I’m feeling remarkably happy today – and not only because it’s Friday (seventeen working days till I’m outta there!). This morning, I was late getting up, and so reached the station thirty seconds after my train was scheduled to leave. However, in what can only be regarded as a miraculous occurrence (my application for canonization has already gone off to the Vatican), said train had been delayed, and it rolled in four minutes later. Even the usual cattle-truck overcrowding, my face stuck in the armpit of some sweaty businessman, couldn’t wipe the smile off my face, for of such small things are tranquility and nirvana made.

I think it’s true to say that the daily commuting grind is something I will not miss in the slightest once I leave London for pastures Arizonan. Of course, it will probably be replaced by a different daily grind, as I drive to work instead — that in itself promises to be an experience, not having been behind a wheel in five years or so. I’m already nervous about having to take another driving test to get an American licence (or even “license”) — a Brit in his 30’s alongside all those 90210-styled teens. At least on American roads, you have a great deal more room to manoeuvre (or even, “maneuver”).

And, from what I’ve seen, American drivers are a good deal more polite, cheerfully waving away behaviour which would provoke a severe attack of road-rage – perhaps just a severe attack – if you tried them going round the Elephant & Castle. Perhaps it’s indeed true that an armed society is a polite society, and that you are less inclined to be rude if you can’t tell whether the other guy is packing. But it seems that driving, in itself, it less stressful than in London; or at least, it’s a different kind of stress, one born of fatigue and the fact that popping down to the corner shop for a pint of milk now requires a 30-minute drive. Each way.

This is still, however, preferable to London. I had been working on Litany of Hate 2 a sequel to (unsurprisingly) Litany of Hate, a list of things which piss me off. But I realised how many of these were linked to transport, even as a pedestrian who only has to dodge the shrapnel of car-related stress, as drivers explode in plumes of fury. Particular peeves include motorists who think that blowing their horns at pedestrians is the same thing as giving them the right of way. Or, as mentioned last time, there’s those who accelerate across the pedestrian crossing as they see you step onto it — inevitably getting a whole ten yards further up the road before the traffic brings them to a halt anyway. You may recall that I perfected the technique of clipping their rear wing hard with my briefcase as they whizz past, which creates a most satisfying sound. It scares the life out of them and is far less risky and more satisfying than shouting obscenities. Well, I have since discovered the additional tactic of then walking on as if nothing has happened, which really confuses them…

Then there’s cyclists… Oh, yes… No group of road-users probably whines more about how badly they’re treated – but no group of road-users has less respect for the rules of the road. One-way streets, stop lights, pavements — these are all things that apply to other people, as they swerve their way through the traffic like frantically-pedalling lemmings. For the death-toll among cyclists is perilously high — and I can see why. Once, when bus, tube and train all went on strike simultaneously, I cycled to work; even though the traffic was stationary, it wasn’t an experience I want to repeat. But until cyclists learn to behave like sensible road-users, why should they be treated like sensible road-users? Best just regard the annual death-toll as a cull of the most stupid and/or unlucky.

How can you tell the Japanese tourists on a whale-watching boat?
They’re the ones carrying the knives and forks aboard…

Having had my interest piqued by the latest batch of TC weird news, I was at the Japanese Whaling Society site the other day, a fascinating place which mounts a stoic defence of their right to harpoon any tasty-looking morsel of mammalian blubber within reach. Its suggestion is that whales are not that intelligent – the ratio of brain to weight is way below a dolphin’s – and that they’re more like ocean-dwelling cows than sentient beings. This is refreshingly robust, certainly a cut above the usual apologist nonsense over whaling for “scientific” reasons. Such are the joys of the Net: the ability to get points of view that are normally suppressed – sometimes for the best of reasons, but no truly democratic society can pick and choose who gets freedom of speech, and who doesn’t, based on whether you agree with their opinions.

I doubt that such views will be tolerated by those who manage “ethical investments”. These are funds who don’t invest your money in dubious companies that pollute the environment, say, or torture small furry animals. It’s one of those nice, woolly ideals – hell, even the name hijacks the moral high ground with the implication that other investments are somehow evil and immoral. It is interesting to speculate briefly as to whether proudly unethical investment funds do exist, advertising the fact that they don’t give a damn about morality, but they’ll do lots more with your money?

For the concept appeals only to the already-rich who can afford to take the hit. Ethical investments will, overall, do less well than normal ones, since if you make your choice based on factors other than pure financial performance, this is inevitable. It also seems to deny the inter-related nature of the modern economy, where no-one is innocent. Sure, there are degrees of guilt, but this is strangely bypassed: they aren’t called “slightly less unethical than average investments”.

In its simplest form, this is a boycott, which is the thin end of the wedge when it comes to campaigning tactics. For example: GM foods. It wasn’t enough for those who didn’t want to eat them, to buy from places that didn’t use genetically-modified ingredients, or simply read the freakin’ packet. Instead, there was a campaign of embarrassment, near-intimidation and vandalism aimed at forcing stores and farmers to cave in. Clearly, the arguments had failed to convince people, but as is all too often the case, who needs facts or evidence when you’ve got a good publicity campaign?

This intolerance for the views of others is characteristic of many a liberal cause: they’re right, you’re wrong, and you have to change to suit them. When was the last time you went to a vegetarian restaurant and saw a “Carnivores Option” on the menu? It’s the way that a small group will often attempt to enforce their own beliefs on others which irritates me. “I don’t want to wear fur, so all fur shops should be closed.” I don’t inflict my morality on others – much as the idea of skinning a few PETA activists does appeal – and I would appreciate it if others would give me the same respect.

So, if you don’t want to eat whale-meat, that’s fine. But if you can’t convince the Japanese not to do so, respect their views and let them get on with their lives.

Groan…I must not watch rhythmic gymnastics…I must not watch rhythmic gymnastics… Only five days into the marathon which is the 2000 Olympics coverage, and the strain is beginning to tell. Thanks to the ten-hour time difference, I have spent the past week being lulled to sleep by the sound of coxless fours on Radio 5, and woken up by cheers from the badminton arena. My days are spent pouring over collated table tennis results on the Reuters news feed at work, and cheering as Britain passes the Bulgarians in the medal table. Thank heavens it’s only once every four years.

At least it’s in Australia – it would have been ten times worse had it been in Manchester, who were defeated in the final round of voting for the honour of staging the games. I still treasure the memory of the crowd in Manchester spontaneously bursting into Always Look on the Bright Side of Life as the news of their rejection came through. All credit to the Aussies though, for running what seems so far to have been a strikingly well-organised event: I doubt Manchester would have done quite so well, even in Moss Side would have offered ideal territory for the shooting competitions. Sawn-off shotgun from the prone position, anyone?

It’s weird how the Olympics capture such a hold on the collective imagination, when few of the sports which are popular the rest of the time take a full part: no golf or motor racing at all, while the top competitors in football and baseball don’t take part. But for me, the joy is less to be seen in these events, than in the ones which you rarely or never get to see: they flower briefly, enjoying a day in the sun, then vanish for another four years. Would you know what “double-trap” was if we hadn’t won the gold medal in it? It’s a miracle we manage to compete in shooting at all, since post-Dunblane, possession of anything much bigger than a pea-shooter has been forbidden. Similarly in gymnastics where the British women had to deal with the problem of possessing actual breasts, unlike most of the other competitors.

Which brings me to beach volleyball, which is the complete opposite, being a sport in which silicone implants appear to be part of the rigorously enforced, minimalist dress code. It’s not a game we can expect the Afghan Taleban to be submitting a team for in the near future. This Olympic version of Baywatch, all teeth, tans and tits, also features the best-named pairing of the Games so far – or at least, the couple most likely to be mistaken for a lesbian porno double act – the magnificently-monikered American duo of Holly McPeak and Misty May. Although for sheer class, you can’t beat another fog-influenced American, swimmer Misty Hyman.

Still, you can’t deny that beach volleyball actually is a sport, unlike certain I could mention – let’s just say that anything where marks are given for “artistic impression” and the like are on dubious grounds, at least until oil-painting and ballet become Olympic events as well. The decisions over which sports are in, and which are out, seem almost random: it’s clearly nothing to do with popularity (Graeco-Roman wrestling, anyone), but gratifyingly, neither are commercial or televisual potential apparently anything to do with it. Badminton is in; squash isn’t. Go figure. But who wants to watch athletics anyway? A sport with all the spectator appeal of horse-racing, as far as I’m concerned — the sprinters take three times as long to get ready as they do to race, while you might as well tune all but the final lap of the long-distance races. And as for race walking…what the hell is that all about? Hey, make it a three-legged race and have done with it. Me, I’ll be eagerly tuning in to the climax of the sail-boarding instead – that’s real sport…

What better way to wind down after a tough week at work than with a little mindless violence? And for the couple of years, the first dose on a Friday evening has been in the shape of Robot Wars, BBC2’s glorification of mechanised mayhem which pits radio-controlled robots against each other in a demolition derby of titanic proportions. There can be few finer sights than seeing a lovingly-constructed machine being reduced to shrapnel in under sixty seconds.

It’s originally an American concept, but only recently has it become the televised spectacle there, that it is here, where it’s regularly among the channel’s top-rated shows. The American version, Battlebots, is on The Comedy Channel, of all places, home of South Park, rather than a network channel, and this, together with the relative novelty of the show as yet, may help to explain why…well, to quote a housemate, “They’re a bit crap aren’t they, these Americans.” For it does have to be said: the British entrants have already been through several years of evolution, and it shows. Rather too many of the American ones look to be relying on “naive charm” as their major offensive weapon, and a robot capable of flipping the opposition, a common sight in Britain, would have a field day.

There are a number of other differences, both in the presentation and the content of the show. While Robot Wars has the cheerfully ignorant Craig Charles, Battlebots opts for something which looks more like a regular sports show, with two (mildly sarcastic) presenters in the studio, to deliver the almost inevitable stats without which no American sport is complete. Both shows have a lady in the pits, and this element is a definite win for the Brits. Even though Phillipa Forester has gone to have a baby, her replacement is still better than former Baywatch bimbo, Donna D’Errico. However, the American version does hit back with nifty little segments showing the builders “at home”, in their garages or dens, even if usually this does only confirm that they need to get out more.

For the Battlebots contests themselves, there is an announcer in the “ring”, like at a boxing match, though woe betide any robot with a tricky name, as he has a nasty tendency to slaughter them – Mjollnir, Thor’s hammer from Norse mythology was rendered as muh-JOLL-neer, which I don’t think is right… There are also no house robots with which to contend (not even the entirely useless ref-bot introduced in this series of Robot Wars, but there are rather more in the way of booby-traps, including a vicious double circular-saw with a camera mounted between the blades, which gives an interesting perspective.

The two episodes of the American edition I watched didn’t appear to have much in the way of a tournament, though there were vague references to one a little bit down the line. Interestingly, while Robot Wars has only one weight category, with a maximum limit, Battlebots has several, up to and including some super-heavyweight creations which are undeniably impressive. I also enjoyed the ten-man…er, ten-machine Robot Rumble, a free-for-all which certainly proved to be eventful, if perhaps not quite as skilfully controlled as a traditional head-to-head contest!

It’s not, in the end, fair to compare Battlebots and Robot Wars in their 2000 incarnations, since it’s obvious that four years of network exposure will lead to more interest and entries than a rookie show on a cable channel. There have been a couple of attempts before to pit British and American robots against each other, and the lack of American experience has been obvious. However, before we get too cocky, perhaps we should remember how we used to regularly win the Ryder Cup too… I’ve no doubt that the Americans’ day will come.

My, what an interesting week. For a while there, I felt like I was inhabiting a 70’s TV series (remember Survivors?), with the entire fabric of the country about to collapse into anarchy and chaos. No such luck, however, even if the petrol companies obviously were not trying too hard to get the tankers out the gates.

I can see their point, even if the (hastily changed) decision to increase the price the same day the blockades finished must go down as one of the stupidest in the history of capitalism. They do all the hard work, take the risks and make a couple of pence profit. The government comes along, in its wide-brimmed hat and platform soles, smacks them around a bit and rakes in 60 pence on every litre. That’s the kind of mark-up any pimp would be proud of. They bleat about how it’s an “environment tax”, to dissuade people from using their cars but, to extend the metaphor, would you give credence to a drug lord justifying who jacks up the price of heroin and says it’s for your own good? You need to stop people wanting to use their cars, by removing the need (how many mega-malls have the government allowed to be built outside of towns?), and giving them alternatives, in the shape of a good public transport network. I don’t have a car – haven’t had one for five years or so – because it’s simply not necessary in London. But if I still lived in Forres, it would be a necessity.

It was almost inevitable that sooner or later, people would say “enough’s enough”. Seeing the French complain, at lower tax rates didn’t help, and nor did the general perception that huge piles of public money are being poured down the drain in Greenwich. If we’ve got so much cash to throw around, why are we taxed so heavily? Fair question. It’s been seen by successive governments as an easy cash-cow to milk, with each Chancellor squeezing the udders ever tighter, each budget jacking up the price a bit more. But unlike booze and fags, fuel is now – as we’ve seen – essential to everyday life. [Booze is merely essential to get you through everyday life…] It’s hard to see why petrol should be so heavily taxed when, for example, electricity isn’t.

What was startling was how few people it took to bring everything to a grinding halt, and the speed at which the crisis exploded was also very encouraging to any would-be revolutionaries. The modern approach of minimising stocks may be efficient, but if the chain of supply breaks down, for whatever reason, you’re stuffed. When Thatcher took on the miners, in the last comparable action, she prepared by making sure coal stocks were built up in advance. With no such chance this time, the crisis rapidly exploded from nothing. And so much for the Blitz spirit — fist-fights on forecourts, panic-buying in supermarkets, the works. Hell, I even went to the bother of killing my neighbours and salting their corpses in the cellar for emergency consumption. I’ll miss them…

I find Blair’s refusal to bow to the protestors also very interesting, given his government’s willingess to accede to the demands of the far more violent anti-hunt lobby. I always thought democracy was about the government doing what the people wanted. Silly me. I’ll end with a quote: “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.” Which radical expressed such anarchic views? Karl Marx? Che Guevera? Mao Tse-Tung? Nope. Abraham Lincoln, in his 1861 inaugural address. Somehow, I feel politics, and politicians, have changed in the 140 years since, and not for the better.