TransAmerica Trail

For the next couple of months, I am going to be focused on my trip across the States and so all posting will be done on www.transamericatrailcycle.com as I prepare for and then bike across the TransAmerica Trail.
The ride is in aid of the National Association of Colitis and Crohn's Disease and any sponsorship would be much appreciated.

Heather Mills

£17,000 for every day of her marriage - £700 an hour.

Paul McCartney has got to be feeling pretty stupid now.

At least Eliot Spitzer only spent $15,000 on his whores.

Justice

Steve Richmond brought this to my attention. His comment summed it up perfectly. "What a cunt".

An accountant who claimed he injured himself by slipping on a grape in a Marks and Spencer car park has lost his High Court bid for damages.
Alexander Martin-Sklan, 55, from Golders Green, north London, was claiming £300,000 over the incident in his local store car park in June 2004.

He said a piece of fruit found on his shoe after the fall could have been picked up inside the store or car park.

The judge ruled in favour of the retail giant which was contesting the action.

Mr Martin-Sklan tore a tendon in his right leg when he slipped as he left the Finchley Road store with his trolley and headed to his car.

Representing himself, he said he suffered a ruptured quadricep tendon and "adverse psychological effects and depression" arising from the injury.

Whilst expressing sympathy for the claimant Deputy Judge John Leighton Williams QC said: "I am afraid I am unable to find for him on the evidence."

He said: "In my judgment it is one of those accidents that could happen to any one of us."

The judge said he had concluded there was some sort of crushed fruit or similar on the underside of Mr Martin-Sklan's right sandal.

But, he was "not persuaded" the substance in the "void" of the sandal caused the claimant to slip.

Mr Martin-Sklan has to pay around £15,000 towards Marks and Spencer's costs and given 28 days to pay an interim sum of £7,500.

Guilty Parent

A man in India has been arrested and charged with the murder of the British 15 year old schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling last month, whose half naked body was found on a beach.

Obviously this is a terrible case but we have to witness the spectacle of her mother calling for justice on the evening news without any real examination of the part she played in this situation.

What kind of parent takes their kids to India in the middle of the school term, and then goes off to a neighbouring state, leaving their daughter with a tour guide she is sleeping with?

It has been reported that on the day she was killed, Scarlett was stumbling around the beach, high on LSD and Cocaine as well as off her face on booze. What kind of parent brings up their kids with this as an acceptable norm?

I hope that whoever killed Scarlett is prosecuted with the full force of the law, but I also hope that the remaining kids are taken away from their mother on whose conscience Scarlett's death should lay.

Yes, I am a grumpy old man

I had to go to the US Embassy today to sort out a visa for my forthcoming trip to the States and followed all of their instructions in advance related to the required paperwork.

I had to fill in several forms, produce proof of house ownership and income, as well as bring my passport and a separate photograph since,

"Failure to bring the documents listed on the website will result in the denial of your application"

Also, as instructed in the initial communication from the embassy, I left my mobile phone and blackberry behind because,

"Those who do not follow these instructions will experience considerable delays"

So I arrived, on time and with all my forms and photos, and went to the queue. All was going smoothly until the person in front of me got to the front of the security line and they found that he had brought his phone.

Rather than send the stupid fuck home, they had no problem with this and simply made him put it in a plastic bag for retrieval on the way out. They then found out that he had no photos and hadn't bothered to fill in the relevant forms but again, no problem.

They explained that he needed these forms and after a few grunts and nods from, they told him to go on in and he could get more forms and a photo taken inside the embassy.
The only delay this guy encountered was the same one everybody in the queue had, waiting for him to get his shit in order.

Why bother setting rules and limits if there are no consequences for breaking them?

It may sound like an overreaction but it is symptomatic of broader society when people aren't held accountable for their own actions and their failure to follow simple instructions.

Perhaps if organisations and people actually carried out threats to act on non-compliance with rules then things would run that little bit more smoothly for everyone else.

Moan over.

US Elections

It looks as if the Americans have one last option in the Presidential Primaries

Oh the irony

You really couldn't make this up

Dispute mediator votes for strike

Acas has struggled to resolve its own workplace dispute
Staff at labour conciliation service Acas have voted to go on strike in a row over pay.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) voted by almost two to one for a rolling programme of one-hour strikes.

Union members say the service failed to make a pay offer last year.

Publicly-funded Acas works to resolve workplace disputes. Unions warn that failure to resolve its own workplace dispute could embarrass the government.

"The failure of any pay offer and the lack of substantive negotiations have forced the very people who resolve industrial disputes into voting for strike action themselves," said general secretary Mark Serwotka.

"The government can avoid embarrassing and damaging strike action in Acas and elsewhere in the civil service by addressing low pay and paying a fair wage."

On its website, Acas says it "aims to improve organisations and working life through better employment relations".