Of Mice and Men

Being press week, this last week or so hasn't really been very exciting. Unlike the next few weeks which promise to be filled with more stuff than there are days to do it all.

I passed through Ashford's award-winning shared space scheme a few evenings ago, for the first time in months. I was interested to see that, among the beautifully aesthetic bricks, block and paving, were scattered an army of plastic yellow bollards - presumably to help drivers work out where the road part of the scheme is because it's not easy to tell. It's a bit embarrassing when one finds one has driven the last quarter of a mile along the pavement, especially when all the cars behind have followed.

I have been without my main laptop for the last few weeks as it has been busy digitising dvds, but I now have it back to play with, and the first thing I did was toon Vitaly Petrov. Just because he was all sweet, over-awed and emo when he got his podium place at the Australian GP.

Then Mark Webber because he went from 18th to 3rd in the Chinese GP. It's the Spanish GP this weekend, which is my favourite as it's Barcelona, of which I have very fond memories, even though no one was racing at Catalunya when I was there.

My train was cancelled this morning, the first time since the bruhaha over Southeastern targets, and it was due to some moron thinking it a fab idea to throw a brick through my train's windscreen while it was sleeping in the sidings last night. Moo.

Wednesday evening, I had my first experience of a lineside fire. I've seen them many times, but they've always been set back from the tracks. Earlier this week, the fire was on the far side of the tracks from my train, but was closely adjacent. We could really feel the heat as we went past which was actually a little shocking.

There was a train stopped just before it, and looking back, it could be seen that the flames were blowing straight across its path. I suddenly have a lot more sympathy for when they have to shut a part of a line because of a lineside fire. This particular one was somebody's back fence - was it sparks from the rails, or a BBQ gone mad?

I was with a heating manufacturer on Wednesday, which was highly educational, and full of amusing anecdotes - especially the one about the boiler, the bouncer and the 7am shower. Which I am not going to relay here - next time food and alcohol is involved, I will share.

I have a new pleco in the fish tank. Old pleco passed away a couple of weeks ago - fed up with being bullied by the loaches probably - and the algae moved in. Acquired new pleco, a young lady who is very flouncy and bad tempered and beats the loaches up. She is very excellent house-keeper and has cleaned away all the algae from the tank. I now need to find a way for her to come out of the tank and clean all the cat hair out of my house.

It has been brought to my attention today that I talk quite a lot about Neko and Nico and people are confused. So here is the difference:

• Neko is my cat. He hogs the sofa, but does not travel at over 200 miles an hour, not even when he hears food.
• Nico is currently my favourite racing driver. He drives a Formula One car very, very fast, but does not leave dead mice in my shoes.

I hope that clears up any confusion.

Some people may have noticed the really harsh radio ads telling people to check in with the doc if they've been coughing for more than three weeks as they may have lung cancer. I have no particular opinion on this - on the one hand, getting people in for earlier and more effective treatment for cancer/bronchitis/pneumonia/whatever has to be a good thing. On the other hand, an under-staffed NHS having to deal with lots of people coming in with nothing-in-particular is not such a good thing.

However, a medical professional I know has the opinion that the whole campaign is nothing more than a statistics exercise. He posits that persistant coughing is one of the final stages lung cancer, and a cure at that point is not a realistic outcome, but that it can be treated to give a longer life expectancy. Therefore, the campaign must solely be aimed at presenting statistics that raise the average time between diagnosis and death from a few weeks to a few months.

There is of course the argument that every extra day of life is worth it. This same professional's observations are that in the main, those who have managed to extend have their family around and supporting, but have no real quality of life, and those who don't know until the final days/hours/ever, have a very good quality of life, but will likely lack in family presence/support.

Makes you think.

The lighter side of train travel

Question from an observation at the railway station. If the train arriving at 10.28 is on time. And the train departing at 10.33 is on time. Both on the same platform, where only one train can be on the platform at a time. How can the 10.28 arrive after the 10.33 departs?

Before Easter I discovered Les Deux Salons in Covent Garden. Very posh, with the most helpful yet discreet staff I have ever come across in a restaurant. The kind where when asks for something outside the set function menu - water and wine were provided, but I asked for orange juice - not only was the juice freshly squeezed, but it was constantly topped up when I wasn't looking. Sort of makes one appreciate why those people who are accustomed to this kind of invisible service, can appear to be cold or dismissive to more visible styles.

I managed to avoid the Royal Wedding entirely on the day itself, and enjoyed the highlights in under an hour on Saturday evening instead.

The weekend was spent at Brands Hatch, which involved club cars and much fun with many incidents (no significant injuries) and much competitive driving, which may have devolved into a spot of thuggery now and again.

After Easter I spent a couple of days learning about ventilation, which was actually a lot more interesting than it sounds despite phrases something like the 'manual operation of non-mechanical exhaust devices' instead of 'opening the window'.

The train was late leaving Victoria earlier this week, which I won't whinge about as it arrived at Ashford only ten minutes late, and the entertainment value more than made up for that.

The tannoy on the train was admittedly unclear, or perhaps our brains were unable to properly process either the logic or implications. However, it very much sounded like the driver said '... delay is due to the fact that I've just discovered the dashboard is falling out of the cab and I have to duct tape it back into place.' Passenger discussion thence entertained all the way home.

Turkish GP this weekend - predictably the Red Bulls are 1 and 2 on the starting grid. But Mercedes driver Rosberg is third which makes me very happy. Button is behind MacLaren team-mate Hamilton as usual - moo - and I'm not sure what Massa was doing but he ended up behind Ferrari team-mate Alonso - also moo. Very much looking forward to the race itself this afternoon.