Kidnap, companies, and accident hotspot

Iran is still obviously in the news over the kidnap of British soldiers, barging into foreign territory and kidnapping foreign nationals who do they think they are America? Oh that's unfair at least Iran tried to offer the excuse that they were in their waters, took them back to their own country and notified the soldiers' country of what they'd done.


Ah companies can't live with them, can't dump their owners in deep water with concrete shoes. Water companies, in agreement with Ofwat, are increasing our water bills by 7% in order to fix leaks; this with a reported profit of over £2.5bn is making some people a touch annoyed. These naïve people obviously don't get it; if they pay for fixing the leaks of out of the profit they'd have less profit! If they announce less profit their share price will plummet, just look at poor Jessops after their profit warnings. The only way for this not to happen is to increase the price of water. Place your bets now on how much water companies profits will go up by for next year.

Anyway not to fear the BBC's business correspondent presented some ways of saving water, I could only laugh when he turned to someone with him and the first thing out of her mouth was "Well those measures only help people with water meters" well done m'lady.

It's funny when you consider there's a recent advert that states that "We're the wettest country in Europe" and yet all we hear from water companies is hose-pipe bans and low reservoir levels and now they want to increase the bills for what seems to be a more ineffective service.

Companies again and the Paddington Rail crash from 1999 blipped up on the radar. 31 people dead and the people responsible get fined, so that's how you get away with murder. I wonder if you could start a hitman company "You can't put me in jail for murder, it was a company action".


Yesterday evening I had a fun event driving home. I got to the end of York Street and indicated to turn left into Bridge Street at the mini-roundabout. I couldn't move forward though as the queue had backed-up to this point. It finally moved, but there were cars opposite me in New Street indicating right and nothing coming up Bridge Street; they had right-of-way. Car one indicating right, I wait for them; car two indicating right, I wait for them; car three no indication, so I pull out just as he tries to turn right. He cuts me up and I have to stop sharply, my hand found the horn; he stopped and got out of his car! "It's an island!" he shouts, I wind down my window "So where's your yellow light then?" His mouth closes with an almost audible snap and he scuttles back into his car. Of course I meant indicator, but you get the gist and I'd just had a nasty shock. Relating this to someone they said about him getting out of the car "You have to watch out there are some aggressive people on the road" there then followed a pause then I replied "Well yes I'm one of them" pause, "Yeah fair enough" he said.

It's a stupid mini-roundabout really it is, the right hand lane of York Street by-passes it to feed straight into High Street. The left-hand lane is really a left/ahead lane, but everyone treats it as a left only so don't bother to indicate so no-one coming up Bridge Street bothers to stop. New Street is left/right only so when people don't indicate you've no idea where they're going (assumption is right turn rather then going over the island). Bridge Street is a left/ahead, but due to the angle it's almost impossible to see if people are indicating to turn left. So people in New Street turning right can see that the High Street car is turning left so they've got right-of-way over the left-turn traffic in York Street, but the traffic in York Street can't see that so they see a car coming up Bridge Street and assume they've got right-of-way over New Street - crash.

Oh and the mini-roundabout is so badly positioned and sized that you tend to go over it rather then around it.


Oo just a mention they've narrowed down Gilgal rather then close it off, the result is cars driving like arthritic snails up the left-hand lane of Vale Road wondering at which of the gaps they're supposed to turn into to get to the right. Oh and it looks like the bus-stop that block that entire left-hand lane is still in operation - bravo!