2008 — 21 May: Wednesday
Just enough energy left for a photo from one of our very earliest trips down to Hurst Castle. We loved the seaside! Off on another bluebell hunt later. Same walk as here — sorry about the missing map.
Very early 1980s... G'night!
Come back, Jim Hacker... dept.
Remember the "hot potato" of the integrated transport policy that Sir Humphrey advised him to reject? Things are much more complicated these days. The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) have been examining aviation policy for a year:
Clashing government priorities across different departments and agencies — including promoting economic growth, meeting future travel needs, protecting the environment, addressing climate change, and ensuring the health and well-being of communities — are contributing to a lack of coherence across government.
More here. Oh, for the wings of a dove. Time (08:58) to start packing a lunch for our trek up Bluebell Hill. Better avoid the M3, too, in the vicinity of Junction 12.
Why wait for the downturn?
Carol Arrowsmith, head of remuneration at Deloitte, believes changes will be made to pay plans. "The one thing a lot of commentators don't recognise is [a downturn] starts to put a real premium on high-quality management. You start to sort the sheep from the goats." (Source.)
Just casually browsing while I wait for the second cuppa to attain optimum drinking temperature, I find we (well, our planet) may at one point have had three moons. I bet that would play havoc with astrological computation. And I see that a giant white kangaroo is assisting albedo (no, not libido) research. Shades of Vangelis!
I remember, I remember... dept.
A chap named George A Miller collected together — in 1967 — a lovely little book of seven essays. I bought my copy in 1974, though I can't be more precise (a lot of different things happened in that year: I changed jobs, moved from Hatfield to Old Windsor, met Christa, started contending with Dad's final illness, Christa's shoulder surgery, travelling to Germany) as I seemed to have less time for noting such minor1 things as when (or where) I bought particular books.
I vividly recall his essay "The Magical Number Seven" but I never suspected I'd encounter it again, as a footnote, in a text from the CIA. And I'd forgotten it actually dates back to 1956 (about which my memory is virtually2 blank). What a wonderful web we're weaving.
Before I forget(!) today's walk out at Itchen Abbas was another excellent one. The ploughed brown field we crossed diagonally three months ago is now full of knee-high green stuff (I don't know the technical terms for anything much beyond nettles and dock leaves) which Mr Farmer seems to be using in an attempt to conceal the public footpath that bisects his field. No chance!
Motorway madness
I'm just listening to the webmaster (Chris Marshall) of this amazing site. I love his comment on the sitemap: "It's beyond me to remember everything that's on the site, let alone where to find it all, so for the lost visitor I have put together this map that shows the way to everything you could need to find. Please bear in mind that the sitemap does not get updated as frequently as the site itself does. Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks (or, you know, months) for additions and changes to make their way here."
He's even highlighted (as "bad") more than one of the motorway junctions I regularly use. I agree both with his assessments and the comments left by visitors. Good stuff.
Life's too short...
... to bother saving 20p. I got a water bill today for 80p. I don't know why, as I've been paying by direct debit for years. I assume, having set up a new schedule of payments that take into account the newly-fitted meter, "they" forgot to take into account the fact that my scheduled direct debit (which they cancelled, not me) was covering the five week period of this strange one-off bill. (You'd think this isn't the first time "they" have met this situation, though.)
Anyhowsoever, off I go to my whizzy online bank, set up a new payee, plug in the 80p and — guess what? — they (my whizzy bank) can't handle payments of less than £1. Now I can't handle the prospect of another twenty minutes or so of my life spent on the water guy's unwhizzy VoiceMail system, and I certainly don't intend to start yet another slanging match with the whizzy bank, either. So, as I said, Life's too short, and I just resubmitted the payment, making it 20p more than requested. Time will doubtless reveal whether the water guys can handle an overpayment, and whether their own financial system is up to making a 20p refund. Of course, if it is there's no guarantee that my whizzy bank will let me pay in such a small dollop of cash.
Ironically, I know a chap, who knows a couple, who know a couple, who won a rollover lottery. I wonder how their whizzy bank system copes? Their balance is currently rising by over £4,000 per week just with the interest. Interestingly different problem, I guess.