I woke up this morning to this story on the BBC Breakfast television News about the UK having the highest rail fares in Europe, which is no great surprise to anyone who’s spent any amount of time on the continent. At one point during the report it cut to one of those vox pops with some bird quite rightly saying that the price keeps going up but we’re not seeing any difference in the quality of service. Here’s a quote from the same BBC article: “British annual season tickets for journeys of no more than 25 miles were 88% more expensive than the next most expensive country – France – and more than four times pricier than the cheapest country – Italy”. Pretty incredible stuff, not surprising but at one point the Department of Transport were giving a statement to the effect that once improvements had been made to the infrastructure of the railways we could see prices falling more into line with the rest of Europe. ‘”Bollocks”, I thought, even if the current system was running bullet trains that were time managed by atomic clocks there is no way they’re going to turn around and say “Right lads, time to stop taking the piss – slash ticket prices by 50%”.
Anyway, I completely forgot all about it and went about my day routinely getting sodomized by the extortionate London public transport system before sitting down to begin reading ‘The Undercover Economist’ by Messr. Tim Harford. Precisely 30 mins ago I came across this gem on page 18:
“Why would improvements in the quality and price of the commuter train services that bring people into London’s mainline stations, such as Waterloo, from the sorrounding suburbs please anyone who rents a property in central London? And why might the city’s landlords be less than ethusiastic about such improvements?
The answer is that improved public transport increases alternatives to renting a place in the city. When a two hour commute becomes a one hour commute, and people are able to get a seat instead of standing, some decide they’d rather save money and move out of central London. Vacant apartments then appear on the market. Scarcity lessens, and rents fall. Improving commuter services wouldn’t just affect commuters; it would affect everyone involved in London’s property market”
Now that the housing boom is on it’s arse, this situation is not going to get any better. We’re still going to have to have our noses pressed against people’s armpits every Monday to Friday whilst paying a minimum of 1200 quid a year for the priviledge.
It’s been nearly a year, I was going to post up on the exact date I last posted but I’m going to be carving the shit out of British Columbia on a snowboard (see below) so I might as well start posting now. I’m naturally very excited about it but not nearly as excited as receiving my copy of Street Fighter IV, but that I think that’s just cos it’s out tomorrow.
it’s been six weeks since my last post. I started a new job but there really is no excuse. I’ve decided I may want to change th content of it so will be back in a couple of days whe I’ve finalised what that is…
I’m absolutely loving these badgers. Based on the old CB 180’s that came out for the Barcelona 92 Olympics they’re just the right mixture of old and new. Colorway is pretty sweet too… No idea on release dates though.
Here’s a video I came across on Cyberspace of an openly homosexual gamer (xxxGayBoyxxx) on Xbox Live getting abuse from various different players. Although he admits that not all the comments were not necessarily hateful it is pretty interesting to hear how many meatheads there are in the gaming world. What’s even more interesting is that most of them have very camp voices.
We’re in for more treats from J Dilla and Busta Rhymes with the release of Dillagence. The genius producer left a whole array of beats behind which were given personally to Busta and now he’s teamed up with DJ Mick Boogie to put this mixtape together in J Dilla’s honour.
“Mick is a real underground hip-hop historian,” Busta told SOHH of the project. “When he brought this concept to the table, I felt like the timing was right to rep the late great J-Dilla.”
“Busta and I had worked together on his “King of the Remixes” CD and I felt like this would be a next logical step for us, plus I always wanted to do something Dilla related, and with him and Busta being so close, this was perfect,” Mick Boogie added.
Have had to do a very quick post about the sweetest trainers I’ve seen in a long time, and they’re in store at Microzine right now. Microzine have brought back limited edition trainers, like the New Balance Stingray III: Fucked Up and Reebok BB5600s but my favourites are the collaborations between DKNY and German pixel twisters Eboy. Pure visual pleasure, it’s not often I’d buy a pair of trainers to keep boxfresh, but these would be them.
The future is here and the future is MoMail. Not heard of it yet? It’s a matter of time. Momail is simple, free downloadable software that turns any mobile into one that can receive and deal with email. A mobile email account that levels the playing field between those with crackberrys and those without. Compatible with all existing email accounts like Hotmail and Gmail and free, it pushes emails to your phone, alerts you with an SMS style alert and minimizes content so you can view it on your handset. We’re waiting for the catch.
