Swifter than eagles. And stolen

First there was shock. Then there was grief. Then rage. There was a moment of shock when I rounded the corner the other night because, no matter how often it has happened to you, it is always a gulp-making thing to look at the railings where you left your bike, and see that for the seventh time in as many years some cowardly little fiend has used a combination of violence and ingenuity to steal it.

There was grief as I remembered what a lovely bike it was. It was swifter than eagles, it was stronger than lions. It was a silver-grey Marin Sausalito with featherlight wishbone struts and, with tyres pumped and a following wind, it was a two-wheeled Desert Orchid, capable of surging from Highbury to the House of Commons in less than 20 minutes.

And after the mourning the rage kicked in: rage at the epidemic of bike theft that is gripping London and the rest of the country – and rage at our society for the lax, passive, apathetic way in which we are dealing with that epidemic.

We treat bike theft as though it were a kind of natural event, like catching a cold or succumbing to some other morally neutral phenomenon.

Continue reading Bike Theft →

We go to work, despite the jams

But why do we still do it? Why do we put ourselves through the agony of commuting? It is one of the great mysteries of the modern world, and a rebuke to the futurologists. Do you remember all those people – about five or 10 years ago – who said we were going to be working from home?

They had every reason to be confident of their predictions. We have the gizmos to make it so simple, if we choose. We have computers and broadband and high-speed access to Skype and all the technology a man could need if he chose to stick at home with his wifi.

They said that, in a few years’ time, we would all be tele-cottaging and distance-working and generally interfacing from afar, and what utter tripe they talked.

Almost every day we see an increase in the tide of humanity that washes over the landscape. Last year alone, the numbers of passengers travelling by train grew by 6.7 per cent – double the rate predicted by Government.

The number of Tube journeys is set to rise from one billion to 1.5 billion a year. The number of car passenger journeys rises inexorably, we endure longer and longer traffic jams, and in an effort to escape the congestion, more and more of us enjoy the Palio of cycling in London – and all for what?

Continue reading Working from Home and the Transport System →

From elf and safety to blithering Balls

So now he tells us. Now he tries to repent. Well, thanks for nothing, chum. After 10 years of suffocating legislation, the Labour Secretary for Children and Schools, Mr Edward Balls, appears to have woken up to what his government has done.

After 10 years of elf and safety lunacy, Balls has plaintively called for children to be allowed to take a few risks: play conkers, have a snowball fight, climb a tree, get a few scabs back on their knees. Bring back the joys of childhood, says the blithering Balls, as if Labour had nothing to do with the creation of our grossly over-regulated society and compensation culture.

“Children should not be wrapped in cotton wool,” said Balls yesterday, as if he hadn’t a clue about the innumerable prohibitions his Government has placed on nursery schools alone. Cotton wool? My dear Balls, if a nursery teacher tried to wrap a child in cotton wool, she would almost certainly be disciplined for engaging in inappropriate physical contact.

I’m quite serious. Nursery school teachers are not allowed to apply plasters, in case the child is allergic to plasters. Calpol is verboten. As for suncream! You need written permission to smear suncream, because any adult seen doing so is assumed to have some pervy purpose. It is technically forbidden to ask a child to stand on a chair (he or she might fall off), and as for disciplining children – you have no idea of the Pol Pot terror that can be visited on an adult caught in the act of trying to exercise authority.

Take the case of poor Olive Rack, 56, who has 20 years experience as a nursery teacher, and who last year saw one of her charges – a two-year-old – whacking a baby over the head with a large wooden brick. The toddler was about to have a second crack when Olive intervened and took her by the hand to the naughty chair.

Continue reading Ed Balls and Nursery provision →

The real turn-off is a lack of marriageable men

The other day, I was giving a lift to a group of 14-year-old girls and, as we waited at the traffic lights, I became dimly aware of something remarkable about their conversation. They were all bright sparks, in the process of being coached up by their schools to become captains of industry, Members of Parliament and all the rest of it.

But as I inclined my ear, I realised that they weren’t discussing their dotcoms; they weren’t preparing for the time when they would be joining each other on the pages of Fortune magazine or Business Week.

No, they were discussing marriage. They were planning their wedding days, down to the last sugared almond and the exact cut of their dresses. For you that are in the search of your perfect dress check out this top boho wedding dresses.

Not only were they consulting a magazine called Brides, these 14-year-olds, but they had a special supplement of Brides, featuring a hunk in morning dress. Thinking of getting the perfect wedding ring  for your partner is such a beautiful yet time-consuming experience. There are tons of options, such as the best antler wedding rings online, which you can choose from.

Proper wedding etiquette begins the moment you start planning your wedding. From the guest list to the cheese-board, to the Limo Hire in Perth, to the actual nitty-gritty details of wedding planning! However, one of the best ways to plan a wedding as smoothly as possible is to know exactly what to avoid when planning your wedding. 

Whether you’ve been waiting to plan your wedding since you were a child or you have no idea where to begin, check out this approved list of fun things for a bachelorette party.

Continue reading Marriage →

the very act of le jogging – or le running as it is now more fashionable to call it – is a cultural humiliation

the Sarkozy jog is in conformity with the principles of the French Revolution, and the equality and brotherhood of man.

Bravo, Sarkozy – from one jogger to another

There are some people I know who are not so keen on Nicolas Sarkozy, the new President of France. Some prudes have been dismayed by the way he turned up at a press conference in a state of apparent alcoholic intoxication. Some think it a bit off that he tried to grab the steering wheel at the recent European summit, and change the fundamental principles of the EU Treaty.

Some people find him altogether too Tiggerish and bumptious. I have, I confess, been so far in a state of glorious detachment on the Sarkozy issue – until yesterday morning, when I read that he was once again under attack from the French intellectuals, and I found my sword leaping from its scabbard in his defence.

In the cafés of the Left Bank, they have fastened on what they regard as the single most objectionable and Right-wing aspect of the Sarkozy agenda – and what do you think it is? Do they object to his views on immigration? Are they worried about his plans to make French universities more competitive?

Continue reading Nicolas Sarkozy →

I rejoiced – and then Brown began to speak

You know what, I decided about lunchtime yesterday that I couldn’t take any more. The whole thing was turning into a blubfest of nauseating proportions. First we had the Pyongyang-style standing ovation, in which hundreds of hypocritical parliamentarians clapped their hands sore in celebration of Tony Blair – when a great many of them have spent the past 10 years actively trying to winkle him out of Downing Street, a group that includes many on his own side, and above all his successor.

Then poor Margaret Beckett was so overwhelmed that she started to weep, and had to be “comforted” by John Reid, a procedure that is surely enough to make anyone snap out of it. And then we had the cavalcade moving off to the Palace, and what with the hushed tones of the newscasters and the thudding of the television helicopters overhead, the whole thing started to remind me of Diana’s funeral.

“It has been a very emotional day,” said Sky News’s Adam Boulton. “I have seen some incredible things today, things I never thought I would see.” What were these incredible things? “I have seen the Blairs’ exercise bicycle removed from Number 10,” groaned the honest fellow; and across Britain one imagined the Sky audience returning their sodden handkerchiefs to their eyes as they were racked with fresh bouts of sobbing. The exercise bicycle! The Prime Ministerial exercise bicycle! Never more to be used in Downing Street again! Woe, woe and thrice woe!

Even among the cynical brainboxes who sit here in the shadow ministry for higher education, I noticed a certain oohing and aahing, and so you will understand that I was seized with a desire to puncture the mood. Enough, I thought, of this glutinous sentimentality, and prepared to denounce the entire proceedings as a fraud.

Continue reading Goodbye to Blair →

The British public … were at no stage invited to vote on whether Gordon Brown should be PM.

I don’t remember any Labour spokesman revealing that they planned to do a big switcheroo after only two years.

..a transition about as democratically proper as the transition from Claudius to Nero.

Brown’s looking for a Scottish ally

It’s the arrogance. It’s the contempt. That’s what gets me. It’s Gordon Brown’s apparent belief that he can just trample on the democratic will of the British people. It’s at moments like this that I think the political world has gone mad, and I am alone in detecting the gigantic fraud.

Everybody seems to have forgotten that the last general election was only two years ago, in 2005. A man called Tony Blair presented himself for re-election, and his face was to be seen – even if less prominently than in the past – on manifestos, leaflets, television screens and billboards. We rather gathered from the Labour prospectus that said Blair was going to be Prime Minister. Indeed, Tony sought a new mandate from the British electorate with the explicit promise that he would serve a full term.

The British public sucked its teeth, squinted at him closely, sighed and, with extreme reluctance, decided to elect him Prime Minister for another five years. Let me repeat that. They voted for Anthony Charles Lynton Blair to serve as their leader. They were at no stage invited to vote on whether Gordon Brown should be PM.

Continue reading Gordon Brown →