Why is the plaque on the suspension bridge over the Thames at Marlow in Buckinghamshire in Hungarian as well as English?
The answer is that it was the prototype for the beautiful
Széchenyi Chain Bridge over the Danube in Bupapest. The two are the only surviving suspension bridges designed by William Tierney Clark.
The police are free to do what the hell they like. That’s the only possible conclusion from today’s court decision to let PC Mark Milton walk free for driving at a staggering 159mph on a public road.
Milton claimed he was familiarising himself with the car. Does anyone think a civilian would have got away with that argument?
Amazingly, Milton is planning to appeal against his guilty verdict. The maximum speed limit in Britain is 70mph. Anyone who thinks he should not be found guilty for doing 90mph over the speed limit has no place in the police service.
BBC 6 O’Clock news today: "Some were surprised at the lack of chaos [at Heathrow]".
Let me offer a translation. A BBC tv news crew was sent to Britain’s busiest airport to report on bank holiday travel chaos. They were bitterly disappointed to find everything was running smoothly but dare not return empty handed. Hence the desperate clutching at straws.
It’s easy to mock the media’s priorities. But they do, all too often, mirror our own interests: we prefer to read about disaster than mundane stories of everything working fine. Today, however, the BBC’s desperate hope for chaos was expressed rather too openly.
My computers have been protected by anti-virus software for nearly a decade now. Originally, Dr Solomon’s but since 2003 Norton, as my latest PC came with it. I added Norton’s personal firewall when I got broadband.
I can’t say I’ve been 100 per cent happy: strange things seem to happen when you use Norton products. Now comes the coup de grace. For the last week, I’ve been unable to send and receive emails without disabling Norton anti-virus and firewall. I’ve followed the instructions given by my internet service provider, Virgin Net and the minimal advice on Norton’s website but to no avail. Given that I got the product in the first place to protect myself from email-distributed viruses, it seems crazy to have to disable its protection to receive emails!
We’ve just booked a winter holiday at Thomas Cook. When the confirmation came through today, we discovered the company had charged us £1 for a donation to the Variety Club.
Now, I have the highest regard for the charity’s work with sick, disabled and disadvantaged children. But I like to make my own decisions about which charities I support, rather than let a company I buy a holiday from make a donation with my money – without telling me.
The link-up with Variety Club is obviously part of Thomas Cook’s corporate social responsibility programme. Ironically, it made me feel less warmly towards the company – an odd outcome for a CSR initiative.
For the record, my favourite charities are Sustrans, faceupcymru and Cancer Research UK.
If you felt sorry for yourself having to go to work today, spare a thought for Niall Quinn, whose reign as Sunderland manager has seen the club lose five games in a row. Last night, they were knocked out of the Carling Cup by Bury – the bottom team in the Football League.
Quinn was seen as a saviour when he returned to the club as chairman and temporary manager. He arrived just after Sunderland crashed out of the Premiership. Fans hoped he’d lead them back to the top flight. That’s looking like fantasy this morning as Quinn seeks a permanent manager to stop the slide.
Reading Peter Preston’s column in today’s Guardian made me realise how much I appreciate the multiple hot links provided by most bloggers.
Preston made an obscure reference to his unnamed daughter’s column in an equally unnamed newspaper. Had Preston been writing a blog post, he’d have included a link for me to read the said column. But as this was a piece in a newspaper, I was left guessing – and felt rather short-changed.
Wayne Rooney has thrown a wobbly again, according to the Sunday Times.
The paper says the player has threatened to refuse the Football Association permission to use his image in England-related marketing. The move is in protest against a three match ban imposed by the FA for his sending off in a pre-season friendly game against Porto.
My first reaction was: the prat’s at it again. Not content with helping to kill England’s World Cup hopes with his behaviour, Rooney now wants to decide his own punishment. (Presumably a pat on the back rather than a ban.) But justice does require consistency. And it seems that Rooney’s punishment is far more severe than that in similar cases. Rooney may have a point – even if he has made it in a characteristically blunt way.
After days of chaos at Britain’s airports following the discovery of the alleged terrorist plot, the blame game has begun.
British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh condemned BAA – owner of Heathrow and Gatwick airports – for operational failures that forced BA to cancel flights. BAA’s chief executive Stephen Nelson responded by storming round to Walsh’s offices for a showdown. Meanwhile, Ryanair’s combustible chief Michael O’Leary threatened to sue the government if it didn’t meet his demand that troops be drafted in to help.
All this macho nonsense has done nothing for the reputation of the airline business. I suspect blame is evenly shared: the government seems to have rushed through the new security measures without thinking through the consequences. Yet it’s easy to imagine the reaction had it not responded and a tragedy resulted. BAA hasn’t covered itself in glory – but given the number of people passing through its airports in August glory was hardly on the cards. (That said, BAA isn’t brilliant at the best of times: Gatwick was in chaos when we flew to Croatia in June. Even at 5am, it took over an hour to check in our luggage because luggage belts weren’t working.)
O’Leary has responded with his characteristic chutzpah – but the threat to sue the government is surely a diversion, designed to create headlines and take the PR pressure off Ryanair for charging people to check in luggage.
For me, the most disturbing story of the week was the BA jet held on the runway at LA for 30 hours – yes, 30 hours – by the Americans. Our principal ally held a British aircraft, its crew and passengers hostage for over a day. No security scare can justify this kind of outrageous behaviour.
Another blogger’s career is at risk because of his employer has taken exception to words posted online.
Inigo Wilson is a community affairs manager at Orange, the mobile phone company. He wrote a parody of what he saw as left-wing language on the ConservativeHome website. Some of his comments represented a mildly amusing satire on political gobbledegook. But he mocked an Islamophobic as ‘someone who objects to having their transport blown up on the way to work’ and described Palestinians as ‘archetype victims no matter how many teenagers they murder’.
The consensus amongst PR bloggers such as Stuart Bruce and Simon Collister is that Orange has done the right thing in suspending Wilson while it investigates. I firmly believe that Orange is not threatening Wilson’s freedom of speech. It has the right to insist that a community affairs manager does nothing to risk its reputation amongst the diverse communities of Britain. For example, I’d take exception to a community affairs manager who makes inflammatory remarks about the Welsh!
Wilson’s comments show very poor judgment. One senses that he wants to create a reputation as a Conservative propagandist. That is his right. It is not, however, necessarily compatible with the job he holds.
Ertblog 
