I am travelling up to Scotland this morning - this (admittedly short) post is brought to you by National Express East Coast railway’s free wifi.
You can pay more for wifi than the price of my train ticket if you want… Incredible!
Archive Page 2 of 6
Lucky Voice karaoke is highly recommended. In a small private room, you and your friends can karaoke along to such 80s classics as… The Ballad of Barry and Freda?
Enjoy,
Ronald
Poor man. He’s probably still suffering from stress after his neighbour’s houses were destroyed by tornado in December 2006.
Since I wrote the last post about cycling it’s become clear to me how many people I speak to who say:
“Wow, cycling in London. I would LOVE to do that but it’s too scary.”
There must be many thousands of people thinking the same thing. In fact, I remember thinking exactly the same thing for over 12 months before I plucked up the courage and got a bike. And after a week or so I realised how safe it actually is. I’d appreciate it if you would comment and let me know what you think about cycling in London.
I recently read that the only way to significantly improve cycling safety is to increase the number of cyclists on the roads. So if I can convince some of you to dust of your bikes then I’m making things safer for me… always looking out for number one!
Let me know your cycling situation -
Thanks,
Ronald
Heathrow are conducting public trials with volunteers to test out Terminal 5.
I have just signed my name down for a day of unpaid work.
I used to look at stuff like this and think it would be cool but damage my reputation as a sane person if I signed up as a volunteer - but now I can use my job (investigating new and interesting bits of London) as an excuse. Ha!
I have been cycling regularly in London for about 6 months. I’ve been through a number of stages…
1. FEAR. At first I was terrified of the idea of cycling in London… stories of occasional deaths and injuries plagued me.
However - deaths per km travelled is actually slightly less on a bike than it is on the pavement (admittedly I travel a bit further per journey on a bike, but this seems the fairest comparison). Did you know: not wearing a helmet potentially makes you safer on the roads!
2. NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES. Not being confident on the road leads to some wobbles. Lack of confidence prevents you from daring anything too dangerous, though.
3. RELATING NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES. Every day I would come home with a new story “Today a guy turned right into my path! and I almost died!” A set of practical rules form in your head: Don’t go anywhere near a bendy bus. Don’t cycle to the left of a large vehicle near a junction. Keep to the centre of the lane when turning right. Avoid confrontation with black cab drivers.
4. INCREASING CONFIDENCE. Suddenly crossing 3 lanes of traffic becomes a reasonable proposition - look behind you and indicate before each lane, it’s like you’re a real road user!
5. IMPROVED KNOWLEDGE OF LONDON. I know good cycle routes right across London. Islington to Hounslow? No problem!
Suddenly I’ve reached Level 6 though:
6. OVER-CONFIDENCE LEADING TO A LOT OF GETTING LOST. I’ve got to the stage where I don’t really check a map, I just assume I’m going the right way. Today I had to travel from Archway to Hampstead and back again. Easy route, just follow the road, 4 miles A to B and 4 miles back to A. This is what actually happened:
Oops.
Oh my gosh.
I haven’t seen one live yet but I am in love. MacBook Air is half the size of a regular MacBook (though at the expense of a disk drive and USB port)
I recently switched back from a MacBook to a PC (after full consideration of the cost) and immediately regretted it.
The MacBook I had was so perfect that my most serious complaint I had was due to my own greasy fingerprints on the chassis. I felt really comfortable carrying it around as it was a nice size (and now only 1.4kg!) where my current PC laptop mostly stays chained to my desk.
And then my PC had issues out of the box (the wireless modem didn’t work)… in fact I’m having more compatibility issues between Windows Vista and Windows XP than I am between Windows and Apple’s OSX.
Guess I’m going to have to break into my piggy bank! I hate being a stereotypical Apple fanboy (not too stereotypical… I don’t currently own any of their products) but this time I just can’t help it. Will wait for the hype to die down and read some bad reviews first, don’t worry!
I’d like to pimp out Bloggie nominee Going Underground’s Blog.
She writes a LOT of interesting stuff about the London Underground. Definitely worth a visit for the regular tube traveller.
I’m ashamed to say I’ve stolen this video from her: a performance of Michael Jackson’s Thriller on a tube carriage. Enjoy!
I know so many random facts about Brian May (for example I saw him a couple of times when he was writing his PhD thesis at Imperial College London) that just now while watching Music Television my brain asked me… “What’s Brian May doing in a Queen video?”
hmmm.
Good work by the way Bri! Perhaps you’ll inspire me to go back to my PhD in 35 years time, we’ll see 
P.S. Multi-talented Brian also writes a lot more than I do!
