Getting High

Being high up. Mad. Paying good money to go up to the top of the Shard or any other tall building is mad. You can get basically the same view from thousands of office windows. And that view is usually rubbish. You are so high up that you see very little.

Personally I think I get a much better view from my own kitchen window. You can see the details of the trees and features. You can sometimes see little animals.

The only reason that so many people think the view from the tall towers is great is because they have allowed so many other tall towers. Basically they block off light forcing new ones to be even higher.

Yes it is all about us vs them. If all other buildings around you were two storeys high, you would get a much better view and a much better life from a four storey block than you would from a twenty storey block in the midst of other twenty storey blocks.

The density argument is rubbish too. Central Kensington is one of the most densely populated areas in Britain and central Amsterdam is one of the most densely populated cities in Europe – both have strict planning laws restricting height, yet they have some of the most desirable housing in the world.

Most families want a house with a garden. Surveys prove that. But developers make more money from massive apartment blocks and try to convince you that the view is great.

Air Bust

I said it would get personal, and it will get there gradually. First, I've mentioned regularly that I have a degree of competence in marketing technology, and once that I have a degree of competence in jet engine technology.

Consequently, topically, I was reassured to hear comparatively little bleating about the supposed "miracle" on Hudson river, and instead more emphasis on the skill and experience of the pilot and the strength of modern aircraft design, though perhaps we should also wonder who decided to develop a major airport in the middle of a densely populated urban area. But that was New York. I'm not even qualified to be a bus driver in London, though we shouldn't extrapolate from one moron to the rest of the public transport operation.

And on that note, proving that I really have left the world of serious work behind me for a while, the Carnival of the Godless is coming to these shores next week. Submit entries here.

Perspective

It's traditional to write a new year blog post. I'm not very traditional.

The big news at the moment is the Israeli assault on Gaza in apparent retaliation for the rockets that Hamas has been firing into Israel. No opinion on that here, but I think that I'm more knowledgeable on the subject than the average Brit. Even at school, I did a whole semester researching the background of the conflicts. The course was called "West Asian Studies". Clearly that's a better name than "Middle Eastern Studies".

Also from much earlier school history classes, I recall early ignorance about why Upper Egypt was shown below Lower Egypt on maps in history class. Of course it's obvious now. But because we are so used to arbitrarily seeing North at the top of maps, it confused this poor schoolboy. I know there are some novelty maps (typically Australian) that reverse the world, but actually I don't think these maps should be "novelty" at all, there should be more varieties and perspectives, then it's harder for little kids to grow up with flat earth or other biblical misconceptions.

Recipe to build a Kolkata suburb

Ingredients:
1. A few acres of land
2. A few thousand families

Cooking time:
Sixty years

For each family:
1. Fence of your personal area with bamboo and twine, then string up a temporary shelter in the middle of it.
2. When you can afford to, replace the temporary shelter with a mud shack, keeping a small plot to grow your vegetables or tether your goat
3. When you can afford to, replace the mud shack with a fairly solid brick and plaster structure
4. As funds allow, gradually add floors to give yourself more living space
5. Tear the whole house down and build a block of flats on the same little plot, extending right to the roadside. Goodbye green space, hello modern suburb.

The Urban Village

I've been away. Top five reasons why a congested Kolkata suburb of 2008 is like a traditional English village of 1908

1. The same people have lived in the same houses for generations. Almost no geographical mobility. Everybody hangs out at the same local watering holes.

2. The local store owner lives above his shop just a couple of houses down the road from you. He stocks everything and knows the price of everything. You ask him for what you need to buy, he hands it to you. Open all hours.

3. The local bank manager lives in the same street too. New accounts and loan acceptance are based largely on personal recommendation.

4. Windows and doors are open all day, most people walk to work, kids play in the street.

5. The local rag'n'bone man comes round daily with his animal-drawn trailer to collect your reusable household waste

Sounds ideal, but there is a lot that was wrong with that world, and it is disappearing fast - because now is the age of the department store - tomorrow may be the age of the internet, that will be very different again.

Big Apple

One of my old posts has been picked up today at the world's favourite Metrotwin site. At last. Superb.

http://blog.metrotwin.com/?p=383

Burying Bridges

There were once-in-a-generation news headlines this week. The presidential election (RB wins). The drastic cut in interest rates (RB loses). These massive stories are a chance for political cowards to bury bad news.

That's what Boris Johnson and his gang seems to have done. For all the pre-mayoral-election talk of needing to regenerate and improve London's infrastructure, yesterday there was a little announcement that ten major capital projects have been scrapped.

Now some cuts I could understand. But one particular cancellation is just wrong. I have been driving around London for much of the last twenty years. Travel is often difficult bordering on impossible. But (in my opinion) the single worst bottleneck in the entire city is the Blackwall Tunnel.

The western stretch of the Thames has bridges every few hundred yards. Yet between the central Tower Bridge and the Essex-Kent QEII bridge, covering at least ten miles of river with high population density on both sides, there is nothing else. Well almost nothing, another ancient tunnel that has only one narrow winding lane each way, and a single unreliable ferry. But this is obviously not enough, as each of these crossings is still at full capacity. Even the costly Dartford crossing. And that approach should solve the cost conundrum. There is so much pent-up demand that any new bridge would surely pay for itself, as much as any new road anywhere in the world possibly could. It is just madness to go ahead with the massive Thames Gateway housebuilding project unless there is a corresponding Thames Gateway infrastructure project.

Three disclaimers: I cross the river frequently; I accept marginal traffic charges; and did I mention that I like bridges?

A Moronic Oxymoron

But let's not discuss Daylight Saving Time. Let's talk of cars and traffic ...

In some countries, particularly in the remnants of the British Empire, people drive on the left. In others, including most of continental Europe and America, people drive on the right. Which is better?

To answer the question, we need to consider the facts. Most people are right-handed. Old Roman tradition was to carry the shield with the left and the sword with the right. Most vehicles still have manual gear shifts. Most shift levers are towards the centre consoles of the vehicle. So I think the better answer can be determined. But there are many factors to consider, and arguments can be made for either side.

However, let's not have those arguments. Instead, every year, let's drive for six months on the left, then for six months on the right. Once in March and once in October we should swap everything round. That makes perfect sense.

Question to David Cameron (or John McCain)

Do you believe in meritocracy, that every child and every adult should have equal opportunity to make the most of their ability and work without discrimination

Or

Do you believe that certain children and certain adults should have a privileged start in life, for example with the most productive and most valued resources allocated forever to the descendants of those who acquired them?

It's a very simple question. But those two options are exclusive. What do you choose?

(there is a third option, that everybody gets an equal share regardless of ability and work, but I don't expect any politician to ever suggest that)

Third World Economics

in 200 words.

Five things that are not significantly cheaper in the developing world, for example in the city of my birth compared to the city of my work:

1. Computers. Despite the image of India as a cheap IT supplier, the hardware is expensive.
2. Appliances and gadgets. The things that litter your home.
3. Fuel. Most of it is imported, and OPEC controls the price.
4. Clothes and food. This might surprise, but especially true of branded products.
5. Land. Obviously.

Five things that are much cheaper in the developing world, for example in the city of my birth compared to the city of my work:

1. A haircut. Fifteen pence is standard in a salon, obviously it's much less on the streets.
2. Public transport. Still less than ten pence a ride.
3. Nursing care. A couple of pounds per day.
4. Plumbers. A pound, for a job taking many hours.
5. Taxi fares. An hour's journey can cost a pound, who knows how the driver covers fuel out of that.

It's obvious really, the cheap things are services, the expensive things are products.

Equally obvious then, the people who provide the services cannot afford the products.

The Holiday Coast

No recent posts. Went on holiday to the coast for the English long weekend. Well, when I say "the coast" it's fairly loose terminology.

Imagine we live in mid New Jersey and rarely travel north. And I suggest to the holiday rep to book a place in Long Island, that's the place we want to be. But it's peak season, so unsurprisingly I get called back with the message that there were no vacancies at the obvious places there. So I say "ok then, at least get somewhere in New York".

We got a place in Albany.

Of course counties in England tend to be a lot smaller than states in America so the distances involved weren't quite so bad, but the basic relational geography stands. Sometimes we need to be clearer with our directions.

Room to breathe

Despite my respect for the originator of the quote, I don't buy the cliché that the UK and US speak very differently. There are probably far more differences between regional accents just within England than there are between English and Americans. At least in the business world, perhaps unfortunately, we sound very similar.

However across Europe, things sound very different. Yet they look broadly the same. Old buildings, little roads, people on the streets. But it's weird, people are talking incomprehensively. In America, you can understand the language perfectly, but the look of the place is completely different. Not because they have fundamentally different goals and aspirations from Europeans. But because they have more space.

The One to One map

I like maps. Wherever I go, I always like to get hold of a local map to see where things are in relation to each other, something that's not always easy to visualise when you're just looking round a strange country.

The scale used is obviously important, but some things on a map are not to scale - the width of roads on a national atlas is the obvious example. Even looking at local area ones, that same measure can be misleading. On a UK road atlas, you see a road marked as an A road and a newcomer might assume that it's a major route, multi-lane, high speed, free of traffic lights, etc. Then you actually travel on the road and realise it could be a road through London where average speed is 10 mph. In contrast, you could see a single thin line leading out from the thick green line of the US Interstate, then find yourself on another six lane dual carriageway ... driving up and down the highway looking for an exit ... you can see your destination, but just can't get to it. Sorry, I digress.

But an ideal scale would surely be one to one. When I was about seven years old, I remember reading of such a map in a fictional story, at that age I was probably reading Norman Hunter rather than Luis Borges; anyway the map could never be unwrapped because it would cover the entire country. So clearly an impossible dream.

However, today, combine GoogleMaps with SatNav, we're just about there.

Fuely Truckers

Sorry for the spoonerism. But clearly I don't go with the flow here.

As the tanker strike wound on yesterday, the enterprising owner of a fuel station changed forecourt price to align demand with the change in supply. It was exactly the same procedure that he had been doing for the other 364 days of the year. Exactly the same procedure that every other fuel station manager also does all the time. Exactly what every businessman needs to do to survive.

But fuel price watchdog petrolprices.com put out the nonsensical statement: "Putting the price up so much at a time when drivers in the South West are being hit worst by strikes is inexcusable."

The tabloids deliberately stoked up the hysteria, then did everything possible to prevent sensible mitigation of its consequences.

The undercover economist got it right. The nation got it wrong.

What's in a name

Watching Euro2008, we constantly get to hear the commentators mis-pronouncing foreign names. The ITV commentator who constantly refers to "Nicola Anelka" (sic) is simply an idiot. But that's an easy target. More controversially, I suggest that we sometimes go too far trying to get the right native pronunciation, sometimes it's ok to Anglicise...

My name is Rana, I am writing in English, but I have a different name in Bengali. My name in Bengali is Rana.

I have neither the knowledge nor the keyboard to accurately write out all the different phonemes involved, but in some respects English is a very limited language. Only twenty-six letters, though other sounds can be created through combinations of those letters. I actually like the limited set used here, it gives extra scope for pun and games. Bengali has over forty letters including more than one that approximates to n. The first is like the English one. The second is a bit different, and it is not the same as the Spanish ñ either. My name uses the second one. More significantly, within my Bengali name, the stress is not so strongly on the first syllable.

But, and this is the message here, if you are talking in English then keep your pronunciation in English. Don't try to completely copy the native phrasing. I've said it before. It just sounds odd.

The Hills Are Alive ...

... with the sound of football.

Thanks to the majesty of the IPL, there has been a lot about cricket recently. Tomorrow attention switches to football, as the European Championships commence, with Switzerland and Austria co-hosting, and every game broadcast live in England.

But England are not playing. In many ways this is a good thing. It forced a change of management, and hopefully a more professional approach that will be less pressured by the whims of a few star players.

And, more importantly, it means that we can enjoy the football. We can enjoy the game without the blinkered jingoism of many commentators. And without the agony of partisan support. May the best team win.

Though I hope it's Holland.

Future Planning

Paul Krugman is a columnist for the New York Times, and he looked back today. Back in 1996, for the centenary of the NYT magazine, he was asked to write an article imagining that he was in 2096 looking back on the world of one hundred years ago.

He had just five main points. Quoting directly:

1. Soaring Resource Prices
The first half of the 1990's was an era of extraordinarily low prices for raw materials. In retrospect, it is hard to see why anyone thought that situation would last.

2. The Environment as Property
in a world where billions of people can afford cars, vacations and food in plastic packages, the limited carrying capacity of the environment had become perhaps the single most important constraint on the standard of living.

3. The Rebirth of the Big City
...urban density favored personal interaction, which turned out to be essential.

4. The Devaluation of Higher Education
These days, jobs that require only 6 or 12 months of vocational training -- paranursing, carpentry, household maintenance and so on -- pay nearly as much as if not more than a job that requires a master's degree, and pay more than one requiring a Ph.D.

5. The Celebrity Economy
The fans attend these concerts not to appreciate the music (they can do that far better at home), but for the experience of seeing their idols in person. In short, instead of becoming a knowledge economy we became a celebrity economy.

Excellent. The big issue is that there are limited natural resources. The last point is a consequence of information becoming free. Remember he wrote all that back in 1996 imagining the vastly different world of 2096. The future is coming a lot faster than we think.

US UK Europe

In Thursday's post I listed some fairly lightweight trivial differences between the US and the UK. But at the end of Friday's post I hinted at a far more important difference.

Today Neil Perkins pointed us in the direction of a recent survey in the Economist that tried to substantiate these differences. Nothing there was very surprising, there have been plenty of other discussions but it is often worthwhile to update with the current state of opinion.

The article clearly highlights one fundamental difference, the religious majority in America compared with the secular majority in Europe. I may return to that subject another day.

But in answer to the more directly relevant question, "should UK social and economic policy be closer to an American or to a common European model?" there is a very simple answer. We need to look at the history and the geography.

The United States developed the wide open resources of the Native Americans, many settlers believed that they had a God-given right to fence off their own territories and do there as they pleased. The cities and infrastructure were largely built within the last two centuries.

By contrast, many major European cities have been in existence for thousands of years, and we cannot easily change them. The narrow winding streets and crowded "historic" neighbourhoods mean that US-type policies on car ownership and public services simply do not apply here.

If the gulf stream stops or changes, then we are hit in the same way. Many British are taught to fear or mock the French and Germans, but fundamentally our problems and opportunities are exactly the same. We are inescapably European.