Month: June 2008

Bus Lane Camera

That’s me.

Craftily zipping down an empty bus lane to beat the lights.

The fine arrived a week later, complete with colour photos and timestamp.

Bastards.

It’s a simple and, no doubt lucrative, formula: £60 now or £120 later.

You shout, you scream, you howl.

You curse the council as spiteful, mean, money-grabbing, devil-worshipping fiends.

You pay.

Then, like a smacked child, you avoid bus lanes.

I loathe these cameras. Everyone does.

They are everywhere and enrage the ordinary motorist.

But they work.

Bus lanes are clear. 

Speed limits obeyed. 

Lives saved.

But they are still the work of the devil….!

US election

Obama or McCain ? One to watch…

It’s odd how fixated we Brits are with American elections.  I mean it’s so long-winded and complex. The state primaries and conventions seem endless !

In the UK, the Prime Minister can call and hold an election in a matter of months. In America it can take years from eager hopefuls declaring their candidacy to the actual winner taking office.  Extraordinary ! But, strangely reassuring.

It’s good to see the most powerful person in the world selected by a long, open, very public process with plenty of room for debate, argument and upset. I’d rather the superpower chose it’s leader by an awkward, sometimes baffling, and very long-winded process than a totalitarian inner circle appointing one if its own.

Will America really elect a black man with the middle name Hussain ? I sincerely hope so.

George W. Bush was in London last week on the final European tour of his presidency and his motorcade was universally met by protest. You couldn’t imagine a more unpopular visitor. At the time, someone asked me whether I thought Iraq and the Bush presidency have terminally damaged America’s reputation around the world ?   The media coverage of the Bush visit seemed to suggest that it had. Could America recover ?

Imagine a newly inaugurated President Obama sweeping into Downing Street for a press call with the PM or meeting the Queen at Windsor for a grand state banquet. He’d be cheered from the roof-tops. The bad old days of Bush, Cheney and the Iraq oil grab would fade pretty quickly. Obama would enjoy a genuine wave of good-will, abit like Bill Clinton did on winning  in 92. I’d certainly turn out to see him…