St John's Wood Road
I've cycled down this road, which passes Lord's cricket ground, for five years now. Every year, about now, they've started digging up the section of road directly outside the Lord's entrance, closing one lane of traffic. I was beginning to wonder whether it was in fact an anti-terrorism tactic, givne Lord's entrance is quite exposed, but the New Zealand test was completed without any roadworks, so I abandoned that idea. Anyway yesterday I realised that they are back - EDF again, I think - with an absolutely enormous hole.
ps I should also add that when I did drive past there on the Sunday of the New Zealand test (I think) the crowd behaviour was pretty poor, with very drunk cricket fans delilberately blocking the road and abusing drivers etc.
Labels: Cycling
Football finances
Interesting
charts (scroll down for more) on relative financial measures of the European football leagues. I had no idea (bottom chart) the French league had such high wages until 2000/2001, matching the English premier league (if the chart is labelled correctly and that isn't actually Italy).
In terms of income, England's relatively high attendances and very high ticket prices means it receives far more income from matchday performances than any other league. It's worth also remembering that England has quite a bit smaller population than France, Italy and especially Germany; if you added the Scottish premier league (i.e Rangers and Celtic) in as well it would be far ahead.
For EJH...attendances in Italy and England
Labels: Football
What do you want in 2055?
Most of these things we already
have, and the readers of Modern Mechanix seem to have been better at guessing what was possible than a lot of futurologsts. I like the man who says he wants a decent raincoat, for when we are 'outside the roofed-over towns'. I think he's taking the mickey.
Some are rather scary - such as the machine that projects everyone's thoughts. But at least the 10 second 'ultrasonic shower'
allowed the magazine's editors to get a naked women in. She
then gets a slug of booze from an automatic booze dispenser.
Labels: Future
Fuel protests and prices
I can't quite see the sense in
allowing lorry drivers to block a large part of one of the major roads into London - and surely they are just using up more fuel? Maybe it's not illegal as long as they keep moving.
On the question of oil taxation, John Redwood was quoting some pressure group saying that the government has collected £505m in extra taxation because of the higher oil price in just six weeks - so perhaps (given it has been rising over that period) it is now getting more than £100 a week extra. However when you look into those figures the vast majority - I think £400m - comes from higher taxes on oil company profits, not directly on the motorist.
I can't see any point in the goverment lowering taxes on the oil companies. There is also a problem with lowering the duty on fuel. It might seem reasonable, as essentially those advocating a lowering or not raising of fuel duty imply, that the government should have a target price for oil, say something like £158/barrel, which translates to £1 a litre, at which it believes the price meets its environmental and economic objectives, and as such when the world price is far below that it raises taxes and when it is rising it lowers taxes (note the world price is about 43p a litre [1]). Yet there are at least two major problems with this. First, to a small extent given we are a net importer, and a larger extent if other countries followed this policy, it allows the oil exporting countries a free-ride, immune from the impact on demand of their raising prices. So they'll raise prices and all the money will flow out of the country. Second, it's not at all obvious that the UK governmet is a better judge of the oil price than the market, imperfect as it is, and that any taxation to cover environmental or political externalities of oil should not be on top of the market price, rather than contained within it.
Having said all of that, an increase in the fuel duty at the moment does seem politically a bad idea without some other measure. So what I would do is note that (assuming no declne in demand) a 2p per litre rise in fuel duty will raise the government something like £1.4m per day, or about £0.5bn in a year. This could be refunded to motorists by a reduction in the vehicle excise duty, or even a refund, of £100-£150 per vehicle, including commercial vehicles. Hence the environmental and geopolitical arguments in favour of higher oil taxation are maintained, but 'motorists' are not losers.
[1] There are some complicating factors such as the amount of petrol/gasoline you get from a barrel and various costs in refining and delivery.
Labels: Taxation
The price of petrol and time
The petrol price has risen from 80p a litre at the start of 2005 to around 114p today. That's an increase of 42% in three and a half years. If the average driver does 12,000 miles a year, and his car does 35 mpg, that's an increase in his petrol bill from £1,234 to £1,758 (this doesn't allow for any decline in driving due to the higher price).
Now one simple way to cut fuel consumption is to
slow down - from 40mph onwards every 20mph subtracts about 6-10mpg from your fuel consumption. So for a 60 mile journey on a motorway, doing it at 60 mph rather than 80 mph (I'm going to ignore the issues of the law and traffic) and assuming fuel consumption falls TO 35 mpg FROM 27 mpg will typically mean a petrol saving of £2.8 - what would cost £11.9 at 80 mph costs £9.1 at 60 mph in a typical car.
However it also takes longer - one hour rather than 45 mins. It's difficult to exactly know how people value their time in this situation, but essentially if you value your time at more than £11.2 an hour you are still better off driving quickly.
Of course there are a lot of other factors to consider.
Labels: economics
McCain backs away from gas tax holiday plan
So suggests
this Gerard Baker article which finds fault with Hillary Clinton for it and also Barack Obama's plans as well.
Well that's good news.
Labels: oil
Primrose Hill and machine guns
I was wandering around Primrose Hill yesterday at lunchtime and walking down Fitzroy Road there's a rather unexciting flat which is guarded by two policemen with machine guns.
I presume it is something like where the Israeli ambassador lives, but it seemed a bit small.
Labels: London
The London Mayor
Well that was almost easy. As I scanned the ballot paper I saw the fascists, the man who apparently is in alliance with fascists, the one who looks like a fascist, and then the one who just might be a fascist. And then I saw it - it said "Vote Matt". The ballot paper was speaking to me. Here was my candidate.
He's a bit disappointing, however. You can't have much confidence in a man whose election literature has a more
prominent picture of another party's politician than of the candidate and who apparently has already dropped out of the race. Oh, and apparently he's a Father4Justice. So a 2nd preference then.
For the London Assembly candidate I went with my traditional policy of voting for the candidate who lives closest to me. This was a Lib Dem.
ps Why in the
'about Matt O'Connor' section does he get a good write up from so many men's magazines such as Esquire and GQ? Does the F4J play well with their readers. But..."“Captain of Dad’s Army”, GQ Magazine, 2005" - is surely nonsense? The Captain of Dad's Army was Captain Mainwaring.
Labels: elections
