HUBBERS DOT COM BLOG

I recently had a package shipped form the USA with DHL. On arrival there was an outstanding charge for VAT of £1.25 which DHL set about collecting, along with their £12.22 administration fee!

Rip-off jerks.

Some of you may know that my skeptical nature leads me to take the piss out of all manner of people with wacky super being beliefs. Well last week I scorned the pagans who were going to use “rain magic” to wash away a giant painted Homer Simpson on the hill next to the Cerne Abbas Giant.

Well it looks like I was completely wrong and those pagan terrorists have attacked the UK with their rain magic to devastating effect. Watch this space for reports of police action to round up these pagan fundamentalists who will stop at nothing to impose their ancient belief system on the people of the UK.

In the green corner Homer J Simpson and a giant donut. In the other green corner the Cerne Abbas Giant and his unwashed pagan hippies followers.

This is made additionally funny by the fact that the silly pagans are going to perform rain magic to wash it away. I imagine that is exactly the sort of behaviour Homer would approve of :)

I have been having a few moans on my blog about the state of cycle lanes and cycling in general recently. Usually when I see something dangerous I take a photo and send the link to that photo to my local councilors, the Mayor of London, Local MP, Transport for London and other people who might have an interest in my moaning.

Last time I had an even better idea and I have decided to harness the powers of Web 2.0 to fight the good fight against the morons who put cyclists at risk in London.

This is a link to my flickr group about cycle safety that anyone can post photos to. Within a week I have already found ten other people who have also been taking photos of anti-cycle-idiocy.

That is the power of the internet my friends, it enables ticked off loonies to find each other and bug elected officials together. Well one of the powers anyway.

Went up to Wembley Stadium to see Live Earth. I cannot think of to many things more inappropriate to bring attention to the state of the planet than an alcohol and rock fueled orgy of consumption.

The bands ranged from good to great but the highlights for me was seeing Wembley Stadium itself. It was awesome. It’s just a pity they don’t play rugby there.

My humour highlight was Thandie Newton’s small piece to air. She started by saying:

“Someone once said -”

At this stage I was thinking I bet she was too lazy to even bother to find out and credit the author of the quote she is stealing. She finished:

“- with power comes responsibility.”

Then I didn’t know when to laugh or cry. Not only did she steal someone else’s quote but she also butchered it. Everyone knows that the line “With great power comes great responsibility” is by Spiderman’s uncle Ben. So I started yelling “Uncle Ben said it! Uncle Ben said it!” But it was still early in the day and people hadn’t drunk very much so everyone just edged away from me and looked nervous.

These are all from the Evening Standard which seems to be the only newspaper to carry regular articles on cycling and cycle safety in London. My guess would be that one of the editrors at the ES rides to work.

• 372 cyclist were killed or seriously injured on London roads last year
• 19 cyclists were killed in collisions – nine of which involved a goods vehicle
• In 2005 21 cyclists were killed, nine involved lorries
• The was a 30 per cent rise in cycle deaths between 2003 and 2005
• The number of cycle journeys has risen by more than 80 per cent over five years
• There has been a 23 per cent increase in the number of cyclists using London’s main roads, compared to the same time last year
• 64 per cent of drivers never cycle on roads as they are afraid of having an accident

No surprises about that last one.

Earlier this year I wrote to a long list of local councillors about a stretch of cycle lane on the way to work that was blocked in several places by road works. In some places the road was genuinely dug up but in several other the cycle lane was blocked to provide storage space for road signs, equipment and – a portable toilet. I even took some photos (click on the image below to see more).I got a couple of responses about looking at danger areas etc a few weeks later but not much else.

Yesterday on the same stretch of road I took the photo below of a toilet blocking a cycle lane. In the couple of minutes it took me to take these photos I saw two cyclists ride into oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the road to avoid the toilet blocking the cycle lane. While I admit this is an incredibly stupid thing for cyclists to do the fact that a high percentage of cyclists will do this makes the placement of the portable toilet here, dangerous in the extreme.

My proposed solution is that the local councils should outlaw using cycle lanes for storage by road workers.