Two stories on the BBC Website about Mayor Ken Livingstone “Late-night Tube plan announced” and “Mayor’s New Year plans under fire”.
Now why Ken needs to wait until the end of 2006 to implement late night tubes I don’t know, and the fact that he’s holding a party, but not telling anyone about it is no longer surprising, from the man who has flopped the last 3 years New Years celebrations.
Category Archives: Other
Back to Coventry
This weekend, Heather and me, went to Coventry/Warwick/Leamington Spa.
We booked a room at the Ansty Hall Hotel via LastMinute.com.
We then wandered around Warwick University, looking at all the new buildings, and then went into Coventry for the evening.
We had dinner at the Old Orleans in the SkyDome, and the chocolate brownie sundae for desert was so big, we couldn’t finish it.
With nothing on at the Odeon, we decided to try our luck at the Belgrade Theatre, where we got a two seater box for under £40 to see The Price. It was a wonderful performance, but the second act didn’t hold up to the first.
On the Saturday, we wandered around Leamington and Warwick looking at my old house and the shops I used to shop in, and then headed back home.
Labours smoking plans not good enough
The current story running in all the press (BBC), is that John Reid will ban smoking in all workplaces except private clubs and pubs which don’t serve food.
Now whilst I don’t agree on the LDYS policy, as readers may have guessed (and here), at least their policy means workers at the greatest risk, will be more safe.
Labours plans mean that the most smoky and worst ventilated places will still allow smoking, whilst the companies that have invested in ventilation systems, but choose to serve lunch time food will be banned.
A short drive
On Friday, Heather and I went for a short drive on the A1(M). Five hours later we ended up in Edinburgh!
We found ourselves a reasonably priced “hotel” and then went for a wander. After looking around some shops, we got something to eat and then headed off to Jongleurs. The comedy was good, just a shame the audience weren’t.
On Saturday we went to look at Holyrood, and to me it looks like it fell through the ugly tree and got the branches stuck to it.
We then wandered up the Royal Mile and stopped at a lovely chocolate shop called Plaisir du Chocolat for some chocolate overload. After filling up we headed on to the Castle, which was lovely, although a bit loud with the One o’Clock firing of the cannon.
We finally started to head home, with a quick stop in Newcastle for a curry at the Spice Cube.
Overall a lovely weekend.
Scots smoking ban details set out
Good to see Scotland taking the lead. Hopefully England will follow soon.
Even more site tweaks
Further to previous tweaks noted here and here, I’ve been playing about with the stylesheet for the HaloScan comments.
So it should now look more like the main blog.
If anyone wants me to have a look over their HaloScan comments stylesheet, and suggest ways to make it look more like their blog, then drop me a comment.
A decade of winning (and losing)
With the Lottery celebrating 10 years, I did a quick bit of research into the numbers that I play with every draw.
Now whilst I haven’t been playing the lottery for the whole 10 years (as that would have been illegal), when the mid-week draw came out, I started playing with my Mum’s numbers, as she didn’t want to, and when she stopped playing the Saturday draw, I did that too.
Since the start there have been 929 draws, that means that we’ve parted with £9,29, and we’ve won a prize 21 times, above the average of 1 in 54, but only a total of £210 in cash. Therefore over the last 10 years we are down £7,19.
Of those 21 wins some are memorable. 4 wins since January this year :), no wins for 15 months between August 98 and December 99, and the birthday win in 2002.
With the odds of getting four numbers being 1 in 1033, I should be seeing a prize bigger than £10 in the next year, and I wouldn’t mind if it was more than a few grand.
Westminster protests to be banned
Hmm, working in Westminster for the last two years, my view on the actions of Brian Haw have changed.
I have no problem with people protesting in Parliament Square, whether they be Anti-War, Pro Fox Hunting, Women’s Global Strike, Anti-Fees.
However I believe that Brian Haw is slightly different.
Firstly, Westminster City Council are always cracking down on people sleeping rough, including those behind Army & Navy on Victoria Street, so how Brian Haw is different I don’t know.
Secondly, if I was to hold a demonstration outside Westminster, and then leave my placards behind, I would expect Westminster City Council to remove them, but again it’s different for Brian Haw. How signs and placards which litter Parliament Square can be seen as “his property” I’m not sure.
I believe that he has to go, although I have no problems with him catching the bus everyday to Parliament Square, to stand out side and to shout through his megaphone, whilst holding his placard, but any more signs and the sleeping rough must stop.
A Second Style
Whilst wandering around the Opera website, I discovered the style setting handheld.
So I’ve knocked together a style sheet for mobile/pda devices which use Opera.
To add your own, you’re best off hosting your style sheets in a separate file, and not in the blogger template.
<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”https://blog.artesea.co.uk/blog_style.css” media=”screen”>
<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”https://blog.artesea.co.uk/handheld_style.css” media=”handheld”>
Will probably play about with it some more over the next few days, but if you want to have a look at how it appears, you’ll can download normal Opera, and then press Shift+F11 to get it to convert into SSR.