AN OUTSIDE VIEW

Gardner Street bag dumping Originally uploaded by seadipper . The government is planning to allow councils to charge for rubbish collection from private houses. To anyone other than a politician it is obvious that if people are charged for having their rubbish bags taken away there will be an epidemic of dumping them outside other people's doorways or anywhere else. The way to deal with this is to put a tax on packaging, cans, bottles, etc, to cover the cost of disposal. That will create a fund from which councils can draw on to pay for getting rid of the rubbish. Containers that were subject to a returnable deposit would be exempt. Simple. What's the problem?

The new government guidelines on embryo experimentation are being sold on the idea they will help scientists to produce a cure for a terrible disease. But sooner or later someone is going keep one of these, for example, pig-human, embryos a bit longer than the guidelines state, just to see what will happen. And a bit longer still. And after 22 weeks the embryo is viable and could be brought to full term. In fact, it might have happened already. What happens then? Tolkien was criticised for writing fiction, but this sounds not entirely dissimilar to the way orcs were bred. Very useful, too, they would be, for doing boring or dangerous jobs, or military use. Correctly programmed, they could be relied on not to go on strike for better pay or conditions. But it is OK because the new rules might help scientists find a cure for Alzheimer's disease.

The Feast of the Ascension has, from time immemorial, fallen on a Thursday, nine days before Pentecost Sunday. The Anglican church celebrates it. In many continental countries, and not just Catholic ones, it is a public holiday. It is often accompanied by traditional ceremonies. In Oxford, for instance, the Parish of St Michael's at the North Gate performs the ancient custom of 'Beating the Bounds' on Ascension Day. The clergy and members of the congregation perambulate the parish boundary, passing through and around various buildings, in order to 'mark' the boundary stones. On this day, the door between Brasenose College and Lincoln College is opened, and the procession ends with lunch in Hall at Lincoln College, accompanied by ivy beer. Afterwards, hot pennies are thrown to the children from the tower of Lincoln College into the front quadrangle. Lincoln College Ascension Day ceremonies In view of the religious and historical importance of this festival, it is ast...

Originally uploaded by excauboi . All over the world, there are people who suffer at the hands of their own governments or from invaders from outside. The plight of the Palestinians gets more attention than any other of these oppressions. In comparison, Tibet, Darfur and other African oppressions are way down the league table for exposure, and therefore the sympathy, they receive. And as for land grabs, what about the continued Russian occupation of East Prussia? Why is this? The Palestinian conflict is a nice assignment for journalists. They can stay at a comfortable hotel in Tel Aviv, take a taxi out to the troubles and be back by the evening, where they can rely for their safety on the Israeli army, whom they will then revile. At the sight of a TV crew, the Palestinian teenagers with nothing better to do can be relied on to start trouble, and so the cameramen get the dramatic footage they want. It is the perfect conflict. But the Palestinians seem to have a poor sense of public rel...

Jeffrey Sachs cites the Nordic countries as a model for the remedying of chronic poverty in Africa. This displays an astonishing ignorance. Political systems are a product of a history and culture. They cannot be transferred. In any case, the Scandinavian model of high welfare and high taxation of labour is not sustainable. It pushes up the cost of labour and drives the most talented and entrepreneurial people away. Ingvar Kamprad, head of Ikea, lives in Switzerland. Ingemar Bergman before him lived for many years as a tax exile from his home country. If the Swedes et al wish to keep their welfare system in the long term, they will have to shift to the taxation of land values instead of the taxation of work. The whole thing depends on a massive and generally honest bureaucracy to run it. This is not a model that anyone should be recommending for export. People have looked to Scandinavia before as an example of the way to do things - this was in the late 1950s, when Swedish architecture...

Grand Central are going against the trend with their plans for refurbishing the HST trains for use on services between London and Sunderland, pending arrival of their new Chinese trains in 2009. As the pictures show, the seats are laid out in groups of four, correctly located in relation to the windows. And there will be plenty of luggage space between seat backs, which is not possible when all the seats are arranged to face the same direction. The mark 3 carriages used in the HSTs have only eight windows per side, which allows 64 seats in each vehicle, as the window spacing was designed for first class.The new carriages, which appear to be based on British Rail Engineering Ltd's International Coach, have nine windows per side, which still gives a generous seat spacing for 72 seats. They will also be more pleasant to travel in as the windows are bigger than those in the HSTs.

The Department of Transport continues to develop its specification for the replacement for Britain's Inter-City 125 trains (HSTs). The actual work is being done by consultants Mott MacDonald, who have been paid several million pounds for work so far. The specification for the new train, now referred to as the Intercity Express Programme, continues to escalate. In reality, it is likely to turn out to be little more than an expensive wish-list; the aim now is for a very lightweight train with modern standards of crashworthiness, powered by either diesel or electricty with the option for changing over en-route, with Virgin Voyager standards of acceleration and a top speed of 140 mph. That is asking for a lot. Whether there is a need for such a train at all is debatable. Some routes on which the HST fleet is used need to be electrified, as the stations are close together and the traffic is dense. These include the Great Western Main line to Bristol and Cardiff, and the Midland Main Lin...

Chapel interior Originally uploaded by andrewpaulcarr . It is unfortunate that the traditional Latin liturgy has been taken as a rallying point for ignorance and reaction. An article by Moyra Doorly in the journal of the Latin Mass Society addresses a widespread concern when she remarks upon the failure of recent church architecture to establish a sense of transcendence. But she goes on to attribute this failure to the Modern Movement, which is unjustified. The history of twentieth century architecture does not warrant such a conclusion. (Article by Moyra Doorly in Mass of Ages) During the closing years of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth, new conceptual tools were becoming available to architects and designers through the proliferation of descriptive systems. These led to advances in understanding of all aspects of the built environment and product design – materials science, civil engineering, project management, acoustics, heating, lighting, ventilation...

For the record - the Five Pledges of 1997 were to cut class sizes to 30 or under for those aged five, six and seven; fast track punishment for persistent young offenders; cut NHS waiting lists by treating an extra 100,000 patients; get 250,000 under 25-year-olds off benefit and into work; set tough rules for government spending and borrowing, ensure low inflation and strengthen the economy.

"The Greatest Country in the world" was how the Prime Minister concluded his speech in his Sedgefield constituency, announcing his retirement. At a recent gathering of my contemporaries, now in the sixties, the consensus was that Britain was a place to move away from. This cannot be dismissed as the reaction of a bunch of grumpy old men. There are many worse countries than Britain in the world, but to make such a comment is plain silly. How typical of the man, too, to read off a list of statistics, carefully selected to show the Labour government's record in the best possible light. This was as simplistic approach as Labour's "Five Pledges", which formed part of the 1997 election campaign. Improvement in the overall quality of life is not what most people in Britain would recognise as we go about our daily business in Britain today, encountering as we do so the failure of so many public sector bodies to perform to a satisfactory standard.

Hagia Sophia Originally uploaded by John of Witney . This is Hagia Sophia, the ancient cathedral of the city of Constantinople in Asia Minor. It was the scene of a horrific massacre on 29 May 1454. This is how it happened. I am not keen on the American style of this quotation, but the picture of events that day is clear. "…Crashing aside the Christians at Varna in 1444 they [the Ottoman Turks] secured possession of Walachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, the territory now called Bulgaria and Romania, then in 1453 they put again under siege Constantinople which on May 29 fell into the hands of Mehmet II and by the way: do you know who was Mehmet II? A guy who, by virtue of the Islamic Fratricide Law which authorized a sultan to murder members of his immediate family, had ascended the throne by strangling his three year-old brother. Do you know the chronicle that about the fall of Constantinople the scribe Phrantzes has left us to refresh the memory of the oblivious or rather of the hypo...

Dungeness Originally uploaded by seadipper . Not having been born in England nor having English ancestors, I always feel uncomfortable about the flag with a red cross on a white background. A vision of St. George at the seige of Antioch during the First Crusade is said to have preceded the defeat of the Saracens and the fall of the city to the crusaders. Richard I placed himself and his army under the protection of St. George during the Third Crusade. He became the patron of England in the late Middle Ages. The Crusaders were a murderous rabble; the First Crusade was marked by attacks on the Jewish communities of the Rhineland, who had been settled since Roman times, while the Fourth Crusade was disgraced by attacks on the Christian cities of Byzantium, including the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. Nevertheless, the Crusades were a belated response to 350 years of Islamic expansion, under the renewed impetus of the Saracens. This should not be forgotten.

Hamish McRae refers to the persistence of the North-South economic divide and questions the wisdom of taking money from the South and giving it to the North (Independent, 2 May). The difference in productivity between north and south is an example of the principle described by David Ricardo in the nineteenth century. Ricardo observed that farmers could grow more corn in some fields than in others, the difference between the yield from a particular field and that from the worst field in use (the "marginal field") giving rise to a set of land rental values. The principle applies to all commercial activity. Any street busker knows that he needs to set up pitch in a busy place. Productivity in the north is inevitably lower than in the more favourably located regions closer to centres of population. This is due to many factors, the most important of which are transport and energy costs. The difference is apparent in rents across the country. The high rental values in London and ...

Amongst the famous sayings of Dr Johnson is the politically incorrect "A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all." Much the same might be said about the Pendolino, the fleet of tilting trains ordered by Richard Branson's Virgin company and now running on the West Coast Main line. This month's Modern Railway has a couple of articles about the Pendolino. What is coming to light in the discussion is astonishing. The Pendolino fleet consists of 53 trains, each of nine cars, of which 46 or 47 must be in operation each day to run the service. The cost of the trains was such that only this bare minimum was affordable. There have been attempts to procure a further 106 cars to lengthen the train, but this is unlikely to happen, mostly because of the financial and regulatory morass of Britain's botched railway privatisation. The lengthening scheme has intersected with the first maj...