AN OUTSIDE VIEW

Mark1 carriage window Originally uploaded by seadipper . These sliding ventilators came into use in the 1930s. They were an advanced design with an aerofoil to deflect the air flow over the moving train and provide draught-free ventilation if they are opened up to the black marks on the notice above the warning sign. If the weather is hot and you want a good blow, you open them all the way. Unlike air conditioning, they do not consume a lot of power, are inexpensive to install and maintain, and do not break down when they are most needed, in the middle of the summer. They also have the advantage of letting some steady ambient noise into the train which drowns out the annoying sounds of mobile phones, personal stereos and loud conversations, so you can blank it out and concentrate on what you are doing. I suspect they are more hygienic than air conditioning - I have always wondered what life-forms live in the ducting. Unfortunately, some bright spark though that hopper ventilators (win...

Mark1 carriage door Originally uploaded by seadipper . These were very dangerous, so it was said. So they scrapped 1500 vehicles which could have gone on for another 15 years. This cost £1.5 billion for the carriages and another billion to upgrade the electricity supply because the new trains are heavier and use more current. As the price of electricity has gone up and will go up more in the future, this has to be paid for. The doors were a hazard because they could be opened when the train was moving, or if it was stopped and there was not a station platform, and people were sometimes hit when people opened doors before the train had come to a stop. But the money would have been better spent on almost anything, like improving NHS Accident and Emergency services, which are closing down all over the place. This would have saved a lot more lives than were ever lost due to the train doors. It would in any case not have been difficult to devise an electric latch to stop people from openin...

43162 Bristol Originally uploaded by Thrash Merchant . The Department of Transport issued a document on the subject in January 2006, as a preliminary notice for the guidance of potential suppliers of the new trains. This is known as a Prior Information Notice (PIN). The gist of the thing is that the trains will be in service for a long time and nobody can be sure what circumstances they will be operating in - for instance, to what extent diesel traction will remain affordable or what type of service the trains will be providing. Thus flexibility will have to be built in to the design. Which all seems quite sensible - some of us have been saying this for years and it is reassuring that it has now got through to the highest level. What does it mean in practice? Clearly something very different from the sort of inflexible, high-tech train that has been favoured for the past few decades and which is what the train manufacturers want to sell. Indeed, the specification seems to be saying, ...

HST at Redruth Originally uploaded by seadipper . This is Britain's Inter-City 125 High Speed Diesel Train. It was introduced as a stop-gap design in the mid-1970s. The type is still in front line service on Britain's non-electrified main lines, and the fleet is just being refurbished and fitted with new engines to keep it going for another fifteen years. Nobody can work out what to replace them with.

I came across this on the website of Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC)... “So much has happened in the past three years to progress the development of Jersey and the Channel Islands as a tax-efficient environment to attract those property-owning corporates, etc... seeking to set up offshore property companies and unit trusts... However, as with so much offshore, it just takes some changes in tax legislation elsewhere to provide an impetus and take the offshore market to a new level. “This certainly happened with Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) in December 2003... The massive growth brought about by these changes led to the coining of the term 'JPUT' as the market norm for the holding of UK based property assets in a tax efficient way to shelter the sale of the property assets from SDLT... “While ‘seeding relief’ (a concession for new unit trusts – henry) has been withdrawn, the legacy is a fantastic one of a much deeper market in indirect property owning offshore unit trusts... "T...

Crossrail differs from previous underground lines which have reached out into the suburbs over entirely new lines, in some cases parallel to existing main lines, or by taking over lines previously belonging to the main line operators. Only Thameslink shares tracks with the main line operators, and this gives rise to concerns which are inherent to such a concept. The first is delay propagation. Although Thameslink provides good connectivity, the service is unreliable. The line joins two separate networks and transfers disruption from one to the other; a delay at, say, Luton, will affect passengers at Haywards Heath, and there may be knock-on effects to other services. The long-standing and familiar problems with inter-city Cross-country are another example of such delay propagation across networks, and Crossrail can be expected to suffer from the same thing. The second concern is the rolling stock, which is inevitably a compromise, as it must be configured primarily for inner suburban ...

"More people in Britain think religion causes harm than believe it does good, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. It shows that an overwhelming majority see religion as a cause of division and tension - greatly outnumbering the smaller majority who also believe that it can be a force for good. "The poll also reveals that non-believers outnumber believers in Britain by almost two to one. It paints a picture of a sceptical nation with massive doubts about the effect religion has on society: 82% of those questioned say they see religion as a cause of division and tension between people. Only 16% disagree. The findings are at odds with attempts by some religious leaders to define the country as one made up of many faith communities." Guardian, 23 December. Which is why people are queuing up to send their children to Catholic and Church of England schools. This is an example of what is, I believe, called "congnitive dissonance".

Nasty little bit of political correctness in the Guardian, referring to the victims of the serial killer in Ipswich. The girls needed the money to feed their heroin habit. And even leaving aside the risk of getting into the hands of complete nutters, being a prostitute is a dangerous activity. Some of the trouble is our attitude to drugs. Nicotine is OK even though it affects innocent bystanders, at least we only have to wait till next year before it will be possible to go into pubs and restaurants without getting smoked out. Why they don't promote chewing tobacco in the country is a mystery, at least it does not annoy other people or cause a fire hazard. Alcohol is the big one but the government encourages it - it is a nice earner for the Chancellor. The police can hardly cope here in Brighton at the weekends and all night long there are noisy people walking through what used to be a quiet area so you have to sleep at the back or with the windows closed. Alcohol does far more harm...

An advertisement appeared recently in the local paper asking people to shop their neighbours if they thought they were working and claiming benefit. There is a whole web site where you can report benefit fraud. Of course I do not condone benefit fraud. But asking people to report on their neighbours is how the Nazis operated. I suspect most people would still not report their friends and neighbours if they knew about their benefit fraud. But if it became widespread practice, it would destroy the trust which helps to cement society. Goodness knows, the fabric of society is falling apart in Britain without any help from government departments asking people to shop their neighbours. Despite recent changes, the withdrawal rate for benefit when people enter work remains a deterrent to work and an incentive to fraud. There are still people, mostly at the bottom of society, who cannot afford to go to work! This is the inevitable consequence of targeting the most needy – people move into the t...

I have had comments on my alternative proposal. These are Where is the link to Shenfield? Where is the relief of the Central Line from Essex to Oxford St? Where is the link to Heathrow? Where is the link to Maidenhead? Where is the link to The Royal Docks and Abbey Wood? My alternative proposal does not address these but (1) Shenfield is not an important destination. Chelmsford might be. (2) People should be encouraged to use the airport on their side of the capital. (3) Passengers would continue to have to change at Stratford. This is not ideal but changes are acceptable if the design of the interchange is satisfactory. (4) Maidenhead is not an important destination. It is not a hub and has a population of 60,000. Reading is a worthwhile destination but would involve major infrastructure works. High Wycombe would be better than Maidenhead as it has almost three times the population, and this would make use of the redundant GW line as far as Ruislip. (5) The Royal Docks and Abbey Wood ...

Last week I received a statement from the Inland Revenue telling me that I owed £0.00. I telephoned to say that I did not need this information and if there were any cuts to be made in the "service", this might be a good place to start. Needless to say, the bureaucrat I spoke to explained how important it was to tell people this. I said I could have been notified by email as I had completed my return on line. There was no answer to this. Meantime, we are threatened with wholesale closure of post offices. The tax system costs over £25 billion a year.

The Rule of St Benedict - lecture by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This has all sorts of interesting things to say, and is by implication, highly critical of early 21st century capitalism. Text of lecture available here

Ladbroke Grove Tube Station Originally uploaded by raworth . The long branch of the Metropolitan Line from Paddington to Hammersmith via Ladbroke Grove could form the basis of an alternative Crossrail. In this option, the line from Paddington to Stratford would follow the same route as the present proposal. but it would be constructed to tube standards instead of full-size main line dimensions. At Stratford, the line would join up to the Jubilee Line. The service would run from Hammersmith to Stanmore ie Hammersmith - Paddington - Bond Street - Liverpool Street - Stratford - Canary Wharf - Waterloo - Bond Street - Baker Street - Wembley Park - Stanmore, so the route would be like the Greek letter alpha, crossing over itself at Bond Street. This would have all the advantages of the Crossrail, and none of the disadvantages, at lower cost, and existing proven types of stock could be used. It would also allow more frequent services on the Paddington to Hammersmith route, at present restri...

The sheep Originally uploaded by phatcontroller . Crossrail is the proposed major east-west route across London. It is intended to link the Great Eastern and Great Western main lines with an underground section running across the middle of London. It is suggested that trains will run from, Shenfield and Stratford in the east to Maidenhead in the west, but because of the limited capacity of trains on the GW main line, many trains will turn back at Paddington and it will also be necessary to cut back on the number of freight trains using the GW line. A rival proposal is for a service to Reading rather than Maidenhead, on the grounds that Reading is a more useful destination. The proposal also includes an option for a branch running south to Canary Wharf and Woolwich, to provide an interchange with South-Eastern services. The central section will run mostly in tunnel from Stratford, via Liverpool Street and Bond Street, to Paddington. Amongst the benefits are that people will be able to ...

This week's New Scientist had a feature on creationists who are trying to do "creationist science". Of course science cannot be done with preconceptions of this kind. But one conclusion to be drawn is that creationism itself is worthy of serious investigation - as an exercise in social anthropology. The revival of creationism is an interesting phenomenon in its own right. Adherents of Christianity and Judaism are not required to believe in the literal truth of scripture. In order to do so, creationists must first accept that these texts came directly from God, which raises the immediate question of how they came into existence? Were they encapsulated in a rock, perhaps a meteorite? Did they arrive in the form of a celestial email, perhaps via a modem connected to the numinal realm - to the mind of the supreme creator who conjoured a material cosmos into being from eternity? If indeed creationists imagine they can know the divine mind in this way, then they are claiming an...

Bus Interior Originally uploaded by seadipper . A 75 year old passenger was killed on a Brighton bus recently. The bus, operated by Stagecoach, was going down North Street when a man carrying a can of drink wandered into the road and the driver had to brake hard. The passenger, who was standing, presumably getting ready to alight at the next stop, was thrown down and sustained head injuries from which he later died. Of course it is not possible to comment on the precise incident, or on the vehicle in which he was travelling, but the illustration shows that the grab poles are so far apart that it is easy to be out of reach of one and at risk of falling should the bus brake hard or go round a corner. I have myself ended up in someone's lap when a Brighton & Hove bus turned a corner as I was moving forward to get off the bus. The advice given is that people should remain seated until the bus stops but this is impracticable as the driver might move off before the alighting passeng...

My old blog was becoming a bit of a hodge-podge so I have split it into three different blogs. OLD BLOG NEW BLOG ON THINGS THAT CHEER OR WIND ME UP NEW BLOG ON GREGORIAN CHANT

This blog has become a rag-bag of assorted topics so I have split it. NEW BLOG ON POLITICS, TRANSPORT AND THE ENVIRONMENT NEW BLOG ON THINGS THAT CHEER OR WIND ME UP NEW BLOG ON GREGORIAN CHANT LOCAL BRIGHTON AND HOVE STUFF

People have a right to the basic requirements for the sustenance of life. These are the four classical Elements - air, water, earth and fire. Air is not too much of problem, water is ok for some, and fire can be tricky. The most contentious one is land, because people can come along, put a fence round it and claim it is theirs. If anyone contests their claim to ownership, they are backed up by the law of the land plus any force of their own they may care to impose. Land is just regarded as a commodity to be traded like any other, not as something essential for people to live upon and make their livelihoods. Yet humans can do nothing without land. Since 1891, successive Popes have issued Encyclicals dealing with social and economic issues. Collectively, this is known as the body of "Catholic Social Teaching". It has far-reaching and radical things to say about all sorts of matters but has consistently skirted round the land issue. We get hints about people's rights to prop...

yvonne & john Originally uploaded by lomokev . We go in the sea at Brighton at 7.30, most mornings summer and winter. Sometimes we have newspaper and television features about us. The usual line is to portray us as raving nutters or eccentrics. If you think that, just try doing it yourself. In the winter you could die of heart failure, cold water shock or a panic attack. If the sea was rough, you could also die at any time of the year, again, either from panic, or being swamped by the waves or smashed down onto the shingle. And you might think you would be all right and die because you have misjudged because you can't read the sea. Sea bathing is not a trivial activity. This was well understood in the eighteenth century by Dr Johnson and his intellectual circle, who were dedicated sea bathers and came to Brighton regularly; they pursued the activity in order to hone their minds through engaging with the wild forces of nature. They treated the exercise as nothing less t...

Busted in New Road Originally uploaded by seadipper . New Road, Brighton is getting an expensive new paving scheme for theatregoers to admire during the interval. But it is going to take several months. It seems that the people who let the contract did not stipulate that satisfactory access must be maintained to businesses affected by the work. Worst affected was the hairdresser on the corner, who has been there about ten years. In fact, his trade has been hit so badly he has had to close down and the shop is up for letting. I wonder what compensation he will get for having his livelihood ruined. In due course, the expensive roadworks, paid for out of public funds, will enhance the rental values of the properties that benefit, and as the owners will pocket the added value, the taxpayers whose money has been spent will see very little return on their investment.

How to pay for services provided by local councils has been a bone of contention for years. We used to have Rates, which were a payment based on the annual rental value of each property. They were unpopular because they are the only tax that is paid for directly out of pocket, so people noticed them, unlike Income Tax which is paid by employers, or VAT which comes wrapped up in the bill when you buy things. Rates were replaced by the poll tax, officially called the Community Charge - which was a fixed charge per individual, but many exemptions had to be made and it proved unworkable. After the poll tax we got Council Tax, which is based roughly on the selling price of the house or flat. It was a quick fix and worked as long as it was low. But inflation and changes in the amount that councils get from the goverment have meant that it is being used to raise more revenue than the system can sustain, with the result that people on low fixed incomes are having to pay more than some of them ...

Development site Originally uploaded by seadipper . This is described as a development site. It was some kind of stables or building yard, and the last time it was used was more than fifteen years ago, when it had bric-a-brac stalls in it. Then they were kicked out, and somebody got planning consent for some houses. Since then it has just been something to be traded on at a profit as the land values in the area have spiralled, but nobody has bothered to build the houses. Somebody is going to get caught out when the crash comes, but the chances are that for a long time to come, the houses will exist only on paper. The planners usually get the blame for a shortage of land but this site is one of several in the middle of Brighton which have had planning permission for years. But why bother to build when you can make money by trading sites on? LAND VALUE TAXATION

10.5-gregorian-chant-notate Originally uploaded by designucdavis . Gregorian Chant is a good thing. Plainchant is another name for this kind of music. It is very old - at least 3000 years. Jewish Christians brought the music from the Jewish liturgy into the early church and it has been there ever since. Some tunes are found in both Jewish and Christian liturgies, though sung in a different style. It was not written down until the eleventh century, when the four-line notation was invented by Guido d'Arrezo. Before that, the tune was indicated by little curved marks called neumes; these are similar to the cantillation marks found in Hebrew printed bibles. But because they do not indicate the actual pitch of the notes, the music had to be learned by heart, and there are sometimes slightly different versions of the same music as a result. Musicologists have been comparing old manuscripts marked with these neumes, and it is now possible to gain a better idea of how the music wa...

Nearly all gone Originally uploaded by seadipper . The gales have now torn off nearly all the leaves from the weeping prunus in the Pavilion gardens at Brighton.

Transport Integration Originally uploaded by seadipper . This is a really good system, a joint venture between Brighton and Hove Council and Brighton & Hove Bus Company. It takes the stress and uncertainty out of bus travel, as you know how long it will be before your arrives. If you find you will have a long wait, you can choose an alternative route, or walk, or take a taxi. The buses are tracked by a GPS system. This information display is on the concourse inside Brighton railway station.

As well as being an eyesore, this is a waste of a valuable corner site. If the designers had done their job properly, they would have made better use of the site and used this frontage, eg as a showroom, thereby adding rental value and making a more attractive facade. The Brighton planners have a lot to answer for as well, because the brief for the site should have stipulated this corner building had a frontage to both sides.

Brighton storm Originally uploaded by seadipper . Today was the biggest sea we have had for several years - probably around 2001. At high tide the waves were touching the deck of the pier.

West Pier wreckage Originally uploaded by seadipper . The walkway has been left hanging in mid-air now that its supports have been knocked over.

West Pier wreckage Originally uploaded by seadipper . A lot more has been washed away, the stanchions in the middle of the picture have been knocked over and the walkway that it supported is hanging in mid-air.

Mayflower On Shenton Embankment Originally uploaded by Tango_hui_voine . This steam locomotive which looks like it dates from around 1914 was a very clever engineering concept actually designed at the start of World War 2. It was designed to be constructed out of standard and easily-made parts, many of which were also components of other existing types and therefore used a common pool of spares. The boiler is a simple cylindrical construction which was much less costly to manufacture and repair than the complex boilers used by the other railway companies at the time. It also has the advantage of having plenty of space for steam storage so in effect it acts as an energy container, which is exactly what is needed in railway conditions when the use of energy is intermittent. By all accounts it was every bit as good as the equivalent designs of other companies, such as the Class 5, but they had a reputation for rough riding at speed which could have been cured by adjusting the bal...

Weeping Prunus Originally uploaded by seadipper . This tree is in the garden next to Brighton Pavilion. It is some kind of prunus. It has two brief spells of glory. In the spring it is covered with blossom. In the autumn, the leaves turn a golden colour but are gone after a few days as soon as the wind blows them off.

New Romney station Originally uploaded by seadipper . Went there last summer for the first time. It really does have the atmosphere of a full-scale steam age main line, with the right sounds and smells. Most of the locomotives are scaled down versions of the LNER Gresley Pacifics, with two cylinders instead of the three cylinders of the prototypes. They were designed by the engineer Henry Greenly.

Sharpham Rainbow Originally uploaded by seadipper . There was a massive downpour and then the sun came out again.

Sharpham and the River Dart Originally uploaded by seadipper . Met up with a group of old friends in Dawlish and we went to the Sharpham estate near Totnes and walked round. It is in a loop of the River Dart.

Ornamental Squash Originally uploaded by seadipper . My friend grows these - they are mainly for decoration.

Effects of the buy-to-let craze - my neighbours at the back Originally uploaded by seadipper . My previous neighbours at the back had a nice garden and grew a lot of vegetables. Then they moved and the house was bought by a builder who destroyed the garden and paved it over. Then it was bought by somebody who has just let it and the tenants use it to store their rubbish, which there is a lot of. Which has not improved my view. Buy-to-let has been a disaster for areas like this, as stable communities have been replaced by people who are on the move and don't care about where they live. The government has made matters worse by encouraging it. The effect has been to stoke up house prices beyond the reach of people who want to buy them to live in. This has helped to inflate the house-price-bubble. Of course, it is not the price of houses that has risen, it is the price of the land upon which they stand. Like all bubbles, it will burst, the only question is when? Then the place...

I sent in my tax return using the on-line submission facility. This is a well thought-out system and easier than filling in the bundle of paper forms they send out. And it will do the calculation right up to the end of January deadline, instead of you having to send it in by 30 September. Highly recommended. Give it a try instead of paying an accountant to do a job when you have to do most of the book-keeping work yourself anyway. That said, there is no excuse for taxing people's labour. It is unnecessary, complicated, discourages people from working, is a cause of the problems resulting from having 85% of the population living in one-third of the land area of the country. One can go on and on. The reality is the tax is not paid by employees - that is just an illusion. It is in reality paid by employers. To put some figures on this. A nominal wage of £25000 costs an employer £27560, and provides an employee with a real wage - the net value of what people can actually buy with their...

Last Saturday, there was a minor derailment outside Brighton station at about 9 am. But trains were still not running at 7 pm, and the disruption continued next day. A crane had to be brought from Derby to put the train back on the track. This did not arrive for several hours, apparently because it is "out of gauge" and special arrangments had to be made to give it the necessary clearance. There always used to be breakdown train and crane kept at Brighton, just outside the station. In the early 1980s, a new one was provided, complete with modern emergency lighting for working at night. Why was it taken away? Twenty years ago, trains would have been running within three or four hours after a minor incident of this kind, with a normal service next day. Are we letting too many decisions be made by the bean counters?

I have been back in Britain six weeks and it is starting to get to me. So here are some positive images. Balcombe Viaduct; Water meadows near Salisbury; Pavilion Gardens, Brighton; Oxford - Clarendon Building and Sheldonian Theatre - amongst the finest groups of buildings in Europe

The council handed out these folding boxes for people to put their rubbish in to stop the seagulls breaking open the bags and spreading rubbish everywhere. But there are such a lot of people in the city centre who just stay a few months and move on that they don't know or don't care about taking the boxes off the street, so they are left lying about and are an eyesore in their own right. And the council doesn't care either, or it would warn and then fine people who were leaving them out - at £50 a fine it has to be worth sending someone out to deal with the problem.

A popular spot for our rough sleepers

Outside the Swimming Club on the sea front

Somebody bought this with the idea of putting up a tiny house but there isn't enough room so it has been abandoned to the paint sprayers

Another silly test but fun if you don't take it seriously ARE YOU CATHOLIC?

You do not need two fence posts next to each other like this. There should be a single post with the horizontal bars fixed to the adjacent corners. To do what they have done is seriously incompetent as well as looking unsightly. This should have been picked up and prevented at the design stage. If it slipped through at that point, planners ought to have noticed - this is in a Conservation Area. And if not then, the contractor or railing manufacturer should have picked it up. If it had got through the the designer and the planners, the job architect or engineer, or even the men on the job, ought to have realised the detail was wrong. It seems as if everyone involved had their brain switched off, but that is normal for Brighton and Hove Council.

How Brighton earns its title of "Skidrow-on-Sea" 1 - Rat-breeding area. 2, 3 - Rubbish boxes are never taken in and Brighton and Hove Council does nothing 4 - This one is persistent. I hope the kitchen is better managed. Strange that customers don't mind sitting right next to this. 5- Just what you need on a narrow pavement on a busy Saturday afternoon.

TAKE THE TEST - ARE YOU A HERETIC You scored as Chalcedon compliant . You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you're not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451.

Here they are in front of the Swimming Club Arch, probably settled in for the season and more will be along later. Their stash of Tennant's is kept well-guarded.h

Brighton Swimming Club committee has issued a new set of rules, exhorting people to keep the arch tidy and make new people and visitors welcome. It has been beautifully printed and mounted in a posh wooden frame screwed to the wall. It is nice to know our subscriptions are put to good use. However, what we have to encounter regularly is not at all welcoming. The problem of undesirable people messing in front of the arch would be solved if we could take over the space in front, which we need because the arch is too small for the growing number of people who use it, but the club is not seriously interested in this. The officers in Brighton and Hove City Council responsible for the sea front are not interested either, and the police are not interested in enforcing the "no drinking" rule. In fact, they hardly ever patrol the Lower Promenade, so it is used for all kinds of nefarious activities. In fact, you could load an army of terrorists on Brighton beach and it is unlikely ther...

TODAY Interest rates have been raised to curb inflation. The biggest inflation driver is high land prices which shows up as higher property and house prices. Higher interest rates will hit marginal firms and businesses and even those borrowers who rent their properties and do not have mortgages. The beneficiaries are those who are not producers but those who live on investments. Instead of higher interst rates why does the Chancellor not tackle the problem at its source and introduce an Annual Land Value Tax on all land (LVT)? This would reduce inflation, allow lower interest rates, dampen the property boom and provide the government with income for essential infrastructure and to enable it to reduce harmful taxes like VAT. In addition, a useful side effect of LVT would be to encourage the use of brownfield sites which would reduce property prices, making homes and business premises more affordable, create more jobs and ease the pressure and costs of urban sprawl. This was sent to me...

It has become increasingly difficult to get Brazil nuts in their shells, and the ones without shells that I get from Infinity Foods are more often than not rancid or mouldy and I have to take them back, which they are OK about. The reason it seems is due to EU regulations which are meant to cut down on the risk of people consuming aflatoxin which causes cancer. The aflatoxin comes from a mould that grows on or in the nuts. I had correspondence with my Euro MP, Caroline Lucas, and she followed it up. Eventually I was told that it comes down to the method of testing when the product comes into UK ports. They are ground up and tested, shell and all if they are shipped in their shells, even though nobody eats the shells. But the shells often have this contamination so nuts in shell nearly always fail the test, so they have stopped shipping them. But if they are shelled and dehusked in South America before they are shipped, they start to deteriorate and often go rancid. Also, some contamina...

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favour of a property company, J A Pye, based in Oxford, when it appealed against a decision by the House of Lords to allow the occupant, a farmer, “squatters’ rights” - the ancient right in English law to claim ownership of land if it has been occupied without challenge for 12 years. For many years, the farmer had been using the land, near Newbury, Berks, for grazing. Originally, it had been leased from the company under a grazing agreement, but in 1984 the company refused to renew the lease as it intended to develop the site. The farmer continued to use it and in 1997, registered a claim with the Land Registry, claiming to have aquired title by unchallenged occupation. Legal action followed, culminating in the Law Lords’ decision. The company then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which ruled that the UK breached the human rights of the developers by not changing an ancient law sooner, to protect landowners. T...

Adam Smith's portrait will soon be replacing that of Sir Edward Elgar on Britain's £20 notes, which has brought his ideas about free markets back to attention. Whilst staying at a friend's house a couple of weeks ago, I came across an article he had written, drawing attention to the limitations of free markets. It was written about 15 years ago, but it is as relevant as ever, and this is an edited extract of what it said. One should perhaps not wonder after 120 years of Marxist/pseudo-scientific analysis of economics, to hear that people should have rights as consumers, but no mention of rights as producers. Such views are propagated in university economics courses and found in the writings of many independent philoso­phers. It suits the dogma of governments of both right and left complexions... ...following Adam Smith, the free-market economy was a Liberal concept. It was resisted by the Tories until quite recently. The aristocratic basis of land and capital ownership did ...

First Capital Connect Originally uploaded by seadipper . This must be about the fifth livery for these trains since 1989. They came out in Network South-East red, white and blue. Then they painted them grey and called them the Belgranos. Then they were blue and yellow, and then a few of them have been back in another mostly-grey livery. Now First group has taken the franchise from Govia and they have got up this psychedelic colour scheme. They have also given the service a new name, "First Capital Connect", which is completely meaningless. This is particularly stupid as Thameslink is the official name of the service and a well-known brand in the area it serves, as well as being a good description of the route. And what a mouthfull "First Capital Connect" is for station announcers. Railway privatisation has been good for the firms that cook up colour schemes for trains. Pity, too, that they haven't done anything about the horrible seating layout in this ...

Brighton promenade Originally uploaded by Tibi08 . An article in The Observer on 22 October by their architectural correspondent, Steven Bayley, perpetuates the myth that Brighton first came to prominence on the strength of Dr Russell's promotion of the Sea Cure. The real story is more interesting. The development of a sea front at Brighton, based on sea bathing, begins with Londoners buying properties for the purpose over twenty years before Russell set up his establishment in the late 1750s. This first generation of Brighton sea bathers take up the practice as a means of engaging with the unconstrained forces of the ocean in order to replicate the habits of enquiring thought developed by the pioneering members of the Royal Society in the second half of the seventeenth century. Russell enters the picture later on, trading on pre-scientific beliefs about intellectual efforts being powered by the production of "animal spirits". The Russell Sea Cure was based on th...

Thalys train interior shambles Originally uploaded by seadipper . The Thalys is a train based on the French TGV, it runs between Paris, Brussels, Köln and Amsterdam. It is an appalling train. The seats are cramped and a lot of "window" seats just give you a view of the curtains. There is not enough space for luggage and it gets left in the doorways. At the next stop the platform was this side and all the stuff had to be moved. Trouble is nearly all the seats are face-to-back, airline style, only the difference betweens trains and aircraft is that planes have a baggage hold but trains don't. Compare the Danish IC3 train