Response from Doncaster council about my noise complaint. Needless to say, they went to the wrong address. They seem to know where my address is when it's time to send the council tax bill. Also notice the poor grammar.
"I am contacting you with regard to your recent email relating to our response to your complaint.
The night time noise patrol service operates between 21.00 hours and 03.00 hours every Friday and Saturday evening with the exception of the Christmas period. The service is staffed my means of and Environmental Health Practitioner and an Enforcement Officer working together. As the night progresses complaints steadily build up and the calls are dealt with in the order that they came in. This unfortunately builds a delay into our response time. In order that we can be more effective we do ask the complainant to contact us back if the noise nuisance has stopped.
With regard to your specific complaint, I can advise you that I have spoken to the officers on duty that night and read the report logs for that night.
It would appear that the first discrepancy was with the address they had been given by the Police. The address given was ****. Quite some time was lost looking for this particular location. It was eventually assumed to be !!!!. The Duty Officer did attend at 01.35 hours and reported the situation as all quiet at that time.
I feel there is some confusion over the your comment that the Council would be contacting you the following day to update you with the events of the night. Where a client request further contact this can be arranged but it would usually be the following week not the day after as this would be a none working day.
In order to deal with a problem it usually necessary for the Duty Officer to visit the complainant's property to assess the noise nuisance. The officer did attempt to contact you but they assumed on the night that you had gone to bed as the music had stopped.
In conclusion I apologise for any inconvenience this situation has caused you and hope that we can be of service to you in the future."
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Monday, September 01, 2008
Noisy neighbours
On the Saturday night of the bank holiday weekend we had a serious noise problem. Our neighbours across the way erected an immense gazebo in their garden, hired a DJ and started blasting dance music out from 6.30 pm on two speakers which I'm certain were illegal to use in a residential area. With my doors and windows shut and the TV on I couldn't escape the noise. After an hour I went round to ask them to turn down the volume just a little. About 20 houses look onto the noisy neighbours garden and several of our other neighbours had the same idea to complain. Unfortunately, the problem household couldn't hear their own doorbell.
Next step was to call the police. The dispatcher was very helpful and sympathetic. She explained that dealing with noise issues no longer fell under the police remit even if this constituted a breach of the peace (that's right, even if a crime had been committed). I was told that the council environmental health department would deal with it. I was told that someone would be sent out tonight and that I would be interviewed the next day, at the very least by telephone. I was very grateful when the police dispatcher offered to call this through on my behalf.
At 11.30 pm I got a call from a surly lady at the council. I explained to her that my neighbours were having a rave party in the garden and that everyone around was fed up. When she discovered that it was a one off incident and not a recurrent problem her interest in helping me vanished. She was mocking as she said someone would be out eventually and that they'd call me tomorrow and explain what action they had taken. In the meantime I was asked to call back if they switched the noise off because they were very busy.
At 1.30 am, with a pounding headache after seven hours of constant noise and with nowhere else to go to escape, I abandoned ship and went to see the Tinsley cooling towers demolition. When I returned at 4.30 am the music was still at full volume. The council had not been out. I fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. The next day I was not interviewed or contacted in any way by the council.
My question is; what does a person have to do to get help from the authorities when such a blatant breach of the peace is occuring? And why did the council (who are funded to discharge this responsibility) do nothing at all to help myself and the people nearby who pay thousands and thousands of pounds in council tax each year?
Next step was to call the police. The dispatcher was very helpful and sympathetic. She explained that dealing with noise issues no longer fell under the police remit even if this constituted a breach of the peace (that's right, even if a crime had been committed). I was told that the council environmental health department would deal with it. I was told that someone would be sent out tonight and that I would be interviewed the next day, at the very least by telephone. I was very grateful when the police dispatcher offered to call this through on my behalf.
At 11.30 pm I got a call from a surly lady at the council. I explained to her that my neighbours were having a rave party in the garden and that everyone around was fed up. When she discovered that it was a one off incident and not a recurrent problem her interest in helping me vanished. She was mocking as she said someone would be out eventually and that they'd call me tomorrow and explain what action they had taken. In the meantime I was asked to call back if they switched the noise off because they were very busy.
At 1.30 am, with a pounding headache after seven hours of constant noise and with nowhere else to go to escape, I abandoned ship and went to see the Tinsley cooling towers demolition. When I returned at 4.30 am the music was still at full volume. The council had not been out. I fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. The next day I was not interviewed or contacted in any way by the council.
My question is; what does a person have to do to get help from the authorities when such a blatant breach of the peace is occuring? And why did the council (who are funded to discharge this responsibility) do nothing at all to help myself and the people nearby who pay thousands and thousands of pounds in council tax each year?
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Poppy
Meet our new favourite girl!
I'll post more about Poppy and her story in the next couple of days.
Nic xx
I'll post more about Poppy and her story in the next couple of days.
Nic xx
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Live long and prosper
I'm having a bit of a clear out. Eating 5 a day, drinking lots of water. Choosing the better food option when things are available. I eat fresh home cooked food anyway and I've virtually given up on alcohol all together. Small changes.
I even thought about taking more exercise. Until I read this. I'm supposed to do five hours of exercise a week. I'd be happy to take a 30 minute stroll a few times a week, do a bit of gardening and play on my nintendo wii. But this means I need to go mad. It's the single most offputting piece of health advice ever put across. It says if you want to maintain weight you're in for it and forget it if you want to permanently lose weight.
Say I live for another 40 years. This means I need to spend 87 days solid doing exercise. That's a quarter of a year or 0.6 % of my remaining life. I know what you'll say; the benefits far outweigh the effort. I'll live far extra than 87 days, I'll have healthier later years (apart from the hip replacement I'll need from running) and I might even enjoy exercise and feel happier and more energetic. But the thought of pulling on my running shoes on those dark cold winter evenings or coming out of the swimming baths when it's blowing an ice cold gale or jumping out of the car on a sweltering hot day to go back out running makes me depressed.
I even thought about taking more exercise. Until I read this. I'm supposed to do five hours of exercise a week. I'd be happy to take a 30 minute stroll a few times a week, do a bit of gardening and play on my nintendo wii. But this means I need to go mad. It's the single most offputting piece of health advice ever put across. It says if you want to maintain weight you're in for it and forget it if you want to permanently lose weight.
Say I live for another 40 years. This means I need to spend 87 days solid doing exercise. That's a quarter of a year or 0.6 % of my remaining life. I know what you'll say; the benefits far outweigh the effort. I'll live far extra than 87 days, I'll have healthier later years (apart from the hip replacement I'll need from running) and I might even enjoy exercise and feel happier and more energetic. But the thought of pulling on my running shoes on those dark cold winter evenings or coming out of the swimming baths when it's blowing an ice cold gale or jumping out of the car on a sweltering hot day to go back out running makes me depressed.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Harriet Harman
The equality minister Harriet Harman is planning to make it legal to discriminate against people in a job interview. If you are a white male and you are up against a woman or a person from an ethnic minority of equal ability then it will be perfectly legal for them to turn you down because of your gender or the colour of your skin. This is grossly unfair on the person being denied a job. In all situations the best person for the job should be chosen. It is never the case that there are two candidates of identical ability that can't be distinguished after a second interview.
Harriet Harman declared that she was the best person to be deputy PM because she was a woman. It certainly wasn't because she was the best person for the job. She has been a disaster in parliament and has long been considered as an over promoted New Labour appparatchik who agrees with whatever the party line is. Harman became "the politician we all love to hate" during her tenure as social security minister when she carried through widely unpopular lone parent cuts affecting mostly women. She sent her kids to a selective school far away from her constituency. Her voting record is; voted no to a transparent Parliament, voted for introducing ID cards, voted for introducing foundation hospitals, voted for introducing student top-up fees, voted for Labour's anti-terrorism laws and 42 days, VOTED FOR THE IRAQ WAR, voted against investigating the Iraq war, voted for replacing Trident (cost £20bn). In 1990 Harman co-authored a report entitled "The Family Way". It criticised the family unit and mothers who stay at home. In particular it questioned whether men were an asset to families at all and whether "the presence of fathers in families is necessarily a means to social harmony and cohesion". Critics such as Erin Pizzey described such statements as a "staggering attack on men and their role in modern life". She wore a stab vest to walk around the streets of her constituency. She accepted illegal donations to her campaign to become deputy pm. In 2003 Harman was fined £400 and banned from driving for seven days after being convicted of driving at 99 mph (159 km/h) on a motorway, 29 mph (47 km/h) above the speed limit.
Harriet Harman declared that she was the best person to be deputy PM because she was a woman. It certainly wasn't because she was the best person for the job. She has been a disaster in parliament and has long been considered as an over promoted New Labour appparatchik who agrees with whatever the party line is. Harman became "the politician we all love to hate" during her tenure as social security minister when she carried through widely unpopular lone parent cuts affecting mostly women. She sent her kids to a selective school far away from her constituency. Her voting record is; voted no to a transparent Parliament, voted for introducing ID cards, voted for introducing foundation hospitals, voted for introducing student top-up fees, voted for Labour's anti-terrorism laws and 42 days, VOTED FOR THE IRAQ WAR, voted against investigating the Iraq war, voted for replacing Trident (cost £20bn). In 1990 Harman co-authored a report entitled "The Family Way". It criticised the family unit and mothers who stay at home. In particular it questioned whether men were an asset to families at all and whether "the presence of fathers in families is necessarily a means to social harmony and cohesion". Critics such as Erin Pizzey described such statements as a "staggering attack on men and their role in modern life". She wore a stab vest to walk around the streets of her constituency. She accepted illegal donations to her campaign to become deputy pm. In 2003 Harman was fined £400 and banned from driving for seven days after being convicted of driving at 99 mph (159 km/h) on a motorway, 29 mph (47 km/h) above the speed limit.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Energy Costs
The cost of cleaning up after the last generation of nuclear power plants could rise as high as £73bn. This has to be paid by the taxpayer. The next generation of nuclear power plants has already been approved. The government has decided our future is nuclear.
The cost of completing the national grid so it runs all the way from Scotland to Southern England and then onto France is about £4bn, which includes wind farms in Scotland. The idea is we could be a net exporter of energy within a generation. Britain is blessed with amazing wind and wave energy resources. We also have a commitment to cut our greenhouse gases and increase the proportion of our energy from renewable sources. That process has started but most serious proposals are stuck in the planning process and very few make it through.
Here is my plan;
1) Approve a mix of big and small projects
2) Streamline the planning process and be biased toward green energy schemes
3) Add incentives for communities that host wind farms
4) Allow any user to sell energy back to the grid at a fair price; feed in tariffs
Above all just do SOMETHING and do it NOW. The Germans are far in front of us
The cost of completing the national grid so it runs all the way from Scotland to Southern England and then onto France is about £4bn, which includes wind farms in Scotland. The idea is we could be a net exporter of energy within a generation. Britain is blessed with amazing wind and wave energy resources. We also have a commitment to cut our greenhouse gases and increase the proportion of our energy from renewable sources. That process has started but most serious proposals are stuck in the planning process and very few make it through.
Here is my plan;
1) Approve a mix of big and small projects
2) Streamline the planning process and be biased toward green energy schemes
3) Add incentives for communities that host wind farms
4) Allow any user to sell energy back to the grid at a fair price; feed in tariffs
Above all just do SOMETHING and do it NOW. The Germans are far in front of us
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Margaret Thatcher
As a person who grew up in a Yorkshire mining region in the 1980s my natural inclination is to hate Thatcherism because of the misery it caused for me personally and for many many others. However, the recent spate of programmes on TV has made me rethink. Here are one two interesting articles that offer opposing views.
The balance seems to be that although she made some calamitous mistakes and our entry into the Falklands war looks like downright evil political opportunism with hindsight, her economic and social reforms were a bitter pill that did transform the country into a lean mean modern machine. This is why New Labour didn't drop any of her major policies. It is also why in the space of one generation I went from being destined to work in a coal mine to taking a place at University and earning a PhD.
The balance seems to be that although she made some calamitous mistakes and our entry into the Falklands war looks like downright evil political opportunism with hindsight, her economic and social reforms were a bitter pill that did transform the country into a lean mean modern machine. This is why New Labour didn't drop any of her major policies. It is also why in the space of one generation I went from being destined to work in a coal mine to taking a place at University and earning a PhD.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Motoring gripes
Manchester is thinking about congestion charging and the government is smiling on it. Businesses are up in arms and there is much debate. The M60 motorway is to be included in the plans. I vehemently disagree with this idea. Why should I be charged to drive past Manchester on my way to somewhere else? How else am I supposed to get to Liverpool or Warrington (which I have to do occasionally)? OK, tax those going into Manc but not those who are using one of the key motorway routes in the north of England. The idea seems to be half baked. With a looming recession and motoring costs hitting the roof the last thing we need is more tax on motorists. Trying to price us off the road is not fair for two reasons; 1) those who are poor should not be prevented from travelling on certain routes 2) People have to use the road. When I drive to Warrington to do my experiments the boot is full of scientific kit. I can't take that on a train! Also, with the housing market being batsh*t crazy people can't afford to live near where they work and even if they can the jobs market is so short term people don't stay living near their workplace for long.
Motoring gripe number two; speeding. The number one killer in the world is traffic - car crashes, people being run over and particularly pollution. Cars that are speeding produce more pollution and are more likely to collide with something or someone and the effects of that collision are more serious. So why aren't all vehicles fitted with speed limiters? These would prevent a vehicle from reaching more than a certain top speed. Some vehicles already have them fitted by law and with some small investment in infrastructure all vehicles could be fitted with a speed limiter that could sense the local speed limit and restrain the speed of the car. I can't think of a single good argument against the idea except for the initial costs. The benefits would be immense. Even for motorists. Fewer traffic jams caused by vehicles doing gas/brake cycles and causing phantom jams. And just think about pulling out at a junction. To leave my housing estate I have to pull onto a road with a 30 mph speed limit. Except the vehicles are just dropping down from 40 mph (ie doing 50 mph) and I can't get out. Of course, the real reason we don't have speed limiters for all vehicles is the motoring lobby. A £60'000 car would be no different to a fiat punto except for a few more creature comforts and a bit more acceleration (but with a flat top speed to aim for who cares?). There is no way the oil lobby and the motoring lobby would take it. And their voice is far more powerful than that of the millions who die each year on the roads.
Motoring gripe number two; speeding. The number one killer in the world is traffic - car crashes, people being run over and particularly pollution. Cars that are speeding produce more pollution and are more likely to collide with something or someone and the effects of that collision are more serious. So why aren't all vehicles fitted with speed limiters? These would prevent a vehicle from reaching more than a certain top speed. Some vehicles already have them fitted by law and with some small investment in infrastructure all vehicles could be fitted with a speed limiter that could sense the local speed limit and restrain the speed of the car. I can't think of a single good argument against the idea except for the initial costs. The benefits would be immense. Even for motorists. Fewer traffic jams caused by vehicles doing gas/brake cycles and causing phantom jams. And just think about pulling out at a junction. To leave my housing estate I have to pull onto a road with a 30 mph speed limit. Except the vehicles are just dropping down from 40 mph (ie doing 50 mph) and I can't get out. Of course, the real reason we don't have speed limiters for all vehicles is the motoring lobby. A £60'000 car would be no different to a fiat punto except for a few more creature comforts and a bit more acceleration (but with a flat top speed to aim for who cares?). There is no way the oil lobby and the motoring lobby would take it. And their voice is far more powerful than that of the millions who die each year on the roads.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Grand Theft Auto IV
Much has been written about the 'seminal masterpiece' computer game grand theft auto iv which has just been released. In this game a person plays the role of a criminal in a virtual city. One of the key attractions of the game is its 'sandbox' gameplay; if you choose you can ignore the missions and just hang out in the city. You can watch TV, eat chicken ignore stop signs and red lights. You can also go on a murderous rampage with a baseball bat or fill innocent bystanders with lead. Defenders of this say that it is just tongue in cheek fun and a bit of stress relief. Any sane person can distinguish the game from reality. Why should we all be denied access to something fun just because there are a few vulnerable and suggestive people out there?
Which is exactly the same argument the pro-gun lobby make in the USA.
Which is exactly the same argument the pro-gun lobby make in the USA.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
New Orleans vs Sichuan
The chinese government, with its appaling human rights record, has done more to help the victims of the Sichuan earthquake than the US government did to help the victims of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It might be that the Olympics and the world spotlight have forced China to act but the fact that China has acted so swiftly and that New Orleans is still in pieces should surely put Bush to shame. But it doesn't seem to have.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Microsoft and children in the developing world
The makers of the $100 laptop designed to give thousands of kids from the developing world access to a vital learning tool have announced that the Microsoft Windows XP operating system will now be supplied with the laptop alongside the free (and in my experience, far superior) Linux operating system. Users will be able to choose which operating system they want to use just after they switch on the laptop. The cost of the laptop has risen to $188 because the company involved can't demand that a country order a minimum number of laptops. With Windows XP the cost of the laptop has risen by a further $10 to $198, double the initial cost which means half as many kids will get their laptop. The project has also suffered delays because it has taken 1 year to adapt Windows XP to go on the machine. Even so the user interface doesn't work on Windows XP and the networking software that lets users talk to one another and share data also doesn't work. Scandal and shame.
Why are they letting big business in to profit from such a beautiful and altruistic NOT-FOR-PROFIT scheme? Because the users want it. The number of orders placed since Windows XP was made available has increased. I wonder how much pressure was placed on the governments of the countries placing orders. Of course, we all know that MS aren't in this because of education. They want to make sure their operating system and their software becomes dominant in the new markets in the developing world. This situation is akin to the companies who distribute free powdered milk to mothers in the developing world and then stop the free samples when the mothers natural milk dries up, forcing them to pay for the milk. Microsoft will raise a generation of children on Windows and then when they are adults they will be forced to use it and pay for it (out of familiarity, the same reason Windows is till dominant everywhere else), instead of taking advantages of all the goodness of FREE open source software.
Why are they letting big business in to profit from such a beautiful and altruistic NOT-FOR-PROFIT scheme? Because the users want it. The number of orders placed since Windows XP was made available has increased. I wonder how much pressure was placed on the governments of the countries placing orders. Of course, we all know that MS aren't in this because of education. They want to make sure their operating system and their software becomes dominant in the new markets in the developing world. This situation is akin to the companies who distribute free powdered milk to mothers in the developing world and then stop the free samples when the mothers natural milk dries up, forcing them to pay for the milk. Microsoft will raise a generation of children on Windows and then when they are adults they will be forced to use it and pay for it (out of familiarity, the same reason Windows is till dominant everywhere else), instead of taking advantages of all the goodness of FREE open source software.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Sainsburys beware
The UK supermarket Sainsburys has reported a 28% increase in its profits this year. Now, I know they are one of the big nasty supermarket chains but I'm quite pleased about this. I was, for many years a Tesco customer partly out of laziness and partly because of the clubcard. But I got fed up of sub-standard fruit and veg and awful meat (see my post from almost a year ago). So I switched to Sainsburys. I travelled the extra few miles to their store and paid a few pence extra and got less of a reward for my loyalty (nectar points aren't as valuable as clubcard points). It was worth it for the better food. And I'm delighted and surprised that lots of other people have made the switch in a time when food prices have been rising fast. Sainsburys concentrate mainly on food but they have decided to reinvest the profits in the non-food side of the business. Boo. Concentrate on maintaining the quality of your food and you will maintain your profit margins (and your customers). Tesco took their eye off the ball and started selling crap food a year and a half ago so they could concentrate on their USA operations and their non-food lines and look what happened. I said it a year ago for Tesco and I'll repeat it again today; Sainsburys beware.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Apropos of not much really...
The Popular project (over on Freaky Trigger), which is reviewing all UK number 1 singles in order, is on great form at the moment. It's just hit September 1976, with the number 1 in question being Dancing Queen which has earned a big fat 10 out of 10.
I like Dancing Queen, but I like Chiquitita better. It's a song that stops and then starts again, which are always ace, and it features Bjorn playing the piano with great gusto. I have no idea what it's about but it sounds sad, in a kind of European melodramatic way (see also Fernando). So here's a lovely snowy video for it.
Niczilla xx
I like Dancing Queen, but I like Chiquitita better. It's a song that stops and then starts again, which are always ace, and it features Bjorn playing the piano with great gusto. I have no idea what it's about but it sounds sad, in a kind of European melodramatic way (see also Fernando). So here's a lovely snowy video for it.
Niczilla xx
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Carbon footprint of football matches
It's music festival season and there has been much comment about the carbon footprint of such events. Many tens of thousands of people travelling many miles to attend surely do create a lot of CO2 (and pollution, which seems to have been pushed down the pecking order of things to worry about by greenhouse gases). Events like glastonbury have made a certain number of tickets available only to those who travel there by bus. Bands like Radiohead are only playing at venues with good public transport links.
All very good. But... The last round of premier league football matches was attended by about 365'000 people. There are 38 such rounds in a season which adds up to just under 14 million people per year attending matches. The Championship (the second most highly attended football league in the world) gets about 5 million attendees a year if last weekend is anything to go by (bear in mind it is end of season which attracts more fans but weigh this against declining attendance figures across football). A lot of football fans don't travel far to the match but some fans travel a long way (Man Utd fans). Even so, we are talking a good proportion of 20 million people are travelling to football matches each year. This must dwarf the music festivals in terms of CO2 generated.
Favourite poll result of the week; 15% of Americans think Barak Obama is a muslim.
All very good. But... The last round of premier league football matches was attended by about 365'000 people. There are 38 such rounds in a season which adds up to just under 14 million people per year attending matches. The Championship (the second most highly attended football league in the world) gets about 5 million attendees a year if last weekend is anything to go by (bear in mind it is end of season which attracts more fans but weigh this against declining attendance figures across football). A lot of football fans don't travel far to the match but some fans travel a long way (Man Utd fans). Even so, we are talking a good proportion of 20 million people are travelling to football matches each year. This must dwarf the music festivals in terms of CO2 generated.
Favourite poll result of the week; 15% of Americans think Barak Obama is a muslim.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Medicine balance of the sexes
There are more women than men graduating medical school. Is this a problem? Radio 4 debated this question this morning.
A male doctor made the point that there should be equal numbers of male and female doctors available to fit with patient choice and general equality. To satisfy this need one has to train 3 female doctors for every 2 male doctors. This is because female doctors retire earlier, work fewer hours and require maternity leave. Surely this logic requires more female doctors to be trained in a ratio 3:2?
A female doctor said 'it isn't true you get three times more work out of male doctors' which shows she didn't understand the point made by her colleague. Her final sentence is my quote for the day;
A male doctor made the point that there should be equal numbers of male and female doctors available to fit with patient choice and general equality. To satisfy this need one has to train 3 female doctors for every 2 male doctors. This is because female doctors retire earlier, work fewer hours and require maternity leave. Surely this logic requires more female doctors to be trained in a ratio 3:2?
A female doctor said 'it isn't true you get three times more work out of male doctors' which shows she didn't understand the point made by her colleague. Her final sentence is my quote for the day;
11% of female clinical academics are women
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Could Have Been Worse
EMI are to release a Best of Radiohead on June 2 as revenge for the band ditching the record company. The tracklisting and artwork have just landed;
Single album;|||||||||||||||||||Double album; single album plus extra CD
Just||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||Airbag
Paranoid Android|||||||||||||||I Might Be Wrong
Karma Police|||||||||||||||||||Go To Sleep
Creep|||||||||||||||||||||||||||Let Down
No Surprises|||||||||||||||||||Planet Telex
High and Dry||||||||||||||||||Exit Music (For A Film)
My Iron Lung||||||||||||||||||The National Anthem
There There|||||||||||||||||||Knives Out
Lucky|||||||||||||||||||||||||||Talk Show Host
Fake Plastic Trees|||||||||||||You
Idioteque||||||||||||||||||||||Anyone Can Play Guitar
2+2=5||||||||||||||||||||||||||How To Disappear Completely
The Bends|||||||||||||||||||||True Love Waits
Pyramid Song
Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Everything In Its Right Place
I can't really argue with the track list but the running order produces some very odd transitions. Also, 'How To Dissappear' should be on CD 1 because it is one of the top 5 Radiohead songs. Other than that this makes a reasonable introduction to RH. The problem is they are an album band and you can't really cut and shut the albums to get the 'best bits'.
Anyway, as a long time fan I won't buy this album because it is just EMI being greedy. I can make my own RH greatest hits playlist on my ipod and change this every couple months. What the fans really want is a b-sides collection or a boxed set. Now that would be something exciting. Almost exciting as seing them live (again) at the end of June this year (3 months to go!).
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Say No to 42 days
The latest great idea from the Government to stop terrorism is to make it legal to hold people and question them repeatedly for 42 days without charge - without even telling them why they are being held. The Equality and Human Rights Commission says it goes against human rights law and may breach the Race Relations Act, while Geoffrey Dear, former chief constable of West Midlands Police and HM inspector of constabulary says passing the law will be a PR coup for Al Qaeda
The Rachel from North London blog explains all this better than I can, so please have a read of her thoughts on this and then go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/notadaylonger/ and sign the petition against 42 Days which a)threatens our civil rights and b) won't do the slightest bit of good in 'the war against terror'anyway. Please take a minute to sign, not because I asked and not because a load of bloggers are going on about it, but because it's the right thing to do.
Niczilla xx
The Rachel from North London blog explains all this better than I can, so please have a read of her thoughts on this and then go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/notadaylonger/ and sign the petition against 42 Days which a)threatens our civil rights and b) won't do the slightest bit of good in 'the war against terror'anyway. Please take a minute to sign, not because I asked and not because a load of bloggers are going on about it, but because it's the right thing to do.
Niczilla xx
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Doncaster Quality Bus Corridor
Doncaster is currently having a quality bus corridor fitted on two approaches into the town centre. On one of these approaches a dual carriageway is being reduced to one lane and this Sunday (normally a quiet day) I encountered very bad traffic. Of course this will all be worth it if traffic levels are reduced and everyone uses the bus. I asked the mayors office what the traffic reduction and bus passenger increases they were hoping for and how much the scheme would cost. They said
I would advise that the major scheme business case that secured funding of £15.3 million from the Department of Transport, is based upon achieving a 5% increase in bus patronage in the opening year, and an annual increase of 1.5% thereafter.
That's it. £15 million to increase bus passenger levels by just 5% and no targets for traffic reduction. 5% more people using the bus will cut congestion a bit but the bus lanes themselves will create much more congestion than they ease.
I would also like to know if taxi cabs are to be allowed to use the bus lanes. A taxi is a private commercial vehicle and they should not be allowed to use the priority traffic lights to the delay of everyone else. This is where the main congestion comes from; the priority lights. Each time a vehicle passes down the bus lane toward the lights the main body of traffic is halted. In the town centre we have priority lights which cause chaos. We also have priority bus lanes into the bus station which the buses do not use because people prefer to be dropped off in the town centre. However, we haven't been able to gauge the effects of the priority lights in the new bus corridor yet because the buses are not running in any numbers. Why? Because they haven't built the park and ride yet.
You heard me correct. We have bus lanes built and empty because they haven't built the park and ride yet. Why didn't they build it first?
I would advise that the major scheme business case that secured funding of £15.3 million from the Department of Transport, is based upon achieving a 5% increase in bus patronage in the opening year, and an annual increase of 1.5% thereafter.
That's it. £15 million to increase bus passenger levels by just 5% and no targets for traffic reduction. 5% more people using the bus will cut congestion a bit but the bus lanes themselves will create much more congestion than they ease.
I would also like to know if taxi cabs are to be allowed to use the bus lanes. A taxi is a private commercial vehicle and they should not be allowed to use the priority traffic lights to the delay of everyone else. This is where the main congestion comes from; the priority lights. Each time a vehicle passes down the bus lane toward the lights the main body of traffic is halted. In the town centre we have priority lights which cause chaos. We also have priority bus lanes into the bus station which the buses do not use because people prefer to be dropped off in the town centre. However, we haven't been able to gauge the effects of the priority lights in the new bus corridor yet because the buses are not running in any numbers. Why? Because they haven't built the park and ride yet.
You heard me correct. We have bus lanes built and empty because they haven't built the park and ride yet. Why didn't they build it first?
Monday, March 10, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Democracy 0 MPs 1 (2)?
Today is a crucial day for Democracy in the UK. Parliament is to debate the EU treaty. The people of Britain want a referendum. The government know that the outcome of the referendum would be that the people would reject the treaty (as part of a wider rejection of EU authority over British citizens and the subsequent dilution of our democratic rights). So the government has rejected the idea of a referendum even though they were elected on the promise (in their manifesto) that the people would be granted a referendum. They claim that the treay now isn't the same treaty on which the referendum promise was made which is complete hogwash. Those who redrafted the treaty themselves admit this. It all boils down to the simple fact that the pro-Europe stance of parliament is completely out of touch with the feelings of the people. We are being denied our say because the government believe we lack enough knowledge of the situation to be involved in the decision making.
The simple fact is that we don't want to be ruled over by mainland Europe. We fought in two wars to prevent European integration. Europe as a trade zone is a great idea. Europe sticking together in its dealings with the superpowers makes sense. But a federal Europe with a single currency and a central law making and governmental institution is too far. The politicians want to go all the way. Why? An increase in government and bureaucracy (and in power and budgets) is what they want. Government bureaucrats measure their success by the size of their workforce and budgets. Anyway. Please parliament let us decide. You ignored millions of us over the pre-Iraq war protests and we were right. We couldn't vote the government out of power to protest this because the alternatives were the Tories (no way) or the Lib Dems (not a serious proposition). Another failure of party politics (see earlier post). Don't let this be the second time in recent years that the overwhelming will of the people has been brushed aside. I could be wrong. A referendum could reveal public opinion to be in favour of Europe. Either way. Give us our say.
The simple fact is that we don't want to be ruled over by mainland Europe. We fought in two wars to prevent European integration. Europe as a trade zone is a great idea. Europe sticking together in its dealings with the superpowers makes sense. But a federal Europe with a single currency and a central law making and governmental institution is too far. The politicians want to go all the way. Why? An increase in government and bureaucracy (and in power and budgets) is what they want. Government bureaucrats measure their success by the size of their workforce and budgets. Anyway. Please parliament let us decide. You ignored millions of us over the pre-Iraq war protests and we were right. We couldn't vote the government out of power to protest this because the alternatives were the Tories (no way) or the Lib Dems (not a serious proposition). Another failure of party politics (see earlier post). Don't let this be the second time in recent years that the overwhelming will of the people has been brushed aside. I could be wrong. A referendum could reveal public opinion to be in favour of Europe. Either way. Give us our say.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Traffic hell (again and again)
This morning I had an important appointment to keep (a timeslot booked on a microscope at the York nanocentre). My usual commute takes 45 minutes. An hour and twenty minutes before I had to be there I checked the traffic news; my normal motorway route was down to one lane and the queues were already 7 miles long. I was immediately filled with panic that I was going to be late. With an hour and ten minutes to go I set off along an alternative route that was shorter by distance but on smaller, lower speed limit roads. I arrived twenty minutes late and lost a quarter of my microscope time. This is the second time this week that the A1 motorway has gone down. Today was not as bad as monday but the delays still caused a 12 mile tailback and 2 hour delays for those determined to plough through.
There are simply too many vehicles on the roads. People cannot live near where they work because of the nature of the housing and jobs market. A couple who live in Doncaster might individually have jobs in Leeds and Sheffield and their home is a halfway point. Homes are expensive too and difficult to sell so people can't always live in their choice location. The authorities don't make things easier. There seem to be very few contingency plans for when one of the motorways in Yorkshire goes down. The diversions don't seem to work. One day in 2005 the M1 was closed so they diverted onto the A1 which got blocked by an accident and then the last escape route, the M18, was blocked by an accident. The resulting jams I will never forget.
So in a week like this what do we need? What we don't need is Doncaster council conducting a traffic census on one of the approach roads that feeds the A1 motorway and central Doncaster itself. They forced the road to one lane and slowed this down as they called people over to get a sample of travelling habits. Result; tailbacks for miles and miles and miles back into South Yorkshire. Idiots. Not a good idea to make the rush hour worse, especially considering the commuting hell that this week has brought.
There are simply too many vehicles on the roads. People cannot live near where they work because of the nature of the housing and jobs market. A couple who live in Doncaster might individually have jobs in Leeds and Sheffield and their home is a halfway point. Homes are expensive too and difficult to sell so people can't always live in their choice location. The authorities don't make things easier. There seem to be very few contingency plans for when one of the motorways in Yorkshire goes down. The diversions don't seem to work. One day in 2005 the M1 was closed so they diverted onto the A1 which got blocked by an accident and then the last escape route, the M18, was blocked by an accident. The resulting jams I will never forget.
So in a week like this what do we need? What we don't need is Doncaster council conducting a traffic census on one of the approach roads that feeds the A1 motorway and central Doncaster itself. They forced the road to one lane and slowed this down as they called people over to get a sample of travelling habits. Result; tailbacks for miles and miles and miles back into South Yorkshire. Idiots. Not a good idea to make the rush hour worse, especially considering the commuting hell that this week has brought.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Criminally underrated albums
1. Monster (R.E.M.)
2. One Hot Minute (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
3. Hail To The Thief (Radiohead)
4. John Wesley Harding (Bob Dylan)
5. Fables Of The Reconstruction (R.E.M.)
2. One Hot Minute (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
3. Hail To The Thief (Radiohead)
4. John Wesley Harding (Bob Dylan)
5. Fables Of The Reconstruction (R.E.M.)
Monday, February 18, 2008
Thank you
This morning my 45 minute commute to work took 3 hours. The A1 motorway was closed due to a bad accident and the knock on effects on surrounding motorways caused 20 mile tailbacks. There was no indication that the motorway was closed ahead until I hit the wall of traffic. If I'd known I wouldn't have got on the motorway and would have gone the long way round. The local TV news didn't even carry the warning which is most unlike them. Given that the accident happened in the early hours which gave plenty of time for the services to get organised I'm a bit miffed.
I queued for about 20 miles along country back roads to go around to join another motorway. In the small villages we passed through there were no police marshalling people through. In fact lots of small stretches of roadworks caused even worse bottlenecks. The workmen could have just put a road plate over the holes in the road and shut down their roadworks for the day (I know this because I used to do roadworks). The traffic light sequences weren't changed either. So in the one direction you had a half mile queue made up of local traffic and in the other direction a 20 mile queue of thousands and thousands of stranded drivers. Why isn't there a traffic flow contingency for such days. When one motorway in south yorkshire is hit the whole road network goes down. Grrr.
I queued for about 20 miles along country back roads to go around to join another motorway. In the small villages we passed through there were no police marshalling people through. In fact lots of small stretches of roadworks caused even worse bottlenecks. The workmen could have just put a road plate over the holes in the road and shut down their roadworks for the day (I know this because I used to do roadworks). The traffic light sequences weren't changed either. So in the one direction you had a half mile queue made up of local traffic and in the other direction a 20 mile queue of thousands and thousands of stranded drivers. Why isn't there a traffic flow contingency for such days. When one motorway in south yorkshire is hit the whole road network goes down. Grrr.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
FA Premier League Abroad
The Football authorities here in England are considering the idea of staging some extra league games abroad. The fundamental flaw with this is that some teams would have to play each other three times instead of the usual twice. This undermines the whole idea to such an extent that the plans must be shelved. The league table should be a completely objective measure of how a team performs over an entire season. In a cup competition there can be anomalies where a team can get a lucky goal or a strange refereeing decision. But in the league these random blips get ironed out. Everyone plays everyone else home and away and the best team on average tops the table. If extra fixtures were added then the integrity of the league would be comprimised; some teams might have to play more matches against difficult sides and others might get lots of easy games.
The second argument against this idea is that it isn't fair to the fans. A Sunderland season ticket holder would not be able to attend a match versus Fulham in Los Angeles. Their team would be taken away from them just to make money. And that is the big motivation here; money. And because money is the motivation the fixtures that get scheduled abroad might magically turn out to be Man Utd vs Chelsea or Liverpool vs Arsenal rather than Fulham versus Sunderland. In the same way that the Manchester derby was magically scheduled on top of the 50 anniversay commemorations for the Munich air disaster.
The second argument against this idea is that it isn't fair to the fans. A Sunderland season ticket holder would not be able to attend a match versus Fulham in Los Angeles. Their team would be taken away from them just to make money. And that is the big motivation here; money. And because money is the motivation the fixtures that get scheduled abroad might magically turn out to be Man Utd vs Chelsea or Liverpool vs Arsenal rather than Fulham versus Sunderland. In the same way that the Manchester derby was magically scheduled on top of the 50 anniversay commemorations for the Munich air disaster.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
File sharers banned from internet
The UK government is considering the idea of banning anyone from the internet who is found to be downloading copyrighted music or films. Here's why people download torrents;
1) Music in the mid 1990s was ridiculously expensive £15 for a CD album. It is no coincidence that file sharing developed as a response to these ridiculous prices.
2) VHS/DVDs/BLU-RAY video formats are a rip-off and always have been. I don't need expensive packaging for my movie. I don't need a format that changes every 10 years forcing me to rebuy everything. I just need the data stream. I should be able to download a film for £1.
3) The cost of legal downloads is just plain wrong. iTunes rips off UK customers mercilessly.
4) Choice online and in the shops is thin. I struggle to find some records that I could find on the high street a few years back.
5) HMV stop being a music retailer and went for DVDs and went for the pile em high sell em cheap greatest hits market.
The plan to ban people from the internet won't work. The government can't even enforce the driving ban properly. And drivers need a license. HM government have a fundamental misunderstanding of how file sharing works anyway. They seem to think people are swapping whole files like they did a decade ago. Nowadays each file is broken into pieces so small they can't be detected as illegal or not. How could they tell the difference between me downloading a fragment of a copyrighted song or me downloading a fragment of an mp3 file from an unsigned band that they uploaded for free? They could try and attack the infrastructure by killing the websites that host the torrent files but this would be a minor inconvenience and the torrent sites are doing nothing illegal because they are just hosting information and not copyrighted material. The last word comes from the internet service providers association
And they also don't want their best customers taken away.
1) Music in the mid 1990s was ridiculously expensive £15 for a CD album. It is no coincidence that file sharing developed as a response to these ridiculous prices.
2) VHS/DVDs/BLU-RAY video formats are a rip-off and always have been. I don't need expensive packaging for my movie. I don't need a format that changes every 10 years forcing me to rebuy everything. I just need the data stream. I should be able to download a film for £1.
3) The cost of legal downloads is just plain wrong. iTunes rips off UK customers mercilessly.
4) Choice online and in the shops is thin. I struggle to find some records that I could find on the high street a few years back.
5) HMV stop being a music retailer and went for DVDs and went for the pile em high sell em cheap greatest hits market.
The plan to ban people from the internet won't work. The government can't even enforce the driving ban properly. And drivers need a license. HM government have a fundamental misunderstanding of how file sharing works anyway. They seem to think people are swapping whole files like they did a decade ago. Nowadays each file is broken into pieces so small they can't be detected as illegal or not. How could they tell the difference between me downloading a fragment of a copyrighted song or me downloading a fragment of an mp3 file from an unsigned band that they uploaded for free? They could try and attack the infrastructure by killing the websites that host the torrent files but this would be a minor inconvenience and the torrent sites are doing nothing illegal because they are just hosting information and not copyrighted material. The last word comes from the internet service providers association
Internet providers are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope
And they also don't want their best customers taken away.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tokyo day twenty seven
Captains log, stardate 20080131. The final blog entry from Tokyo. Today was busy because I had lots of things to sort out at work. After work we went to Sugamo to a temple. In the bottom picture you can see Nicola pouring water over the statue. She then ran her hand over the statue to clean it. The idea is if you have a problem then washing the statue in this way will wash away the problem. Then we went to Shinjuku for a farewell tempura meal with Takane. This is seafood and vegetables fried in light batter with dips. It was delicious. We had fried shrimp, fried mushrooms, fried fish, fried eel (which was very tender and delicous). The one part I was not so sure about was fried flower bud (I kid you not!). This was very bitter and even some Japanese don't like this; a bit like marmite in dividing opinion. We rounded off a very nice meal with some miso soup with mini clams in. Now we have to pack and tidy the apartment and the Liverpool vs West Ham game is on TV. Anyway, we'll be very sad to leave Tokyo but very happy to get home to see our friends and family.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Tokyo day twentysomething
So here I am. It`s 3.30 am and I`m doing a shift in the lab with another 4.5 hours to go. I sit and read my book and occasionally glance up to make sure that the beam of atoms that we are sending at the surface is still strong enough. On a screen is a picture showing the atoms that we`ve collected that have bounced off the surface. Every 2 hours there`s a whoosh and a whirr as the detector moves along a bit to collect the atoms that have gone off in a slightly different direction. I don`t have much to do. I might have to flick a few switches and turn a few nobs. I`m reading the new Charlie Brooker book; a collection of his newspaper articles. My brain can only hand short stories and can only think about one subject for a few paragraphs. My day started at 8am. In the afternoon I had a `break` which involved Nicola and I in a mad three hour round trip across the Tokyo Megapolis to buy some souvenirs from Harajuku. Yesterday we got up early and trudged around for hours looking at Mt. Fuji. I`m knackered. Despite all this I wouldn`t want to be anywhere else right now. Because we`re getting data, which is why I`m here, and because I have a bag of mini doughnuts and a Royal Milk Tea from the vending machine.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Tokyo day twenty three
Today we travelled on a bullet train to see Mt. Fuji. The trains were absolutely gobsmackingly amazing. Probably the highlight of the trip for me. Clean, cheap, efficient and VERY VERY fast (see the video from inside). We set off from Tokyo at about 10.23am and the 90.8 miles journey to shin-fuji (the shinkansen station at the city of Fuji) took 75 minutes. For the nerds it was an 300 series (top speed 168mph). We tried to travel on the N700 (the fastest train in the world, top speed 186mph and it goes around corners at 158mph) but didn't time it right. For a video of one of these in action check out these 1 2 amazing youtube videos taken by people with a lot of time and patience. The trains carry a lot of passengers but they run every 20 minutes and each train has 16 carriages (see second video of train leaving). The inside of the train was clean, spacious, comfortable. It was a bit like being on an aeroplane. We got more legroom than in business class on Japan Airlines. On the back of every seat was a helpful guide as to where everything was (even down to litter bins). Question is, why can't we have trains like this in the UK?We were lucky enough to get a glimpse of Mt. Fuji. This is only possible at certain times of the year (cold days mainly) and only then early in the day. As we got closer to Fuji the clouds and mist built up and by the time we got to fuji city we could only just see the top. You can see Nic in front of Fuji at our closest approach in the photo. I kind of wish we had set off earlier but we did get up at 7.30 am (on a sunday) and we were very lucky to see what we did. The mountain itself is very beautiful and awe inspiring. It seems very tranquil sat there in the sky. It looks like the land has been squeezed into a point in the sky. It's easy to see why it inspires such devotion and has long been a symbol of Japan. It seems almost spiritual. All day I could barely take my eyes off it and I just wanted to get closer, closer. I can understand what makes people want to climb it. Nic even said she wanted to have a go.
Sorry if the video quality is bad. YouTube has messed it up. Even though a post from the other day using a video from the same camera with the same settings looked fine.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Tokyo day twenty
Apologies for the lack of updates so far this week, which is due to a combination of internet problems and the fact that we haven't done much of interest. Chris is back in the lab working hard to get some results and the weather has been awful so I haven't ventured out much. Above is how the RIKEN campus looked yesterday after heavy snowfall all over the greater Tokyo area. We've also had rain, and today gale force winds have hit the area.
Instead I've decided to stay in the warm and catch up with the Japanese music charts via an excellent TV show called 'u la la'. It isn't in English but that doesn't matter. The show is hosted by an excellent presenter called Shelly (presenters at home could learn alot from her) who discusses the music charts and has J-Pop stars on as guests. Today's guests were a boy band who sounded alot like the B-Sharps, Homer Simpson's barbershop quartet. Shelly then calls a shop assistant in the Shibuya HMV via video phone to talk about what's hot today - he says that today people are buying the 2008 Grammy compilation with Kanye West and the Amy Winehouse album.
What's surpising about J-Pop is that alot of it is actually quite dull, especially the boy bands. Exile are the most popular boy band this week and sound just like Westlife, and let's be clear about this - this is not a good thing. The other surprising thing is the massive popularity of Radiohead over here, who are top of the single and album charts right now and are the soundtrack in shops, restaurants and bars all over the city. The best thing about Tokyo Top10 though was Misia, who probably compares most to Gwen Stefani - thanks to the wonders of teh interwebs you can view her amazing 'Royal Chocolate Flush' video right here:
Monday, January 21, 2008
Tokyo day seventeen
Off to the Shibuya district of Tokyo today to do a bit of people watching. Shibuya is a magnet for Tokyo teens and as such is lots of fun with loads going on. We left the metro station and immediately came face to face with the Hachiko crossing, the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world - the video above demonstrates how busy it can get (and bear in mind this is a very cold Sunday in January - imagine what it must be like in warmer weather when more people are out and about).
We strolled up Center Gai, where Tokyo fashion victims come to pose and show off and popped into HMV to browse their selection of English language magazines before wandering ro und the huge Tokyu Hands homeware store. There are apparently three main teen trends in Tokyo: Center Guys - who seem to have copied Jon Bon Jovi :( , Hime Gal - who are all huge sunglasses, designer dresses and dyed hair with Paris Hilton as a role model and Gothloli - a strange mix of victorian dresses, lace cuffs, hair bobbles and soft toys worn by girls from the suburbs. We also visited the Shibuya ranKing ranQueen store but disaster! They were out of F Cup Cookies and all other types of cookie too.
Chris has been pining for curry ever since he arrived and so we went to what our guidebook bills as the best curry restaurant in Tokyo, Dhaba India in posh Marunouchi. Not wanting to take chances with curry in another country we played it safe and ordered two of the mildest dishes on the menu - butter chicken and creamy lamb curry. While the lamb worked out fine the chicken had been marinated in nitric acid and served in lava sprinkled with gautemalan insanity pepper ie V HOT. But for all that it was fairly authentic curry restaurant and full of happy locals.
Chris additional: I just want to add a bit more about the curry (in case any of my curry loving friends are reading: - Luke I'm thinking of you here esp.). The curry house had several Indian diners in it (a good sign), the chicken contained bones (never experienced that before), the naan bread was very doughy and gooey in the middle but they had Kingfisher beer (Nic preferred the Japanese sapporo brand). It was southern Indian so the choice was quite limited in terms of the variety of curry and rice. The dishes themselves were nice (butter chicken was a bit over spiced) but the portions were too small. Overall, very nice but the best curry house in the best city in the world for food was not half as good as the excellent takeaway curry in my local village (Massala Express in Edlington).
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Tokyo day sixteen
Today we went to the harbour area at Odaiba. We went to the Fuji TV studios and saw TV shows being made. Other things we did* Rode on a monorail
* Stood in a 1200 tonne ball 25 floors up
* Seen a huge replica of the Statue of Liberty
* Eaten in a Japanese McDonalds ("shakka shakka chicken!")
* Been to a replica 1960's Japanese street
* Went to the emerging science museum (Chris says; "ace, they had a nanotechnology bit, which is what I do at work")
* Stood inside a neutrino detector (for finding tiny subatomic particles)
* Had an infra-red heat scan of our faces (see picture)
* Seen the autograph of Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon
* Had my picture taken with the car from Back to the Future
* Been to the largest car showroom in the WORLD
* Had a ride in a driverless car (look, no hands)
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Tokyo day fourteen
Today we went down to Roppongi, which has traditionally been the sleazy part of town where all the bars and strip joints are. A few years back a massive development was made which is several skyscrapers with offices, residential apartments, shops (very, very expensive ones), an art museum, a garden and loads of other stuff all in one place. This was designed by Jasper Conran. We went to the big tower (middle picture) and paid about £7 each to up to floor 52 in an express elevator. Here there is a 360 observatory that gives the most stunning views of Tokyo. I was gobsmacked. The sheer size and scale of Tokyo is hard to convey. It makes London look like nothing. As far as the eye can see in all directions. In the distance I saw some black clouds on the horizon. Nic then pointed out that they were mountains. Mt Fuji is HUGE. Even from 60 miles away it looms over all of Tokyo. I have some pictures of it on the horizon but they have a bit of haze and anyway we're travelling on the bullet train out to a place nearer to Fuji on Saturday so I'll have some better pictures by then.For an extra £7 we got to go up onto this platform where a lady took a picture of us with a wide angle camera. The top picture shows this. The red and white thing is the Tokyo tower. We went over and paid another £7 to go up to the viewing deck here. The views aren't as stunning but a nice panoramic view of nightime Tokyo was to be had. The worst bit had a glass floor. Not good for my vertigo. We stopped off for an Italian meal. I had a large order of spag bog, cheesecake and beer. Nic asked for clams and tomato cream sauce pasta but she got octopus and chili sauce with some clams on! She also got earl grey tea with milk in! Poor Nic. The chocolate cake made up for it. Both meals combined cost £15. Tokyo is very good value for money and the food is amazing. Anyway, we're both shattered now.
Tokyo day thirteen
Today we stayed around the apartment and relaxed to recharge our batteries. I took Nic to the subsidised canteen at RIKEN around the corner. We each had a main dish, a bowl of rice and pickled veg, a bowl of miso soup, a dessert and green tea with free refills for about £2 each. We then had a stroll in the sunshine and stopped off for a lazy coffee. Nic had an attack of the jetlag and spent most of the afternoon on the sofa asleep. We went up to the supermarket in the evening where Nic bought an apple that was almost as big as her head for £1 (see picture). At home I cooked a nice steak, with cauliflower and potatoes with gravy and a glass of red wine. Delicious.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Tokyo day twelve
Today we got to do a couple of things that not many people from the west have done, even those who have visited Japan. Our host Takane first arranged for us to visit a genuine noodle bar in a neighbourhood just outside of central Tokyo where tourists never go. It was a tiny shack with a couple of tables and some seats at a bar where locals go to sluuurrrp their noodles (and slurp they do). Takane helped us order and Chris had udon noodles with tempura vegetables and shrimp in a soy broth, I had the same but with chicken tempura and we all tried two different types of sake. My chicken tempura was yum, really light and tasty with a proper broth.
This evening we were honoured to be invited to the RIKEN tea ceremony club where we joined their tea ceremony practice. The ladies very kindly lent me a kimono, which you can see in the picture above. It's an elegant outfit but much more complicated (and uncomfortable) than it looks; it has about 5 layers, loads of ties and panels and it took two ladies more than 20 minutes to make me presentable. The tea ceremony is thousands of years old and very exact so the ladies attend each week to learn from an experienced teacher. All the tools used have significance and a special powdered green tea called matcha is used. However for all the ceremonial stuff the ceremony isn't hugely serious and is a great excuse for the ladies to have a good chat and a laugh together. Things we have learned today:
* chicken tempura kicks KFC ALL OVER
* Kimonos are very hard work but I still want one to wear round Donny town centre
* Those of you who thought I would chuck green tea down someone elses 500,000 yen kimono were WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! Thank God.
Tokyo day eleven
It was a bank holiday in Japan today so we decided to join the crowds at the Asakusa Kannon temple which is Tokyo's oldest temple and was packed with people and atmosphere. To get to the temple you have to walk up a shopping street about 200 metres long with shops selling everything from ice cream to lucky cat statues to second hand kimonos. There is a thing making smoke that people were waving on themselves as it is supposed to heal or prevent illness and we chucked 5 yen coins into the shrine which is good luck. We then decided to go to Shinjuku to look at all the neon lights as it got dark and see what was going on. If you've ever seen footage of Japanese commuters being shoved onto packed trains by guards wearing white gloves - that's Shinjuku station and pictures of neon lit Tokyo are usually Shinjuku too. There's a giant Tower records in Shinjuku which had a live band playing and any CD you could think of to buy. We went and had a look around Takashimaya Times Square which is another huge department store complex, we stopped off for matcha green tea and coffee with whipped cream and to admire the view of Shinjuku from the top floor before going back to Tobu in Ikebukuro because Chris really, really wanted some spaghetti. On the way back we found a mini branch of the ranKing ranQueen department store in Shinjuku station - this is a shop where every product in the store is part of a top 3, 5 or 10 list according to popularity, from chocolate bars to hair perfume(!). We'll come back to ranKing ranQueen later as we're planning to visit the bigger store in Shibuya another day, but we mention it here because the number 1 cookie this week (rankings are updated every week) are F Cup Cookies as heard on Radio 1, which promise to increase your bust size if you eat them every day. Not sure if they work on boys!One final thing - we've done alot of riding around on the Tokyo Metro today and the Japan Rail (JR) trains have little TV's in the carriages which show adverts. One of these is '1 Minute English' presented by Berlitz, but instead of teaching phrases that might be useful in the UK such as 'Burger and chips please' or 'I have food poisoning. Which way to the hospital?' they're all business based, like 'appointment' and 'the report will be on your desk first thing in the morning'. Things we have learned today:
* Apparently Nic looks quite Russian
* You have tea before or after a meal, not with it, silly sausage!
* The Japanese love their boy bands
* F Cup Cookies really do exist and weren't made up by some idiot DJ
Tokyo day ten
Off to the Imperial Palace today to show Nic what it's like - it's in a lovely park but you can't see much of the palace itself cos the emperor doesn't like nosy commoners looking in apparently, so it's surrounded by massive trees, as well as the moat and walls that have been there since the year dot. After that we went to a big department store near the palace called Daimaru, but it turned out that Daimaru is the equivalent of Selfridges ie a bit snooty and v expensive. So we got the train back to Ikebukuro, and went to the Tobu department store which is much more Debenhams. We had a Vietnamese set meal that only cost £6 including a drink. Nic had a rice porridge set and came with a big bowl of soup, rice porridge (savoury rice pudding with chicken, much nicer than it sounds) and a giant spring roll stuffed with veggies and prawns - Chris got the same with chicken vietnamese curry rather than porridge. Things we have learned today:* The Japanese Royal Family don't have the same money grabbing instinct as our own - the Imperial Palace would have been opened up for expensive tours a long time ago had it been in Britain
* Heston Blumenthal was right all along about savoury porridge
* Japanese TV's are bilingual! ( though only for some shows like the news - the game shows remain gloriously incomprehensible)
* Tony the Tiger speaks Japanese
* Japanese 'jam' donuts aren't made from jam :(
Tokyo day nine
All those stories about jet lagged westerners wandering the streets of Tokyo in a daze in the middle of the night are true - I (Nic) am writing this at 4 in the morning, unable to sleep yet unable to do anything vaguely useful either. After a 24 hour train/plane/train journey I finally arrived in Tokyo, exhausted but pleased to be here. Although I didn't get a plushy upgrade to business class it was a good flight. All we wanted to eat this evening was a dirty burger so we went to Wendy's in Niramasu, the next suburb along from where we are staying in West Tokyo. Things we have learned today:
* Japan Airlines kicks British Airways' ass
* Carrying a big suitcase is much easier on the Tokyo Metro than on the London Underground
* Wendy's in Japan is just as nice as in the US
* Teenagers are stoopid wherever in the world you go
* Everything in Tokyo is 'kawaii' - from the cute cartoons of immigration officials at the airport to the lovely tunes played on the trains to tell you that the doors are closing
Tokyo day eight
Today was a marathon day. We vented the system ready to remove the manipulator. The engineers arrived at about 1pm and it wasn't until 1am that we had the manipulator back in, pumped down and the bakeout on. I had a headache and went in search of some aspirin from a vending machine and got locked out. What do you do? No-one is around and the guards just point and laugh when you try and explain your predicament through the medium of mime. I got back in by throwing stones at the lab windows to rouse attention!
Anyway, the headache got much worse and spread all down my spinal cord. It made my eyes bulge like they were ready to pop with a big pressure burst. I couldn't get any aspirin at 7-11 so I decided to sleep it off. Big mistake. I spent all night sat propped up in bed staring at the wall. It was too painful to put my head down on the pillow, too painful to watch tv, too painful to think. Finally dropped off for three hours at about 8am. Not the best day since I arrived and not ideal preparation for a six hour round trip across central Tokyo and out to Narita airport to meet Nicola, the cavalry.
Anyway, the headache got much worse and spread all down my spinal cord. It made my eyes bulge like they were ready to pop with a big pressure burst. I couldn't get any aspirin at 7-11 so I decided to sleep it off. Big mistake. I spent all night sat propped up in bed staring at the wall. It was too painful to put my head down on the pillow, too painful to watch tv, too painful to think. Finally dropped off for three hours at about 8am. Not the best day since I arrived and not ideal preparation for a six hour round trip across central Tokyo and out to Narita airport to meet Nicola, the cavalry.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Tokyo day seven
A very frustrating day. We cleaned the sample by smashing atoms into it and knocking all the dirt off then we baked it with some heat then we cleaned the LEED (used to check if the sample has made a crystal) then we cleaned the holmium source and then... at 7pm it broke. One of the wires on the manipulator inside the chamber has snapped and someone is coming to fix it tomorrow. This means letting air into the chamber, after we spent two weeks cleaning the inside of the chamber from the last time air was let in. D'oh.
I'm eating pizza which I burnt. This was after I realised my lasagne was only for the microwave (which I don't have) after the container melted in the oven. It really has been one of those days. On that note, every system that I've worked with since I started this job has broken and needed the manipulator out. That's 3/3 in less than a year. Beginning to think I'm cursed.
I'm eating pizza which I burnt. This was after I realised my lasagne was only for the microwave (which I don't have) after the container melted in the oven. It really has been one of those days. On that note, every system that I've worked with since I started this job has broken and needed the manipulator out. That's 3/3 in less than a year. Beginning to think I'm cursed.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Tokyo day six
We had a good day in the lab playing with the atom beam to make sure it was OK. This is done by bouncing atoms off our dirty surface into the detector. We moved the beam side to side and up and down to see what positions the surface was at (if we went too far the left or right with the beam, or too far up and down we got no atoms scattered back off the surface cos they missed it.) From this we could work out where the middle of the sample is. There was one worrying moment where the manipulator wouldn't move the sample around as we told it to but that was due to a small problem in some of the electronics. We soon fixed that one.
Steve is going in the morning. We just had his farewell meal which was EXQUISITE. It was a few villages away on the To Me. The couple who run it have had a restaurant in Ikebukuro for many years and are now retired. They keep a small restaurant as a hobby and because they are used to company each evening. We had about ten courses. The first was raw beef and carrot and broccoli. The veggies were cold and marinated in something very interesting. The beef was seared on the outside to clean it and then sliced thin and was delicious. We had soup courses and another beef course (this time with well cooked, slightly more gristly beef and more veggies). A course with baked rice balls was very nice. They are made into a triangular fishcake shape and baked for a bit then dipped in soy and baked some more. The one course I didn't like so much was set custard with bits of chicken in it and mint and orange on top. We had about 4 types of sake; hot, cold, clear and creamy with rice floating in it. All in a very elaborate and well served ritual order. Anyway, this meal was great. On the way back (about 9.30 pm) there were loads of people returning from work and kids just getting in from school.
Steve is going in the morning. We just had his farewell meal which was EXQUISITE. It was a few villages away on the To Me. The couple who run it have had a restaurant in Ikebukuro for many years and are now retired. They keep a small restaurant as a hobby and because they are used to company each evening. We had about ten courses. The first was raw beef and carrot and broccoli. The veggies were cold and marinated in something very interesting. The beef was seared on the outside to clean it and then sliced thin and was delicious. We had soup courses and another beef course (this time with well cooked, slightly more gristly beef and more veggies). A course with baked rice balls was very nice. They are made into a triangular fishcake shape and baked for a bit then dipped in soy and baked some more. The one course I didn't like so much was set custard with bits of chicken in it and mint and orange on top. We had about 4 types of sake; hot, cold, clear and creamy with rice floating in it. All in a very elaborate and well served ritual order. Anyway, this meal was great. On the way back (about 9.30 pm) there were loads of people returning from work and kids just getting in from school.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Tokyo day five
Today we cycled through the peacefull neighbourhoods of Tokyo to the temple at Jouranji. There is a giant Buddha here. The place is very beautiful and very tranquil in a way that I couldn't really express in words. The bottom picture shows things that people want help with that they have written down. One of them had a name and loads of love hearts so I guess that person was wishing that a certain person would fall in love with them. After leaving the temple we had some sorbu noodles at a nearby place which were delicious. A great day.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Tokyo day four
I'm very tired today because I was up at 6am. I pottered round for a bit then had toast and coffee (pronounced cohee in japanese) and cereals. I bought the wrong milk and it had yoghurt in it but meh. Japanese TV is mad.
I went into the lab at 10am and we spent the day degassing the germanium sample we will be looking at.
The big surprise was the food on campus;
Lunch; tonkatsu (battered fried pork) with rice and curry (little pickled peppers in the rice which made it taste AMAZING and english mustard with the tonkatsu), miso soup and green tea all for, wait for it... £2.
Dinner; Udon noodles with seaweed and some other veggies and tofu with green tea... £1!!
Called at the supermarket for some butter and proper milk and now I'm drinking beer and about to watch some red dwarf.
So ends my domestic diary for today.
I went into the lab at 10am and we spent the day degassing the germanium sample we will be looking at.
The big surprise was the food on campus;
Lunch; tonkatsu (battered fried pork) with rice and curry (little pickled peppers in the rice which made it taste AMAZING and english mustard with the tonkatsu), miso soup and green tea all for, wait for it... £2.
Dinner; Udon noodles with seaweed and some other veggies and tofu with green tea... £1!!
Called at the supermarket for some butter and proper milk and now I'm drinking beer and about to watch some red dwarf.
So ends my domestic diary for today.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Tokyo day three
Today was a quiet day. I got up early (because of the jetlag) and went for a 7am breakfast at Denny's. This cost £2.40 and was sausage, bacon (more like thin ham), scrambled eggs, lettuce with dressing, a slice of extra thick toast with cream butter and jam and free coffee refills.
I hung around the apartment all day doing some work and reading and doing a bit of consolidating. Later I went to the local district of downtown Tokyo (Ikebukuro) with Steve (my boss who is here for the week). We decided to go western and we found an Italian place on floor 11 of the Tobu department store. I had spaghetti bolognese, Asahi beer and vanilla ice cream for about £9.
Later I got the phone working and spoke to my wife for the first time since I got here which was brilliant. Nicola doesn't arrive until next Saturday so she's missing out on all the fun. I don't have any pictures of the food or the bright neon lights from today because my camera ran out of batteries in Ikebukuro before the first picture was taken. Note to self; take some spare batteries in future.
I hung around the apartment all day doing some work and reading and doing a bit of consolidating. Later I went to the local district of downtown Tokyo (Ikebukuro) with Steve (my boss who is here for the week). We decided to go western and we found an Italian place on floor 11 of the Tobu department store. I had spaghetti bolognese, Asahi beer and vanilla ice cream for about £9.
Later I got the phone working and spoke to my wife for the first time since I got here which was brilliant. Nicola doesn't arrive until next Saturday so she's missing out on all the fun. I don't have any pictures of the food or the bright neon lights from today because my camera ran out of batteries in Ikebukuro before the first picture was taken. Note to self; take some spare batteries in future.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Tokyo day two
Today I got up at 4.30am to go to the large fish market at Tsukiji. We wandered around the hectic market looking at stalls with all sorts of weird and wonderful wriggling seafood and vegetables as men on little motorised trolleys whizzed around picking up shopping lists for restaurants. Then we went for the freshest sushi in the world. I had squid, sea urchin, octopus and some other things (!). The sashimi was the best part and the tuna was divine. The top picture is of the queue outside the small sushi restaurant.
Then we wandered across downtown Tokyo and to the Imperial Palace. The second photo is me posing here. After that we went to Asakusa (asak-sa) to the west of Tokyo where there is a temple and some shrines. This was EXTREMELY busy. It was bright and colourful and there were many shops selling souvenirs and sweets. The gate has a huge red lantern which you can see in the picture. In the temple itself I threw a 10 Yen piece over the head of the crowd into a big tub to bring luck in our experiments. Then we went home just as the midday sun was up. From 5pm I slept for 12 hours and then had an early 6am breakfast at Denny's. £2.40 for eggs, bacon, sausage, lettuce and dressing (!) with two slices of extra thick toast with cream butter and strawberry jam and free coffee refills. Yum.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Tokyo Day One
Dear All,
Got to Japan OK. Total journey time was about 24 hours but Japan Airlines gave me a free upgrade to business class which meant; fasttracking through security so no queue whatsoever, a private lounge with a mini bar in which to wait for the flight and, on the flight, a bucket seat that turned into a bed and loads of nice free food and entertainment. Not too shabby. Anyway, Japan is great. It's just like the song 'pac-man' by Aphex Twin. Here's a picture of me eating some ramen noodles earlier this evening. You can see the effects of the travelling; my hair needed a wash which it has now duly got.
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