Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting took the baton from me and listed his top 10 blogs (although unlike me, he concentrated just on Scottish political blogs). In the process, he accused this place of having “a scarcity of posts of late”.

Guilty as charged. A number of elements have conspired against me when it comes to updating this blog.

First of all, I set up a separate F1 blog — immediately robbing this place of around half its content! Then there was the fact that I was in my final year at university. I didn’t want to mess it up as the dissertation deadline passed, then essay deadlines, then the exams came along.

Even since the exams have finished, though, it hasn’t quite worked out. I always find the transition from busy (!) student to lazy summertime bum difficult for some reason that I can’t put my finger on. Blogging always takes a back seat for a week or two as I grab some rest and get those summer jobs dealt with. I have been — gasp — reading books for leisure (which I never get the time to do during term time). I have been listening to that pile of unlistened-to CDs that has built up since last summer. The pile is now down to six which is very exciting. I have also tidied my room from top to bottom, sorting through stuff to work out if I should chuck them out or not.

Then there is the small matter of finding a job. Or, more accurately, working out what my career is going to be. Now that university is over for good (and I doubt I will be darkening the doors of academia again), I can now — belatedly — devote more of my brain power towards researching careers. I have not got very far forward. Every time I seem to get closer to finding a path that I find acceptable, something comes along to put me off. For this and various other reasons, I still find myself running around Edinburgh from time to time.

Also, for the past seven or eight months I have routinely been taking daily walks round the park and suchlike. This was partly to get me out of the house and into the sun. It is also with one eye on my slowly-but-surely expanding belly. A good side-effect is that I spend the walks listening to podcasts that I would never otherwise manage to listen to. However, it’s possibly fair to assume that this time may otherwise have been spent blogging which is why things have been a lot quieter here over the past year or so.

Then, just when I was ready to get back into the swing of things, all of my websites were knocked out by that exploding transformer. Then a different issue put my websites out of action on Tuesday as well! All-in-all, I lost about three days of possible blogging activity.

And then I got some good news. I’ve got a degree, and it’s a 2:1. It was such a relief — I was genuinely worried that I was headed for a 2:2 which would have been seriously demoralising. I would really have kicked myself for a few things if that happened, but somehow I have escaped.

I still don’t know the marks for all of my courses yet, which is quite frustrating. Of the scores that I know, I was on course for a 2:2. And I am sure I muffed up one of the exams that I haven’t had back yet. I’d love to think it was my dissertation that pulled the whole lot up. Anyway, I shouldn’t worry about that now. What matters is that I’ll be doing the silly dressing up thing with the stupid hats and scroll things later this month. (Incidentally, does anyone know where the hell you get a white bow tie in this area? That is the rubbish I am being asked to wear for this thing.)

All of this is just a really long-winded way of saying: yes, I know, it’s quiet round here. Jeff said that the scarcity posts is made up for with thorough detail. That is really a side-effect of the fact that it takes me so bloody long to get round to writing anything. By the time I’ve reached this little screen my head has collected so many thoughts on the issue that I end up writing a bloomin’ essay. Even this post is probably about 2,000 words long now.

The thing is, just because I’m not posting much on this blog doesn’t mean I’m not posting much at all. There are four other major outlets of mine. Twitter is the main one where I post anything that will fit into the 140 character limit. Then there is Delicious where I post interesting links, often along with a pithy comment. Then there are the two other blogs, Scottish Roundup and vee8.

These all have a presence on the sidebar here, but I thought it would be good to have an area where all of these various updates are gathered on one page. I started with a lifestream (launched a few weeks ago, though I kept it quiet). But I wanted something a bit different so I spent a bit of time in Yahoo! Pipes to create what I have modestly called the “megafeed“. For the time being I’ve placed it just above the lifestream on… the lifestream page.

Neither of them is exactly perfect. The lifestream just contains the headlines of each item. It incorporates Last.fm as well, but it’s pretty rough and ready really. Meanwhile, the megafeed just looks like a big list of stuff. There’s no way to tell whether it’s a Twitter update, a blog post or what. I tried to make it more obvious, but either there isn’t a way to do it in Yahoo! Pipes or I am too much of a n00b to work out how to do it. Just thought I’d mention it since I spent a bit of time on it. Think of it as a stalking opportunity.

Now that I have sorted that out, it is time to post not just in the four other places but here as well. Now I have drawn up a little list of posts I want to write. My calendar for this week looks fairly empty. I should probably be looking for a job but I will try to get some stuff up here too.

You might have noticed that I haven’t been updating this place so much recently — although that’s quite a common occurrence nowadays so you might not have noticed! This hectic stage of my life finally came to an end on Friday as I sat my last exam. Here are a few things that have happened recently that are notable enough to deserve exclamation marks. Then I will get back to writing about proper stuff.

UFO sighting!

Was this an early sign that I was losing the plot? While I was on one of my many commutes from Kirkcaldy to Edinburgh I saw something in the corner of my eye while the train was passing Edinburgh Airport. At first I thought it was a bird or something — it was quite small. Just as I focussed on the mystery object, some kind of bullet or something shot across really quickly and the object disappeared in a puff of smoke.

My first thought was that there was some kind of clay pigeon shooting competition or something going on. But it seems unlikely that this would take place on the runway at an airport. Moreover, it seemed as though the mystery object was taken out by some kind of science fiction-style laser shot.

That experience was probably an early sign that the exams were genuinely driving me mad. For the sake of my own self-esteem, I have decided that it was a weather event. A really weird weather event.

Hand dryers that actually work!

There was a nasty surprise when nature called while I was in Edinburgh Waverley train station recently. It now costs 30p to spend a penny. The current inflation worries finally had a tangible effect on me personally. Forget food and fuel prices — the cost of taking a leak jumped by 50%! And it is plain inconvenient having to use a 20p and a 10p rather than just dealing with one 20p piece as before.

Anyway, I went in to do my business and they’ve given the place a nice renovation. The highlight is undoubtedly the new hand dryers. Hand dryers are notoriously awful. They just never do the job. All that ever happens is your hands get a bit hot and your hands remain as wet as they were when tap water rather than wind was enveloping them.

These new hand dryers in Edinburgh Waverley toilets are something else though. There are posters next to them that actually say, “Hand dryers that actually work!” I just thought to myself, “yeah right — hand dryers never work.”

The new dryers are quite strange. Rather than sticking your hands under a hot air blower, you stick your hands in a little slot in the top of a box. It’s a very strange feeling. You move your hands up and down in the pocket as wind gets blown around inside. I did this for around 10 seconds as the poster advised, but I was convinced that my hands would come out still soaking wet. But to my surprise my hands were bone dry! It’s like magic.

Furthermore, the posters proclaim that these new dryers are more energy efficient than the old design. The future of hand washing is indeed very exciting! These are special hand dryers — they have their own website as well.

So the next time you’re in Edinburgh Waverley station, think about going into the toilets even if you don’t need to go. Worth every of the thirty pennies.

The end of university!

I had three exams this time round. My personal feeling is that the first one went okay — could have been better, could have been worse. The second one was not okay — I had to choose two questions but I could only really answer one of them. The second question was just bluff. We’ll see how that went, but I’m not too confident about that. My third exam — the one I had the least amount of time to study for — was one of the best exams I’ve ever had.

At least I finished on a high. That is not quite my last action as a student. I still have some books to return to the library, collect a copy of my dissertation and utilise the careers service to try and work out what on earth to do next. Anyone want to offer me a job?

I won’t pretend I enjoyed university, and I don’t think I’ll miss it. Many people say the student days are the best days of their lives. The idea that the rest of life is even worse than this is something I’m trying to avoid thinking about.

It is often said that the most despised people in the country are journalists and estate agents. And while these people sometimes are indeed prize toss pots, there are two other professions that I despise above all others. Actors and politicians. Thing is, acting and being a politician is essentially the same job. They’re not wrong when they say politics is showbusiness for ugly people. Both aspire to earn money by spending their life being insincere. You can’t admire that.

But unlike many, I cannot bring myself to hate Boris Johnson in particular. That’s not because LOL I like his funnee hair and he is a legernd. (I do find it amusing, though, that people will — without a trace of irony — cite this article and others by the (admittedly excellent) Charlie Brooker saying “LOL! CHARLIE BROOKER IS A LEGEND!” It’s all a bit Dan Ashcroft if you ask me. But never mind.)

No, the real reason I don’t hate Boris Johnson is because I can’t stand politicians full stop. To single out one person the way some single out Boris Johnson seems incredibly unfair to me. And the reaction among some people to his election as London Mayor has left me in despair about the state of political discourse right now.

So I was glad to see the balance redressed somewhat by the excellent Nosemonkey yesterday. I was beginning to think I was the only one who couldn’t understand why so many people were queuing up to pour effluent on the man.

It is slightly dangerous territory for me to be talking about London politics. Everything I wrote here applies. But I have been spurred into blogging about this for two reasons. One is that the position of London Mayor is pretty much the only major directly elected post in the country and its effects inevitably reverberate around the country. The second is that the debate itself merits comment because it reflects the shoddy standard of political discourse in the UK as a whole.

I will refrain from commenting too much on the policies of either candidate. I know too little about the policies and obviously my opinions could well be different were I actually a Londoner. But I would probably have reluctantly voted for Brian Paddick. I would probably not have allocated my second preference. Choosing between Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson is a bit like choosing between shit and shite. Forced at gunpoint however, I would plump for Johnson.

I have, after all, voted for him before. A couple of years ago Boris Johnson stood in the election to become Rector of Edinburgh University. He was an early favourite, but then that shady coalition of Labour / Green / People and Planet / whatever in EUSA went on the offensive to produce a highly negative campaign based on Boris Johnson’s support for tuition fees.

The students, being self-interested, rational utility maximisers, decided to vote against the possibility of being seen to favour tuition fees. I voted on principle against this subsidy for the middle class.

Today we have the completely anonymous Mark Ballard as our Rector. Don’t know who Mark Ballard is? Don’t blame you. He used to be a Green MSP but was such a nonentity that he was voted out last year. As such, a genuine nobody is Rector of Edinburgh University. The guy we could have had is now Mayor of London. (Even Magnus Linklater would have been better. I actually met him while he was campaigning and he seemed rather pleasant.)

It is true that Boris Johnson is a bit of a clown. But I don’t see why this is necessarily a barrier to being in public office. People always drone on about how boring politicians are. They complain about bland inoffensive leaders — Blairs, Camerons, Cleggs and the like — who silence independent thinkers or anyone who could be seen as a loose cannon. They despise those Milliblands et al. who climb the greasy pole, toe the party line and so on. And quite rightly.

But then when someone who is charismatic, who is an independent thinker, who will not toe the party line comes along, apparently he is unfit for office. You can’t have it both ways.

Plus, the notion that over a million Londoners voted for Boris Johnson “just for a laugh” is highly patronising. I am pretty misanthropic, but even my hatred for the electorate does not stoop this low. I do not doubt that some people voted for Johnson on this basis, but to put his victory down to this phenomenon alone is surely wide of the mark. It makes you look petulant.

Also, I surely need not say that voting against Boris Johnson because he is a character is every bit as pathetic as voting for him for that reason. Yet, as far as I can tell, it is the number one reason why people have been so averse to a Johnson victory. It is also odd that people should complain about Johnson for being famous for being maverick, only to vote for Ken Livingston who… is famous for being a maverick.

To say that because Boris is a bumbler when he talks means that he will be a bumbler in control of London is pathetic. Political leaders don’t “run” anything — that’s the job of the civil service and what have you. Boris Johnson won’t be sitting in front of a real-life game of Sim City. Political leaders are public figureheads who canvass opinion, bring ideas to the table and direct policy and they are only one (albeit prominent) branch in a large tree. I see nothing in Boris Johnson’s character that will prohibit him from doing this job just fine.

And being a clown is, at least, a whole lot better than being malicious. Because that is what Livingstone is. While the character assassinations of Boris Johnson are ten a penny, people on the left tend to be an awful lot more quiet about Livingstone’s many failings. His inexplicable inability to simply apologise to Oliver Finegold for his drunken remarks; his failure to distance himself from homophobic Islamist Yusuf al-Qaradawi; his hokey-cokey in-out-in-out, I’m not running, yes I am but as an independent, then I’ll rejoin the Labour party, shake it all about. Don’t forget also that he rushed to the door like a yapping dog with its tail wagging to make excuses for the brutal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Of course, Boris Johnson is not just a clown. He is a toff. And he is a Tory. Booooo!

Well, all I can say to that is, grow up. This is just the most pathetic way to discuss politics. If you have to resort to invoking the days of Thatcher to persuade people not to vote Conservative, you must be scraping the barrel. Yet it is a staple of British political discourse.

The Labour Government could go round the country literally raping everyone. When someone calls them up on it, you can be sure the Government will turn round and splutter, “Ah yes — but the Tories brought you the POLL TAX. Booooo!” And the sheep on the left will be won over. They will hi-5 each other for what they see as an excellent sucker-punch (which is in fact a tired, over-used, irrelevant line), hiss at the Tories and let the Labour Government get back to raping everyone again.

I am in little position to comment on how bad Margaret Thatcher’s government was because I am too young to remember anything substantial of it. But it seems to me as though Thatcher is vilified mostly for ushering in some changes that were no doubt difficult to take at the time but which were necessary in the long run. Socialism is a discredited ideology — almost the entire history of the twentieth century should tell you this. Almost every other comparable country has gone through a similar process. Besides, Labour has done little to reverse this, so to turn to them while blaming Thatcher is hollow.

Even if I am wrong on this, you must realise that invoking Thatcher will not cut it much longer. For one thing, this stuff happened twenty or thirty years ago. Many voters (like myself) now do not even remember that far back, and politics and the Conservative Party are operating in very different environments now. It’s not fair on today’s Conservatives to punish them for the actions of the previous generation, and it takes the people with whom you are debating for mugs to crudely reduce everything to this. And it makes you look like a tosser as well.

The thing is, the Conservatives may have the Poll Tax (from twenty years ago). But Labour have the Iraq War (with goodness knows how many people killed) from this decade. There was their bullying approach to the media that went along with the Iraq War in this decade. They have created a climate of fear and general suspicion of anyone with “Mongolian eyes”, leading to at least one unnecessary death in this decade. They have turned this country into the most spied-upon in the world in this decade. They have begun to construct the database state, with all the security risks that entails, along with the hopelessly expensive ID cards in this decade.

They have abolished the 10p income tax rate. That would be bad enough from the Conservatives, but for a “Labour” government it shows a scandalous disregard for the concept of the progressive tax system. Labour have treated the voters with utter contempt, taking their position in power for granted.

Although I have moved on to the more general point about the standard of political discourse, this is related to the recent Mayoral contest. You could argue that all that has nothing to do with Ken Livingstone. But he helped legitimise all this by re-joining the Labour Party at the height of Tony Blair’s courtship with George Bush.

With all of this blood on their hands, with their power-grabbing, and their utter contempt for civil liberties, what is it that keeps them in power? The best response is “Maggie stole my milk… in 1970″? Get real. This approach has literally allowed the Labour Government to get away with murder. Why should I be prepared to give this Labour mob another chance?

You could argue that whatever Labour do, the Conservatives must always be worse because they are more “right wing”. But this argument does not cut it either. For one thing, it is precisely this approach that allows Labour to get away with all of this. The left just shrug their shoulders and mumble, “could be worse”. The Conservatives, on the other hand, are scrutinised for slightest bawhair of a possibility that they might infringe on people’s liberties. I am certain that the Conservatives would never have been allowed to get away with the Iraq War, the creeping privatisation of the NHS, ID cards and you name it in the way that Labour have been. This alone is reason enough to vote Labour out.

Furthermore, to expect the Labour Party to take a liberal approach is asking too much of them. Their traditional ideology is not liberalism, contrary to what some might tell you. It is socialism. Say what you like about the Conservatives, but at least they have a liberal wing in their party. With Labour you just get one kind of authoritarianism or another.

As for the argument that Boris Johnson will not be a good leader because he is a toff, that is just nonsensical bigotry of the highest order. Being of a certain social class should be not a barrier to holding office. After all, Boris Johnson did not choose his father.

Anyone who knows me will know that I am not rich in the slightest. But if I happened to have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I would like to think that I would not be subjected to this kind of bigotry. Justin in the comments at Nosemonkey’s says,

I tell you what, I will [get over the class prejudice] if they will. You obviously haven’t been swimming in some of the Tory cesspits I have in the last few months.

I am not a “party identifier” — at least not between Labour and the Conservatives. I was brought up by SNP-supporting parents. As I grew up I drifted towards the Liberal Democrats. From this position, I see a great deal more “snide remarks, personal attacks and class prejudice” from Labour supporters than I do from Conservative supporters. In fact, it is one of the things that has ultimately turned me completely off the Labour Party over the past few years.

I obviously haven’t been swimming in Justin’s Tory cesspits either. But if anyone can find me an example of someone saying that you should not vote for someone because they are too working class to do their job properly, I would happily accept defeat on this point. But I have never heard it said. But to complain that someone is too posh is par for the course.

Besides, to attack the Conservatives for being full of toffs misses the fact that plenty of Labour members are also toffs. Tony Blair isn’t exactly a miner. And the stuff about Gordon Brown being from a working class area only tells half the story. I have lived almost all my life in that same working class area, and people round here know that he was a privileged son of the manse who got special treatment during his education. So it’s vote Tory, get a toff; vote Labour, get a toff. Not that this should matter in the slightest of course.

To bring all of this back to where I started, remember that I am not a supporter of Boris Johnson. My point is that Boris Johnson as Mayor of London is not remotely as offensive as some people are making out.

This is a personal view, but I would never vote for someone seeking a third term unless they were exceptionally appealing. But the third term is when the rot sets in, if it didn’t during the second term. That’s when power gets to their heads. That’s when they lose touch of reality. In this light, a change is not all that bad.

Believe it or not, Labour do not have a divine right to power. Even Scotland, with all of its Labour rotten boroughs in the west, realised this last year. Just like in London, “the enemy” got in instead. While you may argue that the SNP are not Tories, they are nonetheless loathsome. But guess what. Scotland didn’t implode one year ago when they were elected. In fact, the SNP administration is a breath of fresh air, and it’s certainly a lot better than the prospect of a third Labour-dominated Executive. I don’t see why Boris Johnson should be different.

Of course, he could very well be a disaster. But the point is that candidates shouldn’t be judged on their background, their hairstyle or the colour of their rosette. They should be judged on their policies and their record. I’ve skim-read Boris Johnson’s manifesto and I have not seen anything particularly offensive and I see nothing that disqualifies him in my mind. Even if people do disagree with Johnson’s policies, this is fair enough — but I didn’t hear any of it. I just heard about his posh accent.

I am greatly saddened by the nature of the debate and the sheer hypocrisy that so many people are showing. Too many people are making terrible excuses for a disastrous Labour government. I blame these people for the road this country is headed down.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe I am asking too much. But any notion I had before that political ideologies are formed, debated and voted for on the basis of rational, intelligent thought have been shattered this week. What Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky said was true after all. Voting for a political party is just like supporting a football team for some people, with accident of birth and plain old prejudice at the basis of their support. I’d prefer it if these people could leave their childish desire to be part of a tribe in the football ground rather than in the ballot box where they are controlling my life.

The cheesy line goes, “if you don’t vote, you get the politicians you deserve.” Well, it’s not true. Politicians can’t do anything without votes. But if you vote for someone because they are the “least worst” or because “at least they’re not the Tories”, then you do get the politicians you deserve. My anger stems from the fact that I do not deserve these politicians.

Update: I’ve written a second post on this topic. I hope this concisely clarifies my intentions with this post. I also respond to the feedback.

It was my turn to write this week’s Scottish Roundup (nominations always welcome of course, even if it’s nothing to do with politics). I keep an eye on the Scottish blogs throughout the week in preparation, and towards the end of the week it became pretty clear that one particular wee stooshie had to be covered.

Labour blogger Kezia Dugdale has been involved in a campaign called Scotland for Obama. SNP blogger Calum Cashley was none too impressed. Then a number of other bloggers — SNP supporters among them — decided to take Calum Cashley to task.

I have to confess that I’m not a great fan of Calum Cashley’s blog. To me, it seems unnecessarily confrontational, negative, sarcastic and maybe even a bit boorish. It’s certainly not the sort of thing that would persuade me to vote for him come election time. But despite the response to his most recent post, in this instance I’m probably more inclined to agree with Cashley.

Maybe it’s just a reflection of my increasingly anti-political or apolitical (certainly in terms of party politics) viewpoint (I will consider the roots of this in a future post if I can get round to it). But there is something about the amount of attention that the US Presidential election receives that rubs me up the wrong way a bit. It’s not that I don’t recognise that the position of US President isn’t an incredibly powerful one. But political campaigns in general are starting to really get my goat.

Mostly, it is the implication that a campaign like Scotland for Obama will make a difference. It just comes across as a bit attention seeking. “Look at me and look at how much I care!”

I am pretty sceptical of most political campaigning. Of course, I have my views. But I have never joined a club, I’ve never gone on a demonstration and I’ve never worn any political t-shirts. This is because I know it will make next to no difference.

Come election time, of course, I love it. I stay up all night to watch the results. It’s great fun to cheer on the good guys and boo the baddies. As Jeff says in the tagline to his blog, “Elections - Probably the Best Spectator Sport in the World”. But beyond that, what does political campaigning mean?

Do I need to go on a rally to prove how much I care? Not really. Will the Scotland for Obama campaign make a jot of difference to the outcome of the election? I hardly think so. In fact, as Calum Cashley rightly points out, if enough Americans find out that those pinko Europeans are campaigning in Obama’s favour, if anything it will probably have a negative effect.

I am not sure it’s my position to tell Americans how to vote anyway. I know it has been pointed out in the posts I have linked to above that Scotland for Obama is not intended to tell Americans how to vote. But the point still stands.

Imagine if the boot was on another foot. What if somewhere in America a group of people gathered to express their support for, say, David Cameron. What would you think of it? I would think they were the most enormous fools. I would roll my eyes. I might ignore them. But it would more likely make me even less inclined to vote for Cameron.

The thing is that our viewpoint is unquestionably altered by the fact that we don’t live in America. The issues, the agenda and the political climate are completely different over there.

I know that whenever I have heard visiting foreign students express an opinion about Scottish politics (there is no shortage of this in the Edinburgh Uni politics department) it has often been the most ill-informed bum drizzle. You can’t blame them for that. They cannot possibly have as good a feel for the issues as someone like me who has barely set foot out of Scotland. They are projecting their views on American (or whatever) politics onto a map of Scotland. But it’s a square peg in a round hole.

I recognise that the same phenomenon would occur in reverse. In deference to this, I mostly keep my viewpoints on other countries’ politics to myself. I have my own opinions, of course. I do care what goes on in other countries. But you wouldn’t find me going around the place wearing an Obama badge or anything like that.

I have done a few of those online quizzes that tell you which candidate you should vote for. The results are here and here. When I did those quizzes though, there were a number of questions that I didn’t have the first clue about. In some cases I had not even heard of the issues and I couldn’t possibly have an opinion on them.

The same even applies when you’re in the same country. When I tried out Vote Match London about a quarter of the questions were about issues that I had never heard of, and half of the questions I had no opinion on whatsoever. For what it’s worth, it told me that I should vote for Boris Johnson. Would I vote for Boris Johnson if I was an actual Londoner? I simply don’t know because I’m not a Londoner.

And here is the thing. I am sure that London does not need my help to elect their Mayor. Equally, the USA does not need to hear my views on the Presidential campaign. An argument against this has been put forward by Political Dissuasion:

Would you criticise me for organising a rally against Robert Mugabe’s treatment of the people of Zimbabwe, where people are dying, starving and being jailed for actions and rights that you and I take take for granted?

There is quite a noticeable difference between the USA and Zimbabwe. One of them is democratic and the other is not. For all of its faults, at least in the USA there is a reasonable expectation of free speech, a reasonably free press, reasonably free markets and so on. None of this exists in Zimbabwe. So the people of Zimbabwe need international support so much more. Even then, I would limit myself to saying that I think Zimbabwe should be freer. Once they have the “rights that you and I take for granted”, I am sure they will be able to conduct their own affairs without the help of the likes of me.

The USA needs no help in this regard. They have their freedoms that they take for granted. If I were to stick my nose in, I would most likely be batted away. And if an American sticks his nose into my country’s politics, I would bat him away as well.

There is the other argument that US politics affects us all, which I suppose is true to an extent. But does it really affect us? I have my doubts. The likely winners of the election are much of a muchness. People like to pluck out the Iraq War as an example of how much American politics affects us, but these people forget that most Democrats were all for invading Iraq at the time as well!

Incidentally, I do have an opinion on the US Presidential candidates. As it happens, I favour Barack Obama. But I don’t pretend that this is based on any nuanced policy view. It is based on the fact that John McCain is a baad, baad Republican and that Hilary Clinton is a screeching maniac. Honestly, Clinton drives me nuts. She is like that teacher you could hear giving someone a row from the opposite end of the corridor.

There are other reasons, which I covered here. I really dislike the tone of Clinton’s campaign. You can just tell that she came into the campaign thinking she had a divine right to be President. The message of experience is total bunk. Her sumtotal of experience is limited to being married to a former President. Big wow.

At least Obama’s message is more positive. But here is another area where I agree with Calum Cashley. If the American public buys into all of the hope rhetoric, it is lining itself up for disappointment. We have seen this in Britain in the 1990s. Labour pulled off the exact same trick. “I’m here to save you from those awful conservatives!” Well we all know how that turned out.

The truth is harsher. No matter who you vote for, the government gets in. I’d love to see Barack Obama usher in a new era of hope for America. But if he actually does it I’ll eat my hat.

All of that said, I don’t criticise Kezia Dugdale or anyone else for getting involved in Scotland for Obama. It is a harmless campaign and if the people involved get a buzz out of participating then that is all good. We are all adults living in a democracy. By the same token, Calum Cashley is perfectly entitled to chip in, and I don’t think the points he made were as awful as some people are making out.

You know, I really don’t mind the SNP all that much. I mean, in the sense that they are better than Labour then I am pleased they won the election. And I think that, on the whole, they have done a very competent job in charge.

But what have they done since gaining power? ASwaS notes:

The first Act of the SNP Government was to abolish tolls in and out of Fife. The second Act has been to remove university fees. As a St Andrews graduate I feel like I am in a privileged subset of the population.

So there have been two acts, both of which I oppose. This is a bit paradoxical because I am a student living in Fife. Received wisdom has it that I’m supposed to be in favour of these policies. But only the myopic think this. People see the headlines — “free this” and “free that” — without thinking about the full consequences. The policies are unashamedly populist, but unsustainable. This makes the SNP demagogues in my book.

Both of these policies are completely counter productive to a Fife-based student. I have already covered free university education before, so I won’t bore you again. But I have been meaning to write about road tolls for a long while now. So here is why road tolls should not be scrapped.

Roads are a scarce resource. There are only so many roads that can be built with the resources we have (not least space). And it is well known that no matter how many roads you build, drivers will literally be queuing up to use them.

Roads are a particularly scarce resource if you are trying to leave Fife (and who would blame you?). Geographically isolated, Fife is a peninsula. The River Tay lies to the north, the North Sea to the east, and the Firth of Forth is on the south. On the west, the Ochil Hills act as fourth barrier to entering Fife. It is almost as though the Flying Spaghetti Monster was trying to tell us something about Fife.

Anyway, the point is that if you want to travel to Edinburgh from Fife by road you don’t have many options. Basically you can cross the ageing Forth Road Bridge and deal with some horrendous traffic jams. Or you can spend even more time (and use up more petrol) going via Kincardine.

So roads out of Fife are a very scarce resource. When a resource is scarce it has to be rationed somehow. Clearly, no everyone who would like to use the Forth Road Bridge, or indeed any road, would be able to use it because there simply isn’t enough of it to go around. There needs to be some way of finding out who needs to use the road the most.

There are two ways to do it. One way is to make people spend time. This is the way most roads work, and of course the Forth Road Bridge has recently become one of those roads. The other way is to make people spend money. Evil, evil money. Yes? No.

Evan Davis has explained why queuing does a really bad job at rationing a scarce resource. When you make people queue, you are making everyone spend a lot of time. Time is the scarcest resource of them all. You can’t bring back the past, and you can’t transfer your spare time to someone else who doesn’t have enough time. Once time is spent, it’s gone forever.

If, on the other hand, you use money, it might still be costly to you as a person. But at least the money doesn’t just disappear. It has simply changed hands. The money can be re-spent again. Now, society is better off than it would have been had everyone been made to queue.

So to use the Forth Road Bridge as an example, the government could choose to whack up the price of crossing. This money could then be used to build more hospitals, or even — shock horror — a second Forth road bridge or tunnel. Or they could use it to reduce taxes.

Instead, the SNP have chosen to make not only drivers crossing the bridge, but also society as a whole, pay through the nose just so that they can say that they have removed road tolls. It’s a pretty pyrrhic victory if you ask me.

A couple of months back Calum Cashley was sceptical that the removal of the tolls would lead to greater congestion. His argument was that as the charge was only £1, removing it would not make crossing the bridge much cheaper in the eyes of many. But if anything, this is an argument that the charge was not high enough in the first place!

Instead, the SNP have taken it in the opposite direction. Common sense dictates that it would increase congestion. And evidence suggests that it has — by half an hour every morning. The rush hour is now a rush hour and a half.

The situation starts to look even worse when you consider the environmental impact of this situation. If road tolls were in use then think of the carbon emissions that would be cut. Instead, the SNP have removed the one toll road left, meaning that even more drivers are just standing still on the road with their engines running and emitting carbon dioxide. And the SNP are supposed to be a green party!

So road tolls make sense from an economic and environmental point of view. Does that mean we should dive head first into a full-on road charging scheme? Possibly not.

I seem to remember that when Evan Davis wrote that post, it was on the back of a debate about the possibility of people being charged to use roads by the mile (or something similar). This involves having a little box in your car that enables you to be tracked wherever you go. It might be economically efficient, but there is a serious problem with civil liberties there.

Also, it is perhaps worth pointing out that queuing is probably not always the worse option. Even though people grumble about NHS waiting lists, it seems preferable to a charge-based system where doctors could make up your illnesses in order to extract more money from you.

Nevertheless, the principle of road charging (if not the method as it currently stands) is perfectly sound. The tollbooth system on the Forth Road Bridge did not suffer from this civil liberties issue, so there was no good reason to abolish them. It was all the more farcical when the Scottish Government decided to pull them down at a cost of £2m, when they had only just been erected at a cost of £4m!

Yes, I am a liberal elite atheist trying to ban Christmas, and proud of it! Not really. Everyone else can celebrate it as much as they like as far as I’m concerned. But I don’t celebrate Christmas for religious reasons, and I don’t see any point in pretending otherwise.

I am celebrating though. Wintervals are older than Christianity, and it isn’t difficult to see why. Winter is a terrible time of year, bereft of warmth and particularly sunlight. It is quite disturbing when you have sleeping patterns like mine and you end up sleeping through the entire day.

On this basis, I should really celebrate the Winter Solstice, like Adam Smith was a Socialist does. But seeing as everyone else celebrates on the 25^th, that’s good enough for me.

For me, this is an opportunity to enjoy yourself at a bad time of the year. One of the things I hate most about Christmas is the way people get so stressed out about it. People need to chill out a bit and enjoy the holiday instead of running around trying to buy tat which the recipient will, on average, value between a tenth and a third less than was paid for it (PDF).

I am not being smug about it because I have fallen into the trap as well. There must be some kind of sociological law that says the more you’re supposed to be on holiday, the busier you actually are. Just more lies from society. I don’t know why I don’t just exit now.

That’s why I haven’t been blogging much over the past few days, even though I have a million things to say. Story of the year. The busyness is partly as a result of my high-flying career in retail (!). But I’ve also got a mountain of university work to do as well.

In a way, I am lucky as an Edinburgh University student. Our winter exams are done and dusted by mid-December, so we don’t have them looming over us all Christmas. Having the exams that early has its own disadvantages of course, but at least Christmas is worry-free.

Not this year though. I have a 3,000 word essay to write about changes in Scotland’s population since 1945. The module is The Scottish Economy, which is very interesting, but also a damn nuisance because there is very little reading material compared to most other modules. I really will have to pull those 3,000 words out of thin air.

I’m also tearing my hair out about my dissertation. It’s due in towards the end of February. For various reasons, I never got the work done during the year that I was hoping to, so I am behind schedule big time. Well, I’ve written nine pages out of 30, but I’m sure to cover most of the material that will have to be edited down quite a lot anyway.

The upshot of all this was that I was in Edinburgh on Friday to take back some books that I haven’t needed for weeks and to do some reading for that Scottish Economy essay. I also got out some more heavy books. And lots of climbing up and down stairs was involved.

Then, sucker that I am, I went to do some Christmas shopping. Lots of walking up and down Princes Street was involved. And the stuff I bought was ridiculously heavy. I felt like a bit of a tube in the train station, as I battled with all of that stuff.

Worst of all, the combination of heavy shopping and heavy library books has left me with a plethora of strange pains in all kinds of parts of my body. I feel like a decrepit octogenarian. Next year I will probably stick to shopping in Kirkcaldy.

Incidentally, mad busy 24/7 shitlife aside, I will not be switching off the computer over the Christmas period as some people do. I don’t really see the point in that. For me, blogging is — and always should be (unless it’s a pro- or business blog) — a leisure activity. I enjoy it. So I won’t be stopping. There’ll be fewer readers around of course, but that’s their choice. (Proof, if ever it were needed, that blogging is sustained mostly by people who are skiving off work).

I am currently facing the same Christmas cards dilemma that I had last year. Only this time, instead of receiving five cards, I’ve received nine. Clearly, either nobody cares that I didn’t give them a card last year, or they have completely forgotten. Which kind of sums up the insincerity of exchanging cards.

Anyway, my mother is currently bullying me into writing nine reciprocal cards. I was going to give to charity instead, because let’s face it — giving to charity will do a lot more good. Besides, what will happen if I don’t give them a card? Will I end up in their bad books? It didn’t happen last year, so…

Well, I just flipped a coin to decide, and it turns out that I have to write out the cards. Bah.

A few weeks ago I attended a talk by Eric Maskin, who this year was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory.

Eric Maskin seems to be quite an interesting person. He lives in a house that was once occupied by Albert Einstein. I imagine that would make a great pub quiz question. Perhaps even more startlingly, Eric Maskin dresses up as Albert Einstein at Halloween.

Professor Maskin came to Edinburgh en route to Sweden to talk about voting systems, a topic related to mechanism design.

Arrow’s impossibility theorem implies that no voting system is perfect at satisfying a number of desired criteria. These criteria are:

• The Pareto principle — if everyone prefers x to y then y should not be elected
• Anonymity — every voter should be treated equally
• Neutrality — every candidate should be treated equally
• Independence of irrelevant alternatives — the ability of x and y to win an election should not be affected by the entrance of a candidate z
• Transitivity — if x is preferred to y and y is preferred to z then x should be preferred to z

That fourth one is probably the one that grates with most proponents of electoral reform. We can reel off instances where independence of irrelevant alternatives has been violated. For instance, had Ralph Nader not run in 2001 then Al Gore would almost certainly have become President of the USA. A fragmented left in France allowed Jean Marie Le Pen to enter the final run-off with Jacques Chirac in 2002, when there was every chance that Lionel Jospin would have won such a face-off.

Interestingly, Eric Maskin thinks that if the SDP / Liberal alliance hadn’t run in 1983, Michael Foot’s Labour party would have won the general election. What a thought!

Just thinking about this sent me under a dark cloud. The design of institutions clearly has a disturbingly massive effect. The voting system is much more important than the voters themselves, particularly when you couple this thought with the paradox of voting.

The system that Eric Maskin concentrated on is Simple Majority Rule. This method has voters submitting rankings of candidates, just as in Single Transferable Vote. Then you take these rankings and use them to compare candidates in a head-to-head scenario, two candidates at a time. By comparing just two candidates at a time, you get rid of the problem with independence of irrelevant alternatives. If one candidate is preferred over another by >50% of the voters, he wins the election.

Well, almost. Unfortunately, this system is susceptible to Condorcet’s paradox. For instance, >50% of voters may prefer Labour to the Conservatives, >50% of voters may prefer the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats and >50% of voters may prefer the Lib Dems to Labour. In other words, simple majority rule violates the transitivity principle.

The view of Eric Maskin is that to worry about transitivity is too pessimistic. For him, the Condorcet paradox is possible, but highly unlikely. This is because candidates can be lined up on a spectrum from left to right, and voters tend to vote in accordance with these positions.

As such, he suggests that simple majority rule is good as a least-worst voting system as it meets all of the desired criteria apart from transitivity which is unlikely to be violated. No other voting system works this well as often.

Of course, because the possibility of the Condorcet cycle even exists, there must be a tie-breaker. This is probably cause for a whole new debate in itself!

The talk provided some food for thought. For several years now I have been convinced that there needs to be a move away from the First Past the Post system. For the past few years I have been strongly in favour of Single Transferable Vote.

During the talk, one person in the audience specifically asked Eric Maskin about Single Transferable Vote. He said that STV can still violate independence of irrelevant alternatives, and pointed out that a similar system to STV was used in the 2002 French election.

I’m not entirely convinced that STV is all that similar to the run-off system used in French Presidential elections. The main problem with the French Presidential election (and the other examples that have been highlighted), as Proferssor Maskin pointed out, was the fact that voters were unable to rank candidates. Well, voters can rank candidates in STV.

Nevertheless, Condorcet cycle aside, I find the simple majority rule approach quite appealing. Yet we hear very little about it. If you are interested in electoral reform, I would say it is worth looking into a bit.

• Slides from Professor Maskin’s presentation (PDF file)
• An accessible article on this topic from the Scientific American (PDF) by Partha Dasgupta and Eric Maskin
• A more academic primer on the topic (PDF)
• More about Eric Maskin from Marginal Revolution
• Interview with Eric Maskin conducted by Adam Smith (heh). This interview does a really great job of outlining what mechanism design theory is and how it affects our everyday lives

On Saturday evening the last GNER train departed from London Kings Cross on its journey to Newcastle. They had to give up the East Coast franchise after their parent company ran out of cash to pay the government.

Reading about the company’s history on Wikipedia, I find it difficult to believe that it had only been around since 1996 — a strictly post-privatisation company. It had such a grand image that seemed steeped in history.

The GNER name was in fact a clever nod to three previous companies that used to operate on the East Coast — LNER, GNR and GER. It used a very old-fashioned looking coat of arms. It continued to use the ‘Flying Scotsman’ name, and even prided itself on running along “The Route of the Flying Scotsman”. All of these elements conspired to make me think that a company that was little more than a decade old was an important tie to our past.

Not so. But nevertheless I will be sad to see the name go. Rob Fenwick will have fond memories. But, despite their romantic image, I found GNER to be pretty shoddy as a train company in my experience.

I have not used them often — only for journeys between Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh. There are three choices here: First ScotRail, Virgin (now CrossCountry) and GNER. GNERs always made me the most nervous.

GNER trains were often chronically late. If I had to arrive at my destination for a certain time, I wouldn’t rely on GNER to get me there. Sure, they were susceptible to this because they made long distance journeys. But so did Virgin, and I found them much more punctual.

The trains themselves (Mark 3 coaches, in case you were wondering) were older than any others I have come across and were especially prone to breaking down. The slam-shut doors, whereby you had to lean out of the window for the privilege of getting the hell out, were like something from a pre-Health and Safety, pre-Disability Discrimination Act age — mostly because they were.

The worst delay I have ever been in was with GNER. The train broke down just past Haymarket and we had to wait for ages to get permission to go back to Edinburgh Waverley! And it was already very late. I felt sorry for all of the passengers who had to travel a longer distance on it. I just jumped off and ran for a more trustworthy First ScotRail train — as did quite a few other people.

Taking GNER’s place is National Express East Coast — or (if you like your four letter initialisms) NXEC. Of course, they will be using the same piss-poor rolling stock, so I won’t be holding my breath for an improvement on that front.

I do like that East Coast logo though. I saw a glimpse of it somewhere last week on my way back from Edinburgh (can’t remember where though) and didn’t know what it was. Its silvery glint caught my eye. I didn’t have enough time to look properly, but I liked what I saw of it.

Virgin Trains also recently lost its franchise — to Arriva-run CrossCountry. I’ll reserve judgement on CrossCountry as I haven’t used them yet. But I have to say that, unlike GNER, I always found Virgin’s service to be top notch, despite its image.

The trains themselves (Class 220 Voyagers in my neck of the woods) were excellent — comfortable and fast. But most importantly I could rely on them to get me to my destination on time.

There is a Virgin / CrossCountry train that departs Kirkcaldy at 1012 every day. This is a perfect train for me as it gets me into Edinburgh for my 1110 lectures, of which I have had many. It is the first train I can use my railcard on as well.

The Virgin one is cheaper and faster — but riskier. If it is late, I will be late. If it is on time I will be just a little bit late. But I have come to trust it. The train is very seldom late, and if it is then it is only fifteen minutes or so, rather than the hour or so you might expect a GNER train to be late. I’m quite sure this service will continue, as I have barely noticed the change of franchise.

I reckon this could be the issue that brings down the curtain on the SNP’s honeymoon period. They seem to have messed up a bit when it comes to universities, on two different issues.

Firstly, the universities say they are disappointed in the amount of funding they will get. The universities asked for £168 million extra and said that a minimum of £40 million extra was required for levels of funding to remain the same in real terms. What they actually got was £30 million — a real terms cut.

I have never been to any universities except for Edinburgh, so I couldn’t say how it compares to other institutions around the world. But I can’t help but wonder if the continued public funding of universities in this manner is unsustainable.

There is already a perception that Edinburgh University is increasing the number of international students it enrols. International students are the only students they can make money out of, so Scottish students will begin to be squeezed out.

It already disadvantages us in at least one high-profile way. The move to semesterisation has been seen as an attempt to attract international students who want to be back home for Christmas — but had a range of negative consequences for other students (additionally, that document doesn’t mention the fact that sometimes there can be just a few days between your last lecture and your first exam in December).

If it is true that Scottish universities are facing a real terms cut in funding, then this trend will continue. Then Scottish students will be worse off.

The other place where the SNP is feeling the heat is over their ditched plans to “dump student debt”. If you were a student, it was difficult to avoid the SNP’s ‘debt monster’ character. A number of blogs were even decorated with graphics of the creature. It was clearly a key policy in attracting student votes. So it’s hardly a surprise that a lot of students feel a bit miffed now.

I can hardly blame the SNP for not implementing this policy, which in my view (speaking as someone with £7,000 and counting to pay back to the Student Loans Company) was stark raving bonkers. They shouldn’t have promised it in the first place.

Both of these areas link into the fact that students have it far too easy. Proponents of free higher education miss the point of higher education. A degree is supposed to be a signal to employers that you are talented. For this signal to work, a degree has to be costly to attain.

After all, if it was easy to get a degree, any old fool could get one. This would lead to the ‘devaluation’ of degrees that people so often talk about. The point of making a degree costly is to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were. If getting a degree pays off for someone who is not so smart, then degrees are no longer a useful indicator to employers and everyone is worse off as a result.

Of course, degrees are costly anyway. Not in a monetary sense, but in a time sense. Theoretically, examinations are (hopefully) hard enough to deter the not-so-smart from spending four years of their life studying, and the opportunity costs that entails (i.e. four years spent unable to work full time).

However, it doesn’t quite work like that. When people are growing up, nobody is told the truth about university. Parents always push you into going into university due to pride. They don’t want their several years and piles of money invested in a life to come to nothing. Schools are the same — if a lot of a school’s pupils go to university, it reflects well on a school’s reputation. Meanwhile, governments like to encourage people to go to university because it reflects well on their reputation and it helps keep a lid on unemployment figures.

For this reason, there are many students who are walking around like headless chickens, not knowing what to do next (I would include myself in this group). So many people are forced by societal pressure into going into university. A lot of people grow up knowing having been told by parents, schools and governments that they will go into university. These people simply don’t consider any other alternative. Then when they are about to graduate they are stumped.

The obsession with persuading young people to go to university has also led to the fetishisation of “student culture”. Thanks to this, those four years are not seen as a cost at all. They are seen as the best four years of your life. Four years spent getting drunk. The degree is seen as a nice bonus. Fair enough if people want to enjoy themselves — but this is at the expense of taxpayers’ money.

How do we know that degrees are not costly enough? Because some graduates — mostly male arts students (who? me?!) — end up earning less than people who do not go to university. (This is part of the reason why this issue angers me a bit. If I knew I had to pay, I would have been forced to think through my choices a bit more, and would probably have made a better decision.)

Before statists and socialists start moaning, let me point this out. If degrees are costly, this need not preclude poor people from getting one. For one thing, poor people are the very people who benefit the most from university education, so they have the biggest incentive to invest in it.

Also, I still think it would be unfair to make poor people pay upfront. I would not be averse to the introduction of university tuition fees as long as they did not involve up-front monetary costs. Instead, the money ought to be paid after graduation (or drop-out) in line with your ability to pay. This is how student loans work, so I don’t see how it couldn’t work with tuition fees.

Besides, any pretence that free higher education helps poor people would soon be shattered if you spent five minutes on a university campus. Students are overwhelmingly middle class anyway. Instead of helping the poor, public funding of university education hinders the poor. It takes working people’s tax money and ploughs it into the pockets of middle class Tarquin and his Classics degree.

This is not necessarily to say that I am completely opposed to any state involvement in higher education. I would understand if there were a clear need to provide an incentive for people to attend university (although surely the prospect of a highly-paid job ought to be enough incentive). But today, 52% of 18–30 year olds either have a higher education qualification or are currently studying for one. There is hardly a shortage of graduates, or people wanting to graduate.

I went to see Battles a couple of weeks back. I already wrote about it the first time I saw them, so I won’t go on and on about it. Full reviews of the gig by Last.fm users are here and here.

In my view, this performance was even better than the one at Glasgow. It does feel a little bit like ‘Atlas’ overshadows the rest of the gig though! ‘Leyendecker’ was also quite an impressive performance.

There seemed to be a few technical issues. For some reason Ian Williams seemed to have problems with the looping, or the volume of his guitar or something. Show opener ‘Race: Out’ was ruined at first. The three guitarists quickly alternate turns playing twice a bar, but Ian Williams was too busy fixing his problem, leaving a big gap.

The impressive thing, though, was the way the band as a whole coped with the problem. Realising the performance was a dud, they just seamlessly started again near the beginning. I guess with all that technology involved, they must be pretty used to that sort of thing and they just took it in their stride. Many people probably did not even realise there was a problem (though they might have thought it was a bit long!).

Anyway, the point of this post is that Battles played at the Electric Proms last week. Tickets sold out before Battles were even added to the bill. The headliners? Editors. A slight mismatch perhaps. The wayward experimentalism of Battles was probably a bit of a shock to the system for the poor souls!

The full performance is available to watch on the BBC website until the 4^th of November. There is a taste of what I saw when Battles were faced with a problem. Dave Konopka had problems with the start of ‘Tij’. Not to worry — quick-thinking drummer John Stainer just improvised a bit. Nobody will notice!

A few days back I wrote about a neat Windows Gadget that tells you how the trains are running. I was quite enthusiastic about it then, but it turns out I didn’t know the half of it!

Here are some of the neat features that I have discovered since I wrote that post.

• Colour coding: trains running on time display the expected arrival time in grey. Slightly late-running trains are in yellow, while very late-running trains are in red.
• If a train is cancelled, you certainly know about it. The background turns red, and it displays in bold writing: ‘Cancelled’. Clicking on it gives you the reason for the cancellation.
• Service disruption alerts. A little envelope with an exclamation mark appeared. I clicked on it, and it displayed the following message:
  

  Train services between Edinburgh and Dunbar, and between Edinburgh and North Berwick are being disrupted due to a derailed freight train.

This Windows Gadget certainly isn’t a half-arsed effort. The information it conveys is incredibly detailed.

If you are a user of Windows Vista, you will no doubt be aware of Windows Gadgets. For the uninitiated, they are basically tiny little applications that run on your desktop (you might also know them as widgets or, in the world of Facebook, applications). You will also be aware that none of the sidebar gadgets in existence are actually useful.

Yeah, there’s that massive oversized analogue clock. And there’s that calendar that doesn’t do anything except tell you what the date is. Then there is the RSS reader that only allows you to subscribe to certain Microsoft feeds. The only really useful one that came as a default on Vista is the post-it note style thing. But apart from that, unless you really like currency converters, there was not much to get stuck into.

There isn’t even anything decent among the third-party efforts. The only good one is iTunes Accessory. Almost all of the others are banal and pointless.

This always struck me as a bit weird. After all, there seem to be a lot of good widgets available for Mac OS X. And even when you look at the wonderful and varied ways that Facebook Applications have been used, the world of Windows Sidebar Gadgets is startlingly stagnant.

But yesterday I discovered a truly useful and surprisingly well-executed Gadget made by National Rail Enquiries. Once you install the gadget, you simply type in your start station (and, optionally, your destination station) and up pops a list of how the trains are running. Essentially, it is the live departure boards feature of the National Rail website, just sitting there in the corner ready for me to glance at.

I already put it to good use yesterday, in my little game of chicken (what’s the latest train I dare to get?). I couldn’t decide which between two trains I should get. But when the earlier one started to run late, I decided I had better stay on the safe side and get the earlier one.

The gadget could do with a couple of extra features. Clicking on a journey brings up a larger screen with details on the expected journey times — but only from your station onwards (eg., I get a table of all the stations between Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh Waverley). But I usually like to see how the train has been running at stations prior to Kirkcaldy to give me a better idea of the journey’s history. I always get the impression that the journey estimates are a little on the optimistic side, and I’d rather like to see the cold, hard facts of how the train has actually been getting along.

But I can’t complain too much. As I said, it is just amazing enough that such a useful gadget has finally been made, and by National Rail Enquiries of all people! I get the feeling that it is going unnoticed (apparently it’s been around since July, and I’ve only just found out about it). If you are a regular train user and have Windows Vista, you probably ought to install it.

The other day I took my first trip to Fopp since it re-opened. After Fopp’s flopp, HMV bought the name and six of the stores (a far cry from the 120-or-so stores there used to be). HMV probably bought it to stop Gordon Montgomery from making an easy comeback, but they have promised to run the remaining Fopp stores as Fopp themselves ran them.

Immediately people were wondering if HMV had bought the right stores. I guess they are in a much better position to know which s