JP's Corner of The Blogosphere

…is the title of the Aerosmith classic which has just been served up to me by iTunes.  It seems quite appropriate for the title of this post. It may surprise you to know that I am not David Cameron’s biggest fan, and despite the nice blue you see in this corner of the Blogosphere I remain an undecided voter.   You see, I am also sceptical about the Conservative’s campaign for change.  Cameron seems as full of silly gimmicks as Mr Blair and Mr Brown, and look at the mess that’s got us in to.  What I really want is someone who honestly tells it how it is, has the guts to make difficult decisions (which may be unpopular in the short term) and can bring about real change. What I really want, then , I hear you say, is Nick Clegg.  Someone who claims to want real change.  Someone who is clearly trustworthy and honest . Really?  It’s alright, there’s no need to sit down with a strong drink – I’m not about to come out of the Lib Dem closet.  Th...

In theory, I like the idea of having a ‘Station Guide’ on National Rail Enquiries, to help plan your journey.  As a concept, I can’t fault it. In reality, though, do we really need the detail of three possible routes between the Car Park and Platform 2 at even the smallest local station?  Do we really need to be given explicit guidelines to use either the ramp or the steps, and do we care that one option is 5m longer than the other?  Do we really need to be told to bear right through the entrance after being told to head towards it? If people are paid to take measurements, photographs and to come up with that sort of detail it’s no wonder that fares are on the rise.

(from http://www.mydavidcameron.com/posters4/scottish1 ). Given the debate on my last post, I thought I’d show this.  I quite like mydavidcameron.com – probably more so than I like the man himself – but I’ll elaborate on that another time.

As an English resident, I don’t generally bother with Alex Salmond’s drivel, but I have picked up on their desire to have a “ strong voice in Westminster .” This strikes me as trying to have someone else’s cake, and eating it.  I understand the SNP to be pro-Scottish independence, which means that they think that they can live without support from the rest of the UK.  The logical trade-off of this is that they should have no right to interfere in our business. No-one is looking at it from the other point of view and saying that if Scotland is independent we should have English representatives.  Which is perhaps fair enough, because if you continued along this line of logic we’d all be complaining that there are no English representatives in the French parliament either.  Just because we’re part of a wider group of nations (be that the UK, or Europe as a whole) whose policies may impact our own doesn’t mean we have a right to get involved ourselves. Central We...

I see that some people are signing up to a Facebook group about “press bias” in the UK. Apparently, “the daily newspapers "The Daily Mail" and "The Sun" during this election debate have been completely pro conservative and pushing for votes for David Cameron.” Are we meant to be surprised by this?  Did anyone set up a similar group when The Sun announced it was supporting Labour last time around ?* Surely a better way of wasting time alleviating feelings against “pro Conservative press bias” is to buy a copy of The Guardian.   *It has to be said that I thought that this particular announcement was a stroke of genius.

I was intrigued by this BBC article about the train drivers’ union ASLEF putting in a bid for the East Coast Franchise.  My attention was particularly captured by the fact that ASLEF want “to show how services could be improved without spending more money.” To improve services, I would have thought that one might want more staff.  To do so without spending more money either means paying everyone less, or making existing staff work longer hours without a pay increase.  Isn’t that the sort of capitalist behaviour ASLEF would normally strike over? Furthermore, where is Bob Crowe? The thought of “not spending any money” normally has him kicking off about ‘safety’ issues and the like.

Apparently I live in an area recently branded as “of social and environmental concern.”  I’ve even been to a couple of residents’ meetings.

I don’t know about you, but if I went to a breaker’s yard in search of a door for my van, I’d expect to find it easier to obtain a white one than one in any other colour. Some poor soul is probably driving a yellow van with a mismatching door, because yellow ones are ‘like hen’s teeth.’

It seems that there is nothing quite like a volcano for sparking memorable quotes.  In light of today’s ash cloud, many media sources are reminiscing about BA Captain Eric Moody’s famous announcement when the flight encountered volcanic ash in 1982: “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.” However, my favourite quote of the day is to be found in The Times , who cite Hjordis Gudmondsdottir, a spokesperson for Iceland's air traffic authority: "The ash is going out to the ocean and to Europe so our airports aren't really affected. It's almost funny, except it isn't, obviously."

I saw a good example of a positive election poster this morning.  “Working for Pembrokeshire” gives a good local focus, and it bucks a trend by not implying anything negative about the other candidates.  Stephen Crabb is incumbent MP in the area and his choice of slogan effectively says “vote for me on my current record.”  Obviously if you think he’s done a rubbish job then you might not be inclined to try and re-elect him, but at least it’s encouraging you to judge him on his merits alone, rather than someone else’s lack thereof. This is in contrast to the majority of Conservative posters.  The “Vote for Change” slogan sounds good, but it’s a bit generic.  Will there be a change?  What will that change be?  At the end of the day, it’s a slogan based on being fed up with Labour rather than offering anything specifically new.  We all have good reason to be fed up with Labour, and so I don’t need to be encouraged to vote for change – I’d just...

I agree with Alan Sugar in this – as I’m sure most people do.  Which begs the question as to how any of our politicians achieve a single vote. Still, much as I’d like to follow Alan Sugar’s suggestion and tell them all to p*** off, I believe that I have a duty to vote on May 6th. How I will vote still remains to be seen, and my decision is not currently helped by the fact that most of the election coverage seems to involve the parties slandering one another.  Is it too much to ask to want someone with the guts to stand up for their convictions and offer positive reasons to vote for them rather than reasons not to vote for anyone else?

…you find it hard to get your head around Jarvis Cocker being described as a ‘veteran’ musician.

At a time when my mother found mince pies, but not hot cross buns in her local Sainsbury’s, and Jonathan Ross is tweeting about “baby” Jesus, showing a Christmas billboard suddenly makes a great deal of sense.   Millions of people around the world are currently preparing to celebrate Easter, and Jesus’ resurrection.  If you’re not one of them, have you decided on another explanation for the known historical events surrounding Jesus’ death, or have you just never bothered to think about it properly? Will you think about Jesus for yourself?  Or will you say “yeah right,” on the basis that you think you know it all anyway?

If you are a Blogosphere Veteran, you may be beginning to worry that my regular rambles about trains have been replaced by a penchant for trade union bashing. I do apologise for this inconvenience, but as everyone is attempting to strike, I have a lot to say on the matter.  Besides, when it’s as justified as it is at the moment, it’s more fun than ever to poke fun at the unions. We learned this week that yet another trade union has made fools of its members by rigging a strike ballot. The RMT have had to call off the rail strike because the ballot included phantom employees. According to the BBC , our friend Bob Crowe justifies this as follows: "There's 1,700 workplaces and over 18,000 workers that work on the Network Rail sites, and we have to at any given moment in time before we ballot, name every single grade and every work location. "By the time you finish the audit it's like the Forth Bridge - you start again because someone else has been promoted, som...

When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One." The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself." There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this ...