media are already doing more than their fair share of turning the whole populace against the idea of freedom of speech.

Well, here’s my own little marketing ambush:

If you like the London 2012 Olympic Games, give me some of your money.

If you don’t hear from me again, assume I have been disappeared into the back of a migraine-inducing purple van.

From my experience today - apart from the splashes of lurid magenta besmeared across everything -  you could be forgiven for thinking that the whole event was actually being produced on a sound stage at Pinewood or in Pixar’s studios and that the entire idea of the Olympics actually “taking place” in London was some elaborate Baudrillardian joke.

While controversy surrounding the Games has focused on the cost and the restrictions on Londoners’ freedoms, for me there are some major issues that have not been given due attention:

1. Barbarians are allowed to take part – this is in clear breach of the Olympic spirit. Was their Greek even tested?

2. Competitors are also not naked

3. Total lack of chariot-based events

4. No oxen were sacrificed at all during the opening ceremony. Like myself, the gods are likely to have found Trevor Nelson’s commentary a poor substitute

Seriously LOCOG, Zeus is a volatile deity at the best of times. 

He has “enforcement officers” of his own, and I’d hate to see Paul McCartney get struck by lightning.  

Five tips for shitty drivers

I know a lot of you out there are really terrible drivers, who ought never to have been allowed behind the wheel of anything faster-moving, heavier or more expensive than a Cozy Coupe.

So, I have put together these top tips to help you – if not to actually become a better driver – then at least to minimise the threat your fundamental incompetence poses to other road users.

No biscuit for going slow

If you are driving past a speed camera in – say – a 30mph zone, there is really no point in slowing down to 20mph while you pass it. It’s not going to “accidentally” go off if you’re doing 25mph.

Yes, it’s true that bad things happen when you go past one too fast.

That doesn’t mean that good things happen when you go past too slow.

The cameras do not photograph you going past below the speed limit in order to send you a present for being a good boy.

Don’t force people to be polite

OK, sometimes it can be difficult to right pull out of a junction into a busy road. Here is a tip though: don’t pull out halfway and block the traffic coming from the left while you sit and wait for someone to let you in on the right.

If this was the sort of blog where you get other people’s jokes recycled, I’d say something about tiny women in massive 4x4s at this point. Or BMWs.

But this is Oh Dear. How Sad. Never Mind. and everything here is fresh. Or if it isn’t, I can assure you, I came to the same conclusions independently.

Know your limits

When I am dictator, one of the first things I will do is make lorries straying out of the left-hand lane on the motorway a capital offence.

If your vehicle is restricted to, say, 55mph and the speed limit is, say, 70mph, YOU HAVE GOT NO BUSINESS OVERTAKING ANYTHING! Stay in the slow lane and do not block the whole frigging carriageway up until you have dragged your sorry arse round.

If you have a caravan, just stay off the motorway altogether. In fact, just stay at home. And don’t ever leave it.

Make other drivers aware of your idiocy

The best way to signal your lack of any kind of redeeming sense to other motorists is to buy a Porsche Cayenne or Range Rover Sport.

If you cannot afford one of these gold-plated wanker beacons (or if, despite being a congenital imbecile, you nevertheless have a vestigial degree of taste), your options are as follows:

1. Take a normal car (preferably an affordable Japanese model for authenticity) and put stickers in the front and back windscreens saying “Minicab”. On seeing this tell-tale sign, other drivers will not be surprised when you make a U-turn in front of them, mount the pavement to hit a cat or do something similarly deranged.
2. If you would rather be thought of as an arsehole than a maniac, buy a van.

And finally...

If you see a large man in black on a small, battered white Honda scooter, let him do what he wants. Get out of his way, cheerfully wave him past and try not to run him over. 

Dockland of the Dead

On days like today you could go snowblind from the sun’s reflection off the pavement.

That, and all the clammy white flesh on display around Leeds – you could be forgiven for thinking there had been a mass break-out from the veal farm.

Although my skin is fairly resistant to sunburn, my eyes are another story. I think I must be part owl or have ginger retinas or something. When the sun comes out, one or both of my eyes start to ooze pretty quickly.

Nevertheless, the sudden appearance of the solar deity’s winged chariot has turned my daily tramp around Leeds into an almost enjoyable experience. And not a day goes by on my wanderings on which I don’t learn something.

For example: getting punched in the face is clearly a much more commonplace event than I had previously thought, given the number of men and women staggering around the city centre with either black eyes or missing teeth.

Anyway, today I wandered down to Clarence Dock.

Apart from the Royal Armouries Museum, there is practically NOTHING there any more. The store directory website has four things on it...one of which is the Royal Armouries Museum.

It is pretty mainstream to bemoan the lingering death of British high streets, strangled by chain stores, stranded by traffic swarms and befouled by street drinkers, chuggers and other sundry mentalists.

Here is just the latest jeremiad I came across – in which former TV gobshite Wayne Hemingway puts a positive spin on it all by arguing that the ruination of city centres will “open up space for quirky start-ups”. Hilarious. Let them eat cake Wayne!

But spare a thought for the “luxury mixed developments” like Clarence Dock. The high street might be dying, but in terms of deadness this was like the goddam pyramids. No shops. No people. Just a barge decked out to look like a U-boat.

Which, I have to say, looked AWESOME. 

The day I went to Chester

Last week, I spent an afternoon wandering aimlessly around the historic city of Chester.

Since the start of 2012, I have begun wandering aimlessly around every city in which I happen to find myself. Having given up my gym membership last year, I am now going for walks around Leeds every day I am at work. The effects so far have been (i) half a stone lost in a month and (ii) I have a much better knowledge of the place where I have been working every day for the last four years.

So, when I found myself at a loose end on the Welsh border, I naturally thought “I must find a town to wander around” – and there Chester was.

Chester dates back to Roman times. It has an amphitheatre and everything. But the city centre is mostly medieval, full of wonky doorways, tiny passageways and long drops. Of the places I have been to, it reminds me most of Edinburgh – only warmer.  Or Godalming in Surrey.

It is one of those beautiful English towns where normal people like you and I have precisely zero chance of ever owning a reasonably-sized house. 

The only way people who are not either professional footballers or oil billionaires – two groups of people hardly renowned for their appreciation of historical architecture – could afford to live in Chester is by inheriting their parents’ property.

When is this property market insanity going to end? Well, in 318 days I suppose - same as everything else.  

Indeed, housing is starting to look like Albania in 1996, so it will probably end with us all machine gunning each other to steal bricks.

I walked a full circuit of the city walls. Sensibly, they are at their highest facing Wales. Ravening Celts would be obliged to cross the River Dee, the racecourse, a 30-foot wall AND the inner ring road before managing to sack the cathedral.

Chester cathedral is home to some of the finest medieval carvings in Europe. It also costs £6 to get in, unless you are going “for an act of worship” – in which case it’s free. So I didn’t go in. Until they find a way of charging to look at the outside of things, I will content myself with this sort of view.

I did go into the Newgate Street multi storey car park, though.

Honestly, who knows the height of their car? When it says max height 6’ 9”, do you expect me to get out and measure? Or to drive in, and start backing out when the roof box scuffs the ceiling? Hopefully I will be able to get out later on.

Postscript – Shortly after finishing the above, I found that I had lost my parking ticket. I expected to get fined £10, but the attendant let me out for the normal price. Sometimes, having the face of an idiot is a huge advantage. 

Discovery? It's what I do for a living really...

I am still using Spotify's free service, in spite of all their efforts to make it so unbearable that everyone who does gives up and starts paying.

Recent "innovations" of this sort that they have introduced include taking away any indication anywhere of how much listening time you've got left – meaning that it could cut out at any moment.

However, by far the most caustic of the irritants applied has been the spiralling number of adverts played. Not that I mind adverts in general – I'm quite happy to listen to them in exchange for free music.

Indeed, the number of adverts played is only mitigated by the fact that they are surely some of the WORST ADVERTS EVER, which I cannot imagine would ever persuade a listener to do anything other than boycott all the products and services of that brand in perpetuity out of sheer embarrassment.

But right now, there is one advert which is absolutely killing me with laughter every time it comes on – and lest you are not fellow Spotify Don't-Give-A-Shit-About-You-Lot-Anymore users, I have transcribed it for your enjoyment.

Imagine this in the voice of a condescending Radio Four grand-dame:

Discovery? It's what I do for a living really. Silicon chips, dark matter, the Higgs Boson. 

But recently, I made another discovery: punctuality, legroom, a crisp glass of Chanteloup-Touraine. 

All from £49 with Lufthansa. Now that's a wonder of the universe!

Pardon me, I have just vomited all over myself. Oh, where to begin...

Well, how about this? Whoever you are supposed to be: NO ONE has discovered the Higgs Boson.

Moreover, it's unlikely that – were evidence for its actual existence beyond inference from the Standard Model to be found – that someone working in the field of electronics (where you "discovered" the silicon chip) would be the one to find it.

Finally, it would be a tragedy akin to the neglect suffered by Tesla thanks to Edison if – after such an illustrious career – you were reduced to travelling by budget airline, whatever kind of mini-bottles of wine they serve.

I'm afraid that I will never now be able to travel on a Lufthansa flight. Because if I got sat next to someone who said "Discovery? It's what I do for a living really..." to me I'm afraid I would have to murder them. 

Safety first!

Here's a picture I recently took out of a car window on the M25.

It is a Honda Accord - maybe a Civic, I don't know - in the back of a Luton van coming up to the Dartford crossing (southbound).

As you can see, it is securely fastened in place by a piece of rope holding the tailgate up.

No doubt the thoughtful driver also put the handbrake on to make doubly sure that nothing could possibly go wrong with this little arrangement.

Feel free to rip this picture off and stick "Epic Fail" across it if you so wish.

Unrelatedly, I feel it is only right and proper that I provide you with material evidence to back up all this "moustache big talk" I've been engaging in recently. Well here it is:

Things we did on our holidays - pt 2

Why can't air travel be more like rail travel?

By that, I don't mean "please double the prices, delay more aircraft and cram them so full of standing passengers that you can hardly breathe, let alone move, and god help you all if there's an accident".   

No. What I mean is, why is it beyond the wit of man to make air travel a walk-on affair?

Obviously, there are a few good security reasons that slow things down unavoidably. Then on top of those, there are the ludicrous post 9/11 overcompensations introduced for the sake of being seen to do something, regardless of any actual effect on security.

You know what I'm talking about. On going through Leeds/Bradford airport on our holiday:

1. Three-year-old Roger Junior was frisked down and made to take his shoes off, because he was the nth passenger through the security scanner. I was not subjected to any kind of search. Now, while Roger Jr can be a handful, I'm fairly sure it's beyond his capabilities to hijack or bring down a passenger jet.
2. We had to hand over some unopened cartons of juice – presumably to be destroyed in a secure environment where there would be no danger of hazardous spillage.

All of which begs the question why it's perfectly acceptable to carry anything you like onto a train without being checked. Many a train I have been on has seen the passengers all shut in and unable to get away for longer than a lot of long haul flights...

OK, you've also got to allow some time from bags being handed over to get them onto the plane. And clearly separating all the bags that obviously belong to the same family and making sure they go into different compartments of the hold - so as to ensure the maximum gap between the first and last piece coming out on the luggage carousel - doesn't just happen by itself. It requires careful planning as well as a powerful throwing arm.

So that's two sets of quasi-legitimate reasons.

I suppose part of this is our own fault. Check in usually opens around two hours before departure for European flights – but they close 40 minutes or so beforehand. Guess which timescale I have worked on EVERY SINGLE TIME I've been on an aeroplane? Correct. We always get there for the opening of check in, guaranteeing ourselves:

1. As many queuing experiences as can be crammed into a day.
2. Maximum waiting time – relieved only by the opportunity to buy things we did not feel the need to pack when considering what to take with us or which we were not allowed to bring through security.  

As long as you've got seats reserved, it doesn't matter when you check in, does it? How I wish I could be one of those people whose names are announced over the tannoy, warning them that the plane is waiting for them.

But I can't. I am too English, too middle class and – let's just admit it – still too in awe of the fact of air travel to treat it casually.

Airlines and airports want you to still believe that air travel today is like air travel in the 1950s. It's luxurious! It's exclusive! Cabin crew are there to feed you grapes and champagne, not to hard sell you wilted sandwiches and high street perfume at astronomical prices! Fly on a plane and be part of the jet set, queue for 20 minutes every time you want a piss and then get dumped on a wind-blasted airstrip miles from your final destination! I don't know about you, but I fall for it every time. 

You don't understand it because you're an idiot

Just returned from two (working) in London, where people understand that the barriers at railway stations require you to put your ticket in, take it out and then walk through the gate that opens.

Ticket barriers were installed in Leeds about two years ago, and STILL every day thousands of people stand gaping at them like a dog presented with a tin opener: they know that this strange contraption in some way holds the key to getting what they want, but making it work is simply beyond their cognitive capabilities.

As a result of this, at rush hours there are at least two rail employees stationed at the gates opening them up for people who can't work out the whole "put the ticket in the slot" puzzle – one by one, upon the presentation of their ticket.

Naturally, this leads to a colossal build-up of people because instead of using 15 or so gates, the majority of rail travellers use two.

Like the prehistoric fish that first decided to chance their arm on the whole land-dwelling lark, a few brave souls then have free rein over the rest of the vacant gates.

Unfortunately, most of them end up metaphorically gasping and drowning in the fresh air of their new environment – trying to stick the ticket into the wrong hole, or simply gazing at the machine as if instructions for use will shortly appear on it.

Typically, I end up behind one of these people. Up they go, walking brisky and confidently towards a gate. "This person knows what they're doing", I think as I fall into line with them.

And then...stop.

Dum-de-dum...Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal....Hmmmm... what is this curious device blocking my way? It has a picture that looks a bit like that bit of cardboard I was given earlier on it by that man in the blue hat. I wonder where that is now? Maybe it's in one of my pockets. Or my handbag/wallet/purse, perhaps. Or maybe it's in the sky somewhere up there. I have no idea what to do with it if I do actually find it, but hopefully it will all become clear if I just stand here...

I express my rage and frustration at this state of affairs by sighing and tutting quietly when I'm sure no one is looking. How I long to simply hurl them bodily aside yelling "YOU DO IT LIKE THIS!!!"

Thank god they don't have them at Shipley. The locals would be round with pitchforks and torches in a flash.

Talking of dogs (which, you may recall, at one point earlier in this piece, I was) - if it's true that people come to look like their dogs, then there must be a hell of a lot of overweight basset hounds living in Leeds. Badoom-TISH!

Praise the pinlock!

I bought a new crash helmet last week, and it has one significant advantage over my old one – the visor doesn't steam up AT ALL.

It's a Nolan N103 and while it is packed with groovy features – like a flip-down sun visor, space for the installation of a Bluetooth system, flip face – what I have to tell anyone who cares, and indeed those of you who don't, is that if you don't have one already, get a pinlock attachment for your helmet immediately if not sooner.

It comes fitted as standard in the N103, but you can buy them separately for other helmets. I didn't believe that it would work and I have no idea how it works, but no matter what the temperature, no matter how heavily I breathe, I can't get the visor to steam up.

My old helmet – decommissioned after one of West Yorkshire's legion of uninsured drivers knocked me over and sped away back in November – forced me to practice yogic breathing while driving.

It was of Japanese manufacture, and so perhaps the focus on remaining calm at all times was a deliberate feature. It certainly made you hold your nerve when speeding up or increasing the depth of your breathing immediately resulted in zero visibility.

Rather than risk death by concentrating exclusively on my breathing rather than the road ahead, I generally rode around with the visor up – in rain, in snow, whatever. I'd put it down when I was eventually blinded by the elements, and put it up again when I was blinded by my own breath.

I just rode in to Leeds for the first time in my new helmet and it blew me away.

OK, the sun visor steamed up when I put that down, because it's not double-glazed like the front visor.

And ok, there is an advantage in having your visor up for a good proportion of your journey time, because while the pinlock stops the visor steaming up, it does not stop the atmosphere inside quickly becoming like the depths of a tropical rainforest.

A rainforest that smells of one's own morning breath, I might add. I still have to open the visor from time to time to dry my face off.

But it's a small price to pay, particularly as I like the wind in my face. And the rain, and the snow, and the fumes, and the gravel. If you value my opinion and you ride any kind of motorbike (a vanishing small segment of the population, I appreciate), get yourself a helmet with a pinlock TODAY.

One law for them...

Thailand is extraditing Viktor Bout to the USA. Bit of a change of pace from the usual tales of stolen pumpkins and corvine paranoia, Roger? That's right. Today, we're talking international injustice.

I read all about Viktor Bout in Misha Glenny's excellent "McMafia". Allegedly, he ran a fleet of former Soviet transport aircraft, in which he was prepared to transport anything, anywhere. And usually, this meant weapons into war zones – generally for people who would struggle to get hold of them on legitimate markets.

The Nicolas Cage movie "Lord of War" is supposedly based on Bout's life. I haven't seen it, but I suspect that to be successful in his chosen profession, Bout is a little more low key than the reliably scenery-chewing Coppola nephew.

So, Bout was arrested in Thailand in a US-led sting, after offering to supply weapons to Colombia's FARC. Earlier this week, he was extradited and faces life in prison in the USA on charges of:

"Conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiring to kill Americans, conspiring to kill US officers or employees and conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile".

Bout is a Russian citizen, and the Russian government is understandably a little put out at the whole situation. Set aside the likelihood that Bout is a former Soviet officer and so probably knows rather more than the Kremlin would like to see revealed in open court. Set aside any possibility that figures in the Russian establishment ever helped or benefited from anything Bout got up to. My point is not that Russia may or may not have turned a blind eye to "Sanctions Buster" (aka "Merchant of Death") and/or obtained any benefit from doing so.

Indeed, Bout insists he's innocent and – rather optimistically – believes that the trial will exonerate him. Good luck, Viktor – but I think you may need a very good lawyer.

No, my point is the naked hypocrisy of the USA in pressurising Thailand to extradite Bout – a Russian citizen – for crimes allegedly committed nowhere near the USA, when the USA outright refuses to have anything to do with the International Criminal Court (and historically, has refused to have anything to do with any international arrangement that could see its operatives indicted by foreign courts).

That the USA (and the UN) have used Bout's services to ship equipment and personnel into trouble spots themselves is beside the point here. If a Russian can be extradited from Thailand to the USA for offences committed in Africa because American citizens were affected or because he aided organisations listed as "foreign terrorists" in the USA – the implication is that American law has global reach and application. So how would the USA respond to an extradition request from the Iraqi government to hand over the Abu Ghraib jailers, for torturing Iraqi citizens in Iraq?

Apparently, some countries' laws matter more than others. Hardly a stunningly novel conclusion, but it's not every day you see blatant Realpolitik dressed up as international justice. Or maybe it is.

It's ALWAYS inconvenient to be late

I believe that everyone has a nemesis, and I think I have pinpointed my own.

My nemesis is someone who works in some kind of policy/public relations role at Northern Rail – specifically, whoever is responsible for the wording of announcements.

I caught the train to work today, which is always a bad start, insofar as paying cash up front for the privilege of going to sell my labour empties me of whatever joy may have been present earlier.

I used to do this every day, when I caught the 7.20 train to Leeds. Please note, I have changed the name of the train to protect its reputation. Anyway, this train was delayed by approximately three minutes every single day. Without fail, I would reach the platform only to hear the announcement.

I made me wonder why - if it was genuinely impossible to keep a train that only runs a route of about 30 miles to schedule – they didn't just change the timetable and make it the 7.23 train. Then they could boast about it being on time every single day.

It may seem petty to complain about three minutes. In reply let me point out:

• It rains here every single day, so three minutes seems like a hell of a long time.
• Three minutes, times 250 working days per year, for around two years, is 25 hours I was waiting that three minutes.
• Four posts in and you still think "it's petty" is a reason why I'm NOT going to write about something?

Anyway, getting to the point...

Let me say this clearly: a recorded apology that you play on endless repeat, only editing the details of exactly which train is late and how late it is does not come across as at all sincere. It's not an apology.

I don't believe for one second that you are "sorry" that the 7.20 train for Leeds is delayed by approximately three minutes, and it demeans both you and me that you (Northern Rail) even pretend to believe that your announcement is anything other than irritating. Just tell us how late the train is going to be. Don't tack on an insincere apology.

But if that was the sum total of my complaint, I'd hardly be justified in calling the announcer my nemesis, would I? There are thousands of irritating little things like that thrown in everyone's way every day. What's so special about the relationship between him (I think of my archenemy as a fat man with cold, dead, insect eyes) and me?

Here it is.

The announcement used to say "we apologise for THE inconvenience this may cause to your journey". Now, it says "we apologise for ANY inconvenience this may cause to your journey".

That's not a coincidence. At some level, a conversation took place which went broadly like this:

"You know, I don't think we should just assume that the train being late is inconvenient for passengers. It might not be. They might like it."

"Hmmm...you're right. We don't want to take on any more blame than we have to."

"Yes, so we shouldn't just presume that there is 'the inconvenience' – we should leave it open, and say 'any inconvenience'."

"Great idea. That way, we're only apologising to people who are actually inconvenienced, and not apologising to those who aren't. Nice one boss."

"I don't give a shit about apologising. It'll be a recorded message anyway. The point is, we take on as little blame as we possibly can."

"Ahhh...I see. Hang on, isn't that all already covered by the word 'may' when we say 'may cause to your journey'? We're not saying that it 'will' cause inconvenience. We're saying it 'may'. We're already disavowing responsibility, aren't we?"

"Maybe, but I think changing 'the' to 'any' is a business-critical step."

"Isn't this all a bit trivial?"

"You're fired."

What possible reason could there be for changing "the" to "any" other than something like the above? And how could it have happened without some thought process like that above taking place and a decision being made to change it?

Why do I care?

It's the sort of linguistic weaselry and low-level attempt at mind control that I can't bear – and as you can see, I can't help imagining that there's someone just as pedantic as me out there working for the forces of darkness.

Think once. Think twice. Think don't be a prick on a bike.

As a motorcyclist, I am used to observing a fairly minimal set of rules on the road.

When you're on the move, pretty much anything goes, and provided you don't get in their way, cars don't seem to mind this. Hell, I was let loose on the roads legally with only a day's training – half of which was in a school playground – so the government can hardly complain about my generous interpretation of the rules.

I'm sure that my approach to driving could be construed in some way a form of "middle class anti social behaviour". However, there is one group of road users, far more middle class than motorcyclists, whose total lawlessness never ceases to shock me. I'm talking about pushbikes.

In south Lincolnshire, where I grew up in the late 80s, people who couldn't afford cars or who were banned from driving due to congenital idiocy of some form or another went around on bikes. Typically, these were ramshackle pre-war contraptions that must have weighed as much as a Smart Car. Most of these cyclists went around well below walking speed – in stark refutation of numerous laws of physics.

Today, however, cyclists seem to fall into two categories. Firstly, the larval phase – when they go around in hoodies on preposterously small BMXs, which are essentially a form of portable chair rather than a mode of transport. And as my dear wife, Elvira of Castille, regularly notes, when they are on the move they're generally doing a wheelie.

Some of these metamorphasise into boy racers, but around 16 or so the rest must pupate and emerge fully clad in sponsor-bedecked lycra, mirror shades and a look of smug superiority – the mature cyclist imago.

Look cyclists – there's really no need to dress like that. You're not on the Tour de France. You're going to work in an office, same as the rest of us. You have to wonder how many of them have had a ball chopped off to closer resemble Lance Armstrong.

But I'm not here to talk about aesthetics, although I'd be willing to forgive a lot more if they didn't look so absurd. I'm here to point out, for example, that red traffic lights don't mean "slow down slightly until you've gone past the light"; that ringing your bell does not give you permission to mount the pavement and proceed at 30 mph down it. Stuff like that.

If you're going to use the road, then act like a proper road user and spare a thought for everyone else trying to drive around you. If you're going to act like a pedestrian, then get off your bloody bike.

God, they annoy me.

It's jealousy, obviously. I wish I didn't have a numberplate so I could go past speed cameras as fast as I liked without getting caught. I wish I didn't have mirrors so that I could swerve all over the road without any regard to what's behind me. I wish that my preferred form of transport produced no emissions, so that no matter how selfish, dangerous and thoughtless my behaviour was, it was justified by my inherent moral superiority.

Maybe I hate cyclists because I'm a failed cyclist. I used to bike to the station and back every day. It's about a mile – downhill on the way there, uphill on the way back. I'd get home on the brink of a heart attack.

I gave it up and got a scooter.

So now, every day I dress up like a Serbian paramilitary and (occasionally) drive on the wrong side of the road to get to the front of queues at traffic lights.

But at least I stop and wait for a green light. You've got to have some standards.