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.

Moving on to page 19…

…for illegally making 1,702 songs available on the network, though only 24 of those tracks were central to the case at stake.

Full story here

Resnikoff’s parting shot here

Sony BMG’s head of litigation in the States Jennifer Pariser got up on the stand yesterday to testify against Jammie Thomas, a single mum who’s been accused of downloading 26 tracks off Kazaa. During her testimony she said that making copies of puchased CD’s is “a nice way of saying ’steals just one copy’”. Which means we’re all fucked. Good luck with that.

Story on Gizmodo

Came across this on Digg. Apparantly it’s been around since early 2006. It’s sort of like a champ manager for farming and selling burgers only with a wickedly wry sense of humour. If you have a couple of hours to burn go check it out. Knowing how litigious McDonalds are I have no idea how the developer has gotten away with it for this long.

Play the game

Madonna’s had a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres where she talked about World Peace and stuff. A very significant development in the 3000 year old war betweeen Muslims, Jews and Christians and we at Nine:ThirtyFive towers will continue to support her in her selfless efforts to make the world a better place.

Champion.

Full story here