Update, Thursday 7th January 2010: Today at 8.45 AM there were only two vehicles in Llanbadarn on Primrose Hill, where there would normally be a hundred blocking the road. Also today the local schools were closed as a precaution due to ‘snow’, even though in reality it isn’t bad at all. This shows how much of the local traffic is school-run based, and therefore a bypass would do nothing to reduce traffic in Llanbadarn Fawr. More roads won’t fix a car-addicted culture, they just encourage it.

So based on this so scientific analysis, they have assumed that nearly all traffic in Llanbadarn Fawr is caused by the school run.

Except look at the date they chose. 7 January 2010. The Daily Telegraph headline for that day was “Britain’s Freezing Weather: Worst Snow for 50 Years Paralyses Transport Networks”.

Aberystwyth is close to the sea and sheltered by hills from north-easterly winds that bring snow. Consequently on 7 January the snow in Aberystwyth and Llanbadarn was not as bad as the rest of the country. The whole of the rest of the country though was white! Even Aberystwyth and Llanbadarn were frozen and had some snow.

Now Caredig i Natur’s point is that the empty roads indicate that no Llanbadarn bypass is called for because most of the traffic is school traffic and not through traffic. He conveniently forgets to mention that there was no through traffic at all on that day because all the roads in and out of town were blocked by snow!

It wasn’t just the schools that were shut (because the teachers, support staff and many children could not get in). Everything was shut. Offices that were open were all but empty, and staff had walked in where they had got in at all. I myself could not move my car for the whole of that week despite living in Aberystwyth itself.

Such terrible sloppy misrepresentation of the facts does no one any good. Caredig i Nature? Angharedig i’r gwirionedd. (Kind to nature? Unkind to the truth).

[In response to my saying the alternative route means walking around a roundabout which does not have a footway all the way round]:

Our contact said this isn’t true. There is a path all the way around.

I present exhibit A:

No pavement is available at the far end of the roundabout

Notice the lack of footpath. There are mud verges that can be used, but I was correct, there is clearly no footway all around the roundabout, and people coming around the roundabout are frequently observed walking on the road – especially in winter when the mud verges are permanently damp and uneven.

Note also that this route involves the children beginning their journey in the opposite direction to the direction they wish to travel!

The CIN writer continued:

Basically if the pavement was unsafe the council would not allow people to walk on it, or would put up barriers. It is easy to amplify dangers in our minds on emotive topics.

My response on the CIN blog was part of a chain that ran as follows (I paraphrase onlys slightly for brevity):

CIN: Children should not use the western footway as cyclists wish to use this unimpeded.
Anonymous commenter: You are not going to get my support for asking children not to use the safest route
CIN: It is debatable as to whether the western footway is safest

My response was to point out that CIN themselves had made the case that the greater danger to pedestrians comes from motor vehicles. Whilst the risks to pedestrians are small when walking around Plascrug roundabout and along the narrower eastern pavement that lacks the protections from motor vehicles on the other side, it nevertheless remains the case that the risks are higher. The anonymous writer was quite correct. CIN are asking children to use the more dangerous route, simply so that they may be afforded exclusive use of a footway that the council have confirmed is a dual use pedestrian and cyclist footway.

“the corner by Ysgol Gymraeg, they reach a point where inconsiderate and illegal parking by some parents at that school causes an obstruction that frequently causes vehicles to mount the pavement on the side the children will now be on.”

We are behind you a 100% there, but can’t see any way of doing anything about that situation.

The solution to this situation is to use the western footway which contains bollarded protection for pedestrians, and does not suffer this risk. Again, the anonymous poster was correct. The western footway, even with cyclists on – even with the deranged cyclist who shouts at pedestrians and motorists alike on an almost daily basis – is safer than the eastern footway

“On reaching the end of the avenue the children must now (to avoid the cycle path) cross the road at the car park junction and then cross the feeder road to Ysgol Gymraeg. Even then they find themselves sharing the cycle path with cyclists so they must now either walk on the road in the car park or cross the cycle path and walk on the muddy verge instead.”

Our contact said that is wrong. By being on the pavement the pupils would cross the road once, to Ysgol Gymraeg (and thereby avoid two crossings which they encounter if they stayed on the cycle path). The route you have listed would indeed be rather silly, we agree.

I present exhibits B, C, and D.

The cycle path veers right here but too late for pedestrians to gain any benefit from crossing the road

Here in exhibit B we see the cycle route veer away into the access road for Ysgol Gymraeg. The eastern pavement preferred for pedestrians by CIN is on the left. To avoid the cycle path pedestrians must stay on the eastern pavement to the end of Plascrug avenue. You also see the junction to Ysgol Gymraeg on this pavement. Notice that had Pedestrians used the western pavement, they could stay on the school side of this junction and avoid crossing the road here at all. At this point they would also be off the cycle/foot path.

“By being on the pavement the pupils would cross the road once, to Ysgol Gymraeg” is clearly wrong. If the children cross to Ysgol Gymraeg, they will again be on the dual use path.

So CIN is wrong again. Their solution is more dangerous and longer. Pedestrains must now remain on the eastern footway to the junction, or they can cross to the western footway here and proceed to the junction. In any case this is the first crossing I mentioned.

The junction. The dropped kerbs will be where children would need to cross. Notice the four directions of approaching traffic.

Having crossed one road, children must now cross a second

Exhibit C and D show the double junction children must now cross. This is the only way they can avoid the foot/cycle path. It is longer and has involved them crossing two roads. Children are taken by schools on these routes at the start and end of school session including lunch times, which are the exact same time that traffic on the route is at its greatest. I agree with the anonymous poster. You are not going to get my sympathy from forcing children off the safest route just so you can have exclusive use to a path that was not designed to be an exclusive use cycle path.

Finally here is Exhibit E: which shows the dual use cycle path and pavement running up to the leisure centre. You will notice that children, to avoid this path, must now either walk on the grass (muddy from October to May and other times) or else walk in the car park, at significant risk from reversing vehicles.

Notice the pavement is again dual use cycle path, so CIN want the children either on the road behind the parked cars or the grass area (muddy for much of the year).

Now Caredig i Natur say there is nothing more to say on this issue and to some extent I agree. It is plainly absurd to tell people it is better for all that people be excluded from a footpath that has remained a right of way to them for a hundred years or more, and they should use a more dangerous route instead just so a few cyclists can have unrestricted access to it. They have nothing more to say. I think therefore they should take down the erroneous article and issue an apology.

It is even more absurd because the number of cyclists is dwarfed by the number of pedestrian users.

I am a cyclist too. I sometimes ride this path, but I think it is crass, insensitive and frankly stupid to tell pedestrians that best practice dictates they no longer use the footpath. As long as cyclists behave like this, the green issues we wish to promote in a spirit of co-operation will continue to be ignored or mocked.

There is space on the avenue for an exclusive use cycle path. If CIN’s writer wishes to campaign for that in a cooperative and helpful manner, I would be right behind it. But as long as the blog remains whingy, disrespectful and unhelpful, I guess we must all just ignore everything he says.

Caredig i Nature (CIN)

One problem with blogs is that they are not a conversation amongst equals. If the blog writer refuses to post up your comments you have no recourse but to shut up and go away.

I and others have questioned the writer’s use of our children’s images on this blog without our permission or the permission of our children, and the blog writer now refuses to post up my comment. Thus my comment is reproduced here:

The CIN author wrote: “Re: the photos, that was covered in the comment above.”

No the comment was directed against a poster who thought that the use of such photos is illegal. You, the CIN author, and I know that it is not illegal to take pictures of anyone on public land, nor to publish the photos if doing so does not contravene the Data Protection Act.

Of course, in naming the school in question, an argument could be made that the picture constitutes personal data under the act.

But my point was not about the legality of publication. Your article states, about pedestrians using the pedestrian footway (on which cycling is permitted): “Although not illegal, this is bad practice…”

So my question again. The NSPCC provides guidance of best practice on use of children’s photographs on websites here:

NSPCC Guidance on Use of Children’s Images on Websites

You will note the best practice is to request consent from the parents and the children concerned.

I take it you, the CIN author, followed best practice, and obtained consent. Yes?

*

For the record, the answer is no. Neither I nor my daughter was asked consent.

For a site wishing to lecture us on “Best Practice”, there is a remarkable lack of best practice here. Poor practice both in the use of my daughter’s image, and in running a blog, and in responding to complaints.

For the record I allow all comments on this blog except when they are personal and vulgar attacks. Most comments do not even go to moderation unless they contain links.

On the back page there was an article that quoted the Daily Mail (always a bad start!) saying that Mark Williams was all but invisible at Westminster.

Well in the information age it is easy enough to check these things. I went to the wonderful They Work for you website to look at my MP’s statistics.

Far from being invisible, the record shows he has spoken in more debates than average, has received written answers to more questions than average and has answered a high number of constituent questions quickly online. All this on reasonable expenses that are only slightly above average, and that because of travel costs, which considering the remoteness of teh constituency, is altogether reasonable.

One area that Mark Williams falls below average on is his parliamentary attendance. At 66% attendance at votes, he is a little below average here. But how much of that is related to the issues of distance, geography and relevance? So the immediate question – as Plaid Cymru is putting this information out – is how would he compare to Plaid Cymru MPs? Well again, a quick search of the Public Whip site turns up the information we need.

• Mark Williams MP, Ceredigion (LibDem) – 66.2%
• Hywel Williams MP, Caernarfon (PC) – 64.2%
• Adam Price MP, Carmarthen East & Dinefwr (PC) – 60.5%
• Elfyn Llwyd MP, Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (PC) – 63.5%

So to be clear, Mark Williams has a better voting record than any Plaid Cymru MP. A case of the pot calling the kettle black?

I don’t have a problem with Plaid Cymru. I often vote for them. But I do have a problem with misleading statements, and this surely qualifies.

and as for your comment Stephen, I have nothing to say but that our definition of piracy differs. Burning a couple of CDs for friends is piracy. I don’t think its wrong, but tis against the law and is defined to be piracy.

It is against the law, but of your law actually calls it piracy, then your law is an ass.

Piracy is robbery committed at sea, or sometimes on the shore, by an agent without a commission from a sovereign nation. Seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue (with estimated worldwide losses of US$13 to $16 billion per year), particularly in the waters between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, off the Somali coast, and in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore, which are used by over 50,000 commercial ships a year. A recent surge in piracy off the Somali coast spurred a multi-national effort led by the United States to patrol the waters near the Horn of Africa to combat piracy. While boats off the coasts of South America and the Mediterranean Sea are still assailed by pirates,the Royal Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard have nearly eradicated piracy in U.S. waters and the Caribbean Sea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy

Record companies want us to think of copying of music as a high crime, so they link it with robbery and pillage on the high seas. And yet it is clearly not. They include film clips and adverts that tell us that if we tape someone else’s music, we are contributing to organised crime and the drug problem. But we are clearly not.

There is an attempt at guilt by association here, and yet if you consider the issue, there is often not even any kind of theft except in some spurious legal doctrine.

Consider if someone takes a copy of an mp3 from someone else to listen to. That taking is a breach of copyright law. The content is not licensed to the person who took it, and thus the copyright owner may say that he has no right to do so.

But if that person would not have bought that music (and we must be very sure he would not have done so), then in what way has he deprived the copyright owner of his property? The owner still owns the copyright, and he is not out of pocket. So where is the theft?

Of course, with the ability to buy mp3s at very low cost now, the point may be moot. If someone wants an mp3, they presumably have means to get it themselves. The theft comes then in depriving the copyright owner of their payment.

But we should still bear this principle in mind when we consider license agreements on software with restrictive clauses, or attempts to otherwise skew rights in favour of the companies who have bought the copyright on works. Copyright is only legitimate if it works in the interest of the public (as are patents for that matter).

So what do we have? A crime that is not always morally reprehensible (except inasmuch as disobeying law is reprehensible) being deliberately compared to murder, pillage and robbery on the high seas, drug trafficking and organised crime.

And then the same companies pushing these unhelpful analogies manage to get a law passed in the US that makes it illegal for you to even point to a place that might tell someone how they might circumvent copy protection systems! So much for freedom of speech!

John Wesley (when asked to give an account of his taxable assets by a tax collection officer) replied that he had a silver teaspoon, but beyond that he did not think he had any such assets.

There are still many people with a like attitude today, but unfortunately all our attention is constantly turned towards the brood of vipers who spend every last minute begging money from their professional multimedia operations.

I don’t think they are really radicals in any sense: they do exactly what politicians do, and what the entertainment industry does. They package and sell a product, “guaranteed” to make you happy and prosperous, but when you part with your money and remove the trimmings you find you are left with nothing.

That is not Christianity. It is not representative of the Church, and many Christians openly oppose these people, but I guess that turning the tables on the moneychangers is old news (and the moneychangers have lawyers now).

Today we had one of the bad ones. He calloed when I was out of the house, so he thought he would bamboozle my wife with his brilliance. After first refusing to do the actual line test he was sent to do, he told my wife that the reason we can only get a quarter of the ADSL line speed is because of our house wiring.

“But we had our wiring checked by a qualified BT engineer” my wife interjected, but he would have none of it. He told her that we were syncing with the exchange fine from the master test socket.

Well of course. As we had explained, we can always sync at 8Mbps or thereabouts. The problem is that when we use the BT speed test page, using the dedicated speed test account over the BT network to their test server, we get much lower speeds.

His answer to my wife: “People always blame BT openreach, but the problem is the ISPs”.

No Mr BT engineer (DJ), the problem is the BT network. Notice what we had already established:

1. The wiring is fine
2. I used the test socket to test the connection using the BT account. Our ISP network was not part of the equation, and nor was our wiring.

But, of course, the engineer refused to do this test. He merely tested the sync speed, and surprise surprise got the same results as us.

Why did we even have an engineer here when a previous engineer had already been out and tested everything successfully? Because we had the temerity to ask when BT would fix the Aberystwyth Exchange. This exchange has been underperforming for months, and every time BTs deadline to fix it comes up, they just extend the deadline. Thus our ISP wanted to know when the work was *really* going to be carried out. BTs answer was to send us an engineer that we did not need, did not want to come and tell us a load of rubbish.

Some more choice nonsense from this engineer. He said that we could not get faster speeds because we are using USB modems. “No we are not”, replied my wife. “We have a router – a BT router at that”.

Oh, thinks the engineer quickly. Okay, the problem is that you are using wireless. This slows everything right down. (although actually when I run tests I do not use wireless). He asked: “What speed wireless. Is this 100K or 54K”.

“It is IEEE 802.11g” my wife replied. (She hears me speak about it often enough that she knows the numbers).

“Yes, but is that 54K g or 100K g?” Replies the engineer, implying my wife is stupid for not knowing.

Now for anyone that does not know, IEEE 802.11g runs at 54Mbps (although allowing for protocol overhead, you probably only achieve 30Mbps, which is still much faster than the ADSL line). The 100Mbps standard (not 100K) is IEE 802.11n, and the slower standard that I think he must have alluded to is IEEE 802.11b.

802.11b is the 11Mbps standard, which with protocol overhead would likely achieve less than the ADSL’s 8Mbps (especially if signal reception is poor). But my wife had answered correctly. We were not using wireless that would slow down the network path (except perhaps for some initial latency which is more or less unnoticeable).

So having betrayed his enormous ignorance, he decides to do so once again.

“You probably do not have computers capable of running at 8Mbps. You need dual core for that”.

I am flabbergasted. How, for instance, do we explain the fact that we had 10Mbps ethernet connections which actually *achieved* that speed at least as far back as 1997 on consumer devices (before that, often network cards could not actually manage the full 10Mbps, even though the networks could).

How do we explain that we regularly achieve 100Mbps over the house ethernet? (perhaps he did not spot our ethernet!)

And worst of all, how dare he insult my computers. We have at least 10 computers in the house, and two of them have dual core technology.

This is the worst kind of buck passing ignorance that I have heard since… since…

Oh, since this debacle with BT.

Just to be fair – the previous BT engineer we had out was excellent. He seemed to know his stuff, and he actually carried out the tests he was sent to do. Not everyone at BT is as bad as DJ. But enough are that it is no wonder broadband takeup in the UK is now languishing.

Quite right too. I have cancelled all my contracts with BT over their abysmal customer service, exacerbated by hours on a call begging that a fault be escalated with them (and not with Microsoft as they stupidly suggested I do – see my letter to BT here for the gruesome details). These call centre staff are on a script, which perhaps works fine when the problem you have is something the script resolves. They are like Microsoft help. Sometimes it does help, but usually you go through trying suggestion after suggestion until you get “Microsoft help was unable to resolve this problem”.

And then, if you are lucky, they will finally escalate your fault. But don’t hold your breath – my experience is that they unstead just forget about you, and when you phone again, the cycle starts over again.

It is not just BT. Wanadoo, Tiscali, and various other companies have put me through this kind of telephone tennis. But we fool ourselves if we think the problem is resolved simply by bringing call centres back to the UK.

The problem is the whole concept of outsourced support and centres. Whether they are in Bombay or Birmingham makes little difference. If the call centre is not in a position to actually resolve your problem then they are just in the way.

Pipex Homecall has UK based customer support, but a look at Their gripe sites shows that people are not enamoured with their customer support either. The company seems to have a policy of deliberately preventing customers from speaking with people who can make real decisions, and the response is stories of people standing in the rain to get a mobile signal whilst they beg, scream and cry for the company to send an engineer to fix their fault!

So I am not holding my breath for great improvements in customer service. My best tip is to patronise smaller comapnies, where customers are important to the service providers. Small is beautiful, so they say.

The UK moved to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, which involved changes to
the current day of the month, but the week days were left unaffected.
Thursday, September 14th followed Wednesday, September 2nd in 1752.

It is therefore probably best to consider the week days as divorced from the
calendar itself. They do not fit neatly into a 365.24 day year. They
are a more granular measure of the passing of time, but not truly
calendar markers.

So the question is, which day of the week comes first?

Businesses group Saturday and Sunday together on a calendar for convenience, because then you can group working week and
weekend quite easily in two locations on a calendar, but they are
strictly speaking incorrect to do so.

You see, the seven day week is of Persian/Chaldean and Judeo/Christian
origin. In all these cultures, a seven day week was observed, and the
week days were named for the seven visible heavenly bodies, starting with the
most dominant: the Sun.

Thus we have (in English and Welsh, but other languages show the same pattern):

The day of the Sun (Dydd Sul – Sunday)
The day of the Moon (Dydd Llun – Monday)
The day of Mars (Dydd Mawrth) (Tuesday is named for the Norse God)
The day of Mercury (Dydd Mercher) (Wodan is Norse)
The day of Jupiter (Dydd Iau) (Thor is Norse)
The day of Venus (Dydd Gwener) (Frida is Norse)
The day of Saturn (Dydd Sadwrn – Saturday)

In the Biblical account of creation, it can be shown that each stanza
of the creation hymn takes up the astrological significance of the
gods associated with the days, and shows that the God who is one God
created the realms considered to be the domains of these other gods.
Thus the creation hymn can be seen as being in direct opposition to
Chaldean (and later Babylonian) belief. The message of the hymn is that the almighty God is ruler high above all others.

In the first century AD, the seven day week was introduced in Rome,
under the influence of Persian astrologers. When Rome became
Christian, the Christian view of the seven days was conflated with the
Persian influence, but both had the same common root.

Thus the week began on the day of the Sun, and ended on the day of
Saturn (the day God rested). Saturday was the true week end.

However, the Resurrection took place on a Sunday morning, and in
honour of this fact, the “Lord’s day” was taken to be Sunday.
Christians thus began the practise of meeting together to worship on
the Lord’s day – the first day of the week.

Thus the weekend as we now have it conflates the Jewish Sabbath (or a
day off at the end of the week) with the Christian Lord’s day (or a
day off at the start of the week).

Secularists want to regularise the whole thing and call both days the
week end, but they might as well try and rename Monday to something
less pagan, or choose a five day week instead of seven! The fact of the matter is that weeks start on Sunday –
they always have. It is only the *working* week that starts on Monday.

However, if you want to arrange your calendar to start on the first day of the
working week, then feel free to do so. As I have said – weeks do not
strictly fit into the calendar in any case.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has denied he is running out of steam as he faces his final months in office, insisting: “I want to finish what I have started”.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6307541.stm

Well what Blair started with was a government stressing its commitment to education (but failing to stop rampant A Level grade inflation, and with little ground being made in actually pushing our children up the education league tables); Labour was committed to saving the health service – the service that nearly collapsed last year and started the year laying off thousands of staff; They were also committed to an ethical foreign policy – and now live with the reputation of being the first government to deliberately abandon an ethical foreign policy.

But never mind, because the one issue that defined Labour over John Major’s bickering and grandstanding Tories was the sleaze issue. At least the new Labour party would avoid all that cash for questions style sleaze.

Well, that is until they offered honours for unaccountable party loans. With the arrest of one of Bliars most senior aids, and the prospect that he too will soon be interviewed under caution (which, frankly, would have already happened if he wasn’t the PM) – it is time for this lame duck to step down and let the law catch up with him.

Blairs time in office has the same legacy as John Major’s. Failing public services, crippling levels of personal debt, poor pension provision, sleaze and corruption, poor investment in educashun (and poor returns on the investment).

Indeed we have worse: a deputy prime minister (who between affairs) gets driven 100 yards in a car to deliver speaches on climate change, criminalisation of more and more people, wholesale destruction of civil liberties and fundamental rights, constitutional vandelism that never materialised into any positive constitutional change!

Although to be fair, devolution was a great success. Maybe Blair should have left after one term (like he promised Gordon Brown). But as it is, the only thing history will really remember Blair for is his disasterous foreign policy in Iraq.