Death of the High Street

Working on a daughter's mountain bike over last weekend. It was daughter A's bike that she had given to daughter B. Needed general clean and oil and the brakes did not work. Worn out brake blocks. Diagnosed at about 16.00 hrs.

To get into the local town to buy new ones and get home, round trip time probably 45 minutes minimum, and it was Sunday so limited choice of shops and the proper bike shop was over the other side of town, maybe an hour plus of driving.

Onto the web. Searched bike brake blocks. Did a bit of reading buyer comments. Ordered a set of new ones (from Amazon as it happens - Amazon fulfilled but sold by a specialist bike part retailer). Delivery said to be next day.

Went off and got on with other things like cutting grass.

Checked emails at about 17.00 - parts had been dispatched.

Next day - parts arrived at about lunch time. And fitted by 14.00.

Why on earth would I want to struggle through traffic and waste about an hour of my life driving to buy them myself from the High Street?

And it must be more 'green' to have them delivered like this as the van had lots of deliveries to make, rather than me making one run.

The High Street is doomed. Or maybe High Street landlords are doomed?

Stupid Idea Of The Day

From the BBC:

Thousands of lorries could be banned from London to make the roads safer for cyclists, under plans proposed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

He wants a rating system from zero to five stars for heavy goods vehicles based on the driver's level of vision from the cab. The 35,000 zero star-rated HGVs currently operating in London would be banned by 2020 under the proposals...

Nine cyclists and 66 pedestrians were killed in the capital last year, according to Transport for London. The mayor's office said that over the past two years HGVs were involved in 23% of pedestrian fatalities and 58% of cyclist deaths in London, despite accounting for just 4% of the miles driven in the city.

Motor vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians just do not mix. Motor vehicles go on roads, pedestrians go on pavements and unfortunately there isn't really space for a decent network of cycle paths. It would be lovely if we had them, they are a joy to use, but we don't and that is the end of the matter.

Lorries only make up 4% of miles driven? So what? They bring in 90% of all the goods consumed in London and take 100% of the rubbish. Far more relevant to point out that only 1% of commuter journeys are by bicycle. London would manage just fine if nobody ever used a bicycle again, ban lorries and we're screwed. If politicians really cared about cyclists being killed and injured, they'd do a far better job by banning bicycles.

Further, for every one large lorry they ban, they will have to use a dozen smaller vans, so that will increase traffic volume by forty or fifty per cent, and I don't think anybody wants that, not even cyclists. Except all the people selling and driving the vans, I suppose.

Rant over.

"Community generated land values" part the manieth

From the Evening Standard:

The arrival of Boris bikes has fuelled a rise in the rental value of homes in areas considered to be property “backwaters”, estate agents claimed today.

Research by Benham & Reeves found rents had increased by up to 25 per cent in areas such as Sands End, Walworth and Haggerston since hire bikes were introduced.

The survey, of around 200 homes, has been approved by Transport for London. It was commissioned after tenants began to puzzle agents by requesting properties in specific streets.

Marc von Grundherr, director at Benham & Reeves Residential Lettings, told the Standard:

"Over the space of two or three months, I had a couple of tenants saying I don’t want to rent in that street, I want to rent in this street.

"They said it’s because there is a bank of bikes next to the property. I started to think whether there was a correlation between the bikes going in and price increases."

Research found substantial rent increases in areas not served well by the Tube, such as Cubitt Town (12 per cent), Haggerston (16 per cent), Olympia (20 per cent), Walworth (22 per cent) and Sands End (25 per cent). Average rents across London have risen by five per cent over the same period.

Previously many tenants dismissed these areas because they are a 10-minute walk or more from the nearest Tube or train station. The bikes are said to be the “missing link” in the public transport network.

"Police blitz on bikes to tackle spate of vehicle damage"

From The Evening Standard:

Hundreds of police are to flood central London in a "zero-tolerance" campaign against reckless cyclists in a bid to halt the "appalling" spate of inconvenience suffered by motorists.

Specialist traffic officers will be on duty on every major street, especially notorious junctions.

Over the past two weeks, dozens of car drivers have had paintwork scratched by inconsiderate cyclists who were not able to double guess which way drivers would turn at busy junctions.

Nine car and lorry drivers have lost several valuable hours helping police establish the circumstances which led to cyclists throwing themselves under the wheels of passing motor vehicles.

Starting on Monday, police will be looking for motorists using mobile phones and drivers stopping in the advance "bike boxes" at traffic lights and ensuring that their path is kept cyclist-free.

The decision was taken at a meeting between the Met and City Hall last night, hours after charity volunteer Richard Muzira became the sixth cyclist to die while obstructing a busy commuter.

Under pressure to act, the Mayor said he would also push for a ban on the "scourge" of cyclists wearing headphones.

City Hall had previously insisted they would not be rushed into action and real improvements for vehicle security would be delivered with a £35 million scheme for segregated car lanes to be built next year.

Fun Online Polls: Subsidies for windmills and solar panels & your favourite Armstrong

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll on an excellent turnout of 190 votes (thanks to everybody who took part) were as follows:

How much extra are you prepared to pay on your electricity bill to subsidise windmills and solar panels?

Nothing - 91%
£10 a year - 4%
£100 a year - 3%
£1,000 a year - 2%

I don't think that requires much further comment, does it?
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Not much else is going on at the moment, so let's find out who your favourite Armstrong is: the moon landing faker-cum-intrepid space pioneer; the cancer-surviving mono-bollocked drugs cheat ex-fiancé of planet-saver Sheryl Crow; the half of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller who features in the Direct Line adverts and doesn't look like Rob Brydon; or the gravelly-voiced trumpet player?

Or indeed one of the dozens of other similarly named people listed on this Wiki page.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Going off on a tangent

From The Evening Standard:

Environmental health inspectors have been told to take a hard line on burgers that are not fully cooked through, but Michelin-starred Angela Hartnett, chef patron at Murano in Mayfair and York & Albany gastropub, said Westminster city council should stop meddling and concentrate on “bigger issues”.

She said: "I’ve eaten raw meat, well-done meat — it has never done me any harm. Why not sort out the bike lanes or the traffic?"

Suitably fired up, the Mayor of London has promptly swung into action...

From the Evening Standard:

Boris Johnson has branded rickshaws dangerous and called for them to be banned from the West End.

The Mayor said even responsible operators "cannot ensure the safety of their passengers" and are adding to night-time traffic jams. He wants new laws that would give him the power to sweep the unlicensed and often uninsured pedicabs from central London.

So if "eating a raw burger travelling through London in a rickshaw" is on your things-to-do list, you'd better hurry up. It is unreported whether rickshaw drivers have contacted the council suggested they keep their nose out of people's private travel arrangements and concentrate on bigger issues, like food poisoning.

"Antelope crashes into mountain biker during race"

"Crashes into" is giving the antelope the benefit of the doubt, to put it mildly. From the awesome video up at The Telegraph, I'd call that "deliberately smashes".

Spotted by Peter Risdon.

Cows versus bikes; sheep on roof

Via Dick Puddlecote via Essex Hunter: Via Sue from The Daily Mail:

This is the bizarre moment two fire engines were called to rescue a sheep - which was stuck on the roof of a house. Stunned residents dialled 999 after the creature was spotted scrambling across roof tiles in the remote village of Pontycymer, South Wales. A team from Bridgend Fire and Rescue Service took 40 minutes to bring the animal down from the terraced row using a Large Animal Rescue appliance...

Cue jokes implying that maybe the sheep was trying to escape a farmer with amorous intentions.

Outbreak Of Commonsense...

... at The Ministry for Cycling:

Transport minister Norman Baker refused to back down today after sparking a safety row by saying cyclists may be safer not wearing helmets. He cited research that drivers may go closer to cyclists with helmets than those without, which could put them at greater risk.

Mr Baker, whose role includes responsibility for cycling, said: "If your head hits the pavement you may be better off with a helmet. On the other hand it may be that drivers drive closer to you and there is more risk of an incident. It's not a one-way street in terms of safety. The jury is out."

The minister stressed that he fully backed the Department for Transport's advice that children should wear a helmet because they are likely to have less road sense and have weaker skulls. But Mr Baker, a keen cyclist who does not wear a helmet, insisted it was up to adults to choose whether they do or not, adding: "I took a conscious decision when I became cycling minister that I would not change my habits after 45 years of cycling."

Roger Geffen, the Campaigns Director of CTC, the UK's national cyclists' organisation, says cyclists who wear helmets are 14 per cent more likely to have a collision per mile than those without.

But Katharine Hartley of road safety charity Brake said: "We have extensive evidence that helmets are effective in reducing the risk of serious head injury when cycling. Wearing a helmet is a really simple step that all cyclists can take. It's highly frustrating to see our minister with responsibility for cycling taking to his bike without a helmet."

Double NIMBY Fun. With a Side-Order of Home-Owner-Ism.

From the Evening Standard 17 August 2010:

A series of bizarre protests from residents has left 1,000 “Boris bikes” stranded in an underground garage and unable to be used by cyclists... One group of residents claimed it would be a “violation of their human rights” if a docking station were to be built outside their mansion block in Bloomsbury.

From the Evening Standard 10 September 2010:

It's a property rule of thumb that some of the most sought-after homes are near Tube and train stations — but now a new transport hub is driving up prices: the Boris bike docking station. Estate agents are reporting a surge in demand for properties with easy access to the Mayor's cycles for hire... Edward Mead, sales director of Douglas and Gordon in Chelsea, said: “The bikes are so impressive, they will put up rental prices. My only whinge with them at the moment is that they are very much only in the centre.”

So by a miracle of Home-Owner-Ist DoubleThink, these land owners will be claiming compensation for the disturbance with one hand and collecting extra rents or selling their land for higher prices with the other.

PS, somebody emailed me the link to the second story or left it in the comments a couple of weeks ago. I'd give him or her a hat tip but I can't track down who it was.

NIMBYs Of The Week

From The Evening Standard:

A series of bizarre protests from residents has left 1,000 “Boris bikes” stranded in an underground garage and unable to be used by cyclists... One group of residents claimed it would be a “violation of their human rights” if a docking station were to be built outside their mansion block in Bloomsbury.

Another complaint centred on the fact that the bikes would be positioned under a tree and would be covered in bird-droppings. Many residents have expressed concern that the bikes would be used by drunken revellers indulging in “horseplay”. One Kensington resident said anybody wanting to cycle “will already own a bike”.

"Police get 93-page guide to cycling"

Over at The Metro. Enjoy.

White on white racial slur ‘beyond the pale’

More Politically Correct Madness here.

The only good bit is the title. 'Beyond the pale', geddit?

Which leads me to thinking about headlines we'll never see, like Black on white racial slur 'is a grey area' or Black on black racial slur landed defendant 'in the brown stuff' or Yellow on yellow racial slur was 'taking the piss'.