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.