Windscreenhenge

Went away to the countryside this weekend, out towards Salisbury to track down ancient monuments.

Sadly, I missed the turn off to our hotel and a few moments later, in very slow moving traffic, the back windscreen of my Smart Car shattered. Apparently it happens quite often in older model Smarts where the demister heating element has such a shape that stresses build up and then cause a catastrophic failure.

As Monty Python taught us with Mrs. Niggerbater, well, things explode every day?

Although, for me, it kind of put a dampener on the whole weekend. The weather was pretty shite too.

The insurance mob were unable to do anything speedily, what with Smart car back windscreens not quite being an 'off the shelf' part, and it being a goddamn bank holiday weekend so no one really wanted to scour the nation's car parts depots looking for the blasted thing anyway. So, instead we soldiered on to Stonehenge and after discovering that the entrance fee was £6.90, we went and had a look at Woodhenge instead.

Torrential rain soon followed, I patched up my back windscreen hole with Lidl cardboard and we retired to the hotel for Eurovision.

The next morning, under beautiful sunshine, I drove back to London with my tail between my legs.

Why's petrol expensive?

The BBC have a nice graphic to cover the story of petrol reaching a new high


So, fuel duty is about half of the price. Bear in mind that Fuel Duty is entirely within the control of the British government. Whilst the wholesale cost is at the mercy of OPEC and the dollar/sterling exchange rate, the majority of the high price is because of the government.

At any moment they could cut fuel duty if only the government didn't pish so much money up the wall. They get £26,000,000,000 from fuel duty, about 6% of the £400,000,000,000 total estimated tax receipts for 2010.

Bah.

Flat tax and the Chevy Volt

Over on Liberal Conspiracy Tim Worstall is duking it out with the progressives in the comments, pimping the idea of a Flat Tax system.

Rather than having several tax rates depending on income, there's just one flat tax rate, and a sizable untaxed allowance.

Some of the lefties are saying its not a progressive tax, and Tim's defending that it is. I guess the problem is that its not progressive enough to satisfy. Its that untaxed allowance that makes it so great and progressive - the poor pay less.

Here's a graph showing the rate of tax for various income levels under three different tax regimes (the current tax system, a flat tax of 30% with an allowance £12,000 and my own flat tax plan 45% tax rate with an allowance equal to the median income of £25,000)

I reckon there are merits to having a really high allowance and a really steep rate, it kind of encourages the folk who decide pay levels to pay the underlings more, rather than raising their own salaries, that thought at the back of the mind that if the underlings get the money, then the government will get less money through tax than if the more highly paid people got the money. But that's just my philosophy. The underlings will undoubtly spend the money rather than save it and eventually it ends up in the treasury's coffures.

For future governments, if they find they need more or less money, they have the two options of changing the tax rate, which will lead to rich people leaving the country or coming here depending on the change, or they can change the allowance which will lead to more or less middle class people voting for them depending on the new allowance.

There's a problem in conveying the merits of each tax scheme in a single number, if you say the latter flat tax rate is 45% then the middle classes shudder, but if you say its 20% then the lefties moan that it doesn't tax the rich enough. And if you have a system with lots of different different tax bands and tax reliefs and all that then its horrendously expensive to implement, this is what we have at the moment.

Elsewhere on the internet the Chevy Volt is trending because the American EPA are giving it a 230 miles per gallon rating, the first vehicle to achieve a triple digit mpg.

My first thought was "hang on, the Chevy Volt is an electric vehicle, it doesn't use gallons of any fluid fuel". My mistake, its a hybrid, it's electric batteries give it a range of 40 miles before the gasoline engine kicks in. The gasoline engine gives it efficiency of about 50mpg.

This is the same graph as the flat tax, the initial all-electric range is the tax free allowance, and after that the gasoline engine mpg is the taxable income, and its nothing special. I get 60mpg in my Smart car, sometimes 70mpg if I'm on the motorway.

This 230mpg figure comes from including the electric only range, if you drive 55 miles, only the last 15 miles uses gas, and thats where 230mpg comes from. If the drives does 300 miles fuel efficiency is only 62mpg.

So aye, I reckon claiming 230 miles per gallon is misleading, and pretty dishonest.

That sort of thing is just going to lead to car companies developing greater battery capacity to increase the electric-only range, when in the great scheme of things, improving fuel efficiency would mean making the electric motor more efficient. They ought to be pimping some measure of miles per watt hour for the electric drive chain and also the miles per gallon for the gasoline engine, rather than pimping just the single misleading number.

Another thing to consider is when the future finally arrives and we're all driving electric cars, how will the state charge fuel duty on electricity?

For the price of a cup of tea

IMG_6883
Originally uploaded by manc_ill_kid

So, yesterday morning I stumble out at 10am to move my car, to avoid getting a parking ticket, and I discover that my wee side window has been knocked in and my first generation iPod Nano 2gb has been nicked.

I was quite pissed off.

Its just sensless. It just makes no sense. The sums don't add up.

The window will cost about £70 for Autoglass to fix, my car insurance doesn't cover contents, and the damage is within the excess, so I just have to pay up.

No the iPod Nano cost about £100 when I first got it three/four years ago, its an old old iPod Nano. Its not the latest model, its not cool, its black and very scratched and all it had on it was the audiobook of The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

So I was sat in my car calling the police and autoglass and clearing up the broken glass all over the drivers seat when the traffic warden, parking ninja walks past, eyeing me warily, he glanced at my reg plate and tapped on his handheld, and wandered away when he saw me watching him. This could be another parking ticket worth £60.

So in total the incident has cost me
damage £70
iPod £100
parking ticket £60
TOTAL £230

Was it worth it?

If the value of that that was stolen is more than the cost of damage?

Maybe, the parking ticket was incidental and since the iPod cost more than the damage to the car, then its just kind of possible, using some fucked up maths that the net gain of steal the iPod was £30.

But not quite.

Its an old iPod, most entry level mobile phone have better music playing powers. It's comparitavely as archaic as stealing a video recorder. Heck, a few houses down the street there's a computer monitor in the garden, and further down there's a 36 inch TV waiting next to wheelie bins. eBay tells me that the value of a second-hand black first generation 2gb iPod Nano is £15

It makes no sense.

Why break into a car to steal something so worthless?

I had a rant to my attractive young ladyfriend. She pointed out that it was probably just some crack-head in need of their next fix, so of course it doesn't make sense.

No, I can't handle that. Could the crack head have just thought "I need fifteen quid for my next fix, I could get a job!" or borrow money for some kind of junkie micro-finance firm, or borrow money off a bloke in the pub, or steal a wheel barrow from a garden, or anything.

Why the damage?

The loss of an iPod I can handle, Christ, I'd probably just assume I'd lost it down the back of the sofa. But the broken car window, why?

I'm so skint.

I'm so skint, I have less than no money, I have negative thousands on my credit card, that at some point in the uncertain future I'm going to have to pay off. And now £70 more in debt.

And I may never know what happens at the end of The Shock Doctrine.

Do the capitalists win? Does Naomi Klein make Uncle Miltie see the error of his ways? Are all free-markets overwealmed with protectionism and state control?

What happens?

And can I have a new iPod?

Feedback loops

I used to have a rant about Gordon Brown doesn't drive and therefore is in a crap position over the past twelve years to preside over increases in fuel duty, the proliferation of speed cameras, road tax and car scrappage.

Whilst his advisers may have warned him of outcomes and complaints about various policies, there's no way his can appreciate them first hand.

When drivers fill up their cars at the pumps, and see the litre counter going up faster than the cost counter, or the rise in price for a full tank or less fuel for a tennern you get these little instant feedback loops about the cost.

When drivers are in a hurry and they know that they can go a little faster and get to their destination a little sooner, and evaluate the risk of getting flashed by a speed camera or not.

Driving full pelt and seeing the fuel gauge tick downwards and knowing that's going to cost you, but its worth it to get from A to B.

Whilst you can search online and book in advance for a cheap journey from London to Glasgow some point in the future by train or plane, if you want to travel right now, with no advance warning, hopping in your car will always be the cheapest and most efficient option.

Gordon Brown knows none of these things first hand.

Driving for him is someone else's problem. The price of fuel is not something he has to face. Deciding how fast to go is just a matter of ordering the driver.

Its not his problem.

I think last time I had this rant, it was in the company of anti-car people and didn't down well despite my reasoning.

Its like designers who design things that they themselves will never use, they never appreciate how annoying their wee design solution is.

Anyhoo, we now have revelations that nine members of the cabinet employ accountants at the taxpayer's expense to handle thair tax returns.

They have presided over a system that is so complicated and time-consuming that they are able to do it themselves, at the same time as expecting the rest of the population. To them tax returns are someone else's problem that they don't need to deal with first hand.

Same thing.

These people are in no position to govern us.

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KC03 LFP

Someone drove into my car. No damage, but a little bit unexpected. It wasn't an accident the chap intentionally nudged my car.

I was driving a ladyfriend to work and heading home, the traffic was stationary, near some post office depot in Cricklewood. We were stationary and the chap drove into me. I drove few yards forward and the traffic was stationary again and the chap got out to see how much damage he'd caused.

Going by the view in the wing mirror, he was satisfied there was nothing insurance companies should be involved with. I got over my procrastination and got out have look too. No damage, just two small bits of plastic membrane that had rubbed off his bumper.

He shouted something at me about keeping my eyes open, I shrugged, got back my car and drove off, whilst my ladyfriend scribbled down his registration number.

There was some story covered on the blogs a year or so ago about some driver who was cut up on a motorway, he got a mate who was a police officer to run the cutter's registration number and found out where he lived. The guy went round, caused a nuisance of himself, the cutter died of a heart attack and the policeman mate got away scot free.

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Shit shit shit

According to the interective crime maps recently released by the police, in my sub-borough there's about one car stolen a month, or less. If I leave my car unlocked there is sod all chance of being stolen.

I got a parking ticket this morning. I so can't afford to pay it.

Five months ago I paid for a parking permit from Camden Council. But they put a parking suspension thing in place and everyone on the street got a parking ticket.

Apparently they'd put up notification notices, but I didn't see it, and now I have to pay £60 or £120.

I counted five cars with tickets when I left the house this morning and the ticket guy still going strong. Let's say he'd zapped eight cars. So in my street, you're eight times more likely to get a parking ticket than you are to have your car stolen.

They have my address, I gave them it when I applied for the parking permit. Could they no have sent me a letter about the parking suspension?

So, not only am I unable to pay my rent, but I have to pay the council £60 cos I left my car in the same place I usually leave my car every day outside my house.

Hmm, if my Job Seekers Allowance comes through, that's about £55 a week, slightly less that the parking fine. Does the money all circulate from the same council pot?

**UPDATE**
Hmph, there's a removal van parked where my car was.

Shouldn't Abels be paying me for the inconvenence, and will they pay my parking fine for me?

Failed attempt at being.

Its mostly guilt that brings me to Barden's Boudoir tonight. Sure I could claim to be a big fan of Arthur and Martha, but that would be doing a great disservice to Sharon from The Gresham Flyers who spent the best part of an hour working on me last weekend.

Since I've known half the people in the room for half a decade, but save the merest glimmer of recognition from the girl on the door, it counts for nothing. What I get, I have to get myself, like my damned fool plan to have one of the most popular political blogs in the UK, on a whim, because I can.

My car's parked just down the way, this is my first time in Stoke Newington, well, the first conscious time. A mob of locals came yahooing down the street as I locked my car, I swear one was packing heat. I'm only quite sure I'm not some kind of split personality serial killer, avenging some half-imagined crimes of the past, but sometimes I wake up in strange placed covered in blood that isn't my own.

Arthur and Martha on stage, halfway through AutoVia, my favourite song of their's, alas it the final song of the set. 'Arthur' seemed to be rocking out a little more than usual.

Summer festival appearances should be good.

I don't know if I was actively trying, maybe it was just going through the motions, I stood at the front, as near to the speakers as possible without people thinking 'he's standing as close to the speakers as possible', but I didn't hear any of the second band, save the blistering shards of an epic guitar solo and people clapping. Instead, I was in another place.

It was like in geography class or some MRPII meeting, slipping out of consciousness. Faces of girls I'd loved and any tenuous connection they had with the band before me. Memories of seeing them there or photos of the scene, glimpses like from a passing car, from too far away or the wrong side of the room. The stabbing shards of seperation, of missing something very important, of helplessness, of fate and damned bad luck.

Even in my slipping out of lucidity, I knew something was wrong and sought to guide my stream elsewhere to Manchester and Bolton and married life, anything away from the hell I occupied.

But it didn't quite work, the stabbing shafts of reality and it all comes back to east London cutting through. The here and now, crushing on what once was, or what I remember of it.

Even the reaffirming terrible truth that what I remember isn't the same as what actually happened.

The memories are wrong, incorrect, I know that for certain. But they are still the memories in my head, crystal clear, as though it was yesterday, last week, last year or a decade ago. The memories, soured by the truth.

Where the hell are the toilets in here?

I think I saw Das Wanderlust at Indietracks, but I can't for the life of me remember what they sounded like, and it would be unfair to judge them on tonight's performance considering it was mostly "imagine that last song sounded great" on the grounds that the singing girl had lost her voice, and the one song where DJ Waz played the 7" and the mimed along.

There were people behind me who wouldn't stop talking.

If asked what did I think of the evening, in an imaginary conversation with some vague acquaintance who happened to ask, I think in order to improve my quality of life I should have gone to the My Sad Captains single launch instead. I can barely control what goes on in my head, providing rope to hang myself was never going to be good and a better tunes would have been nicer.

Maybe that's unfair.

I think I've made many bad life decisions. I can't quite pin-point any of them, where or when.

Except climbing out of an eleventh floor window in 1997 and deciding to climb back in.


The oddest thing, after the bands I slouched out of the venue to scribble notes in my car, and as I drove away, I wanted to kill myself even more.

Further descent

So I took my printer in to get serviced and my car got dinted.

Looks like I have to get a new printer too.

Damned frustrating. But hey ho.

I wonder why Humblebee and Crystalball have been kicked off Bowlii. Things aren't going well in the world.

David Brent

My car was being serviced so I wander for a few hours round Brent. The bushes are heavy with raspberries. Some predatorial bird stood in my path hacking away at a mouse caught for lunch.

There's a big expanse of water here, the edges are covered with a thick green scum, I shall name it Scum Loch.

Shags dive, pigeons saw, fish rise, leaping briefly out of the water. It smells rotten, Someone has left coconuts.

I hunger.

Time passes and I arrive at the other side of Scum Loch, armed with a carton of cranberry juice and a packet of sour gobstoppers.

Wildlife is all around me, I think I'm being stalked by water rats or otters, duck type birds squawk unseen, scum bubbles methane, in the distance my car is serviced.

A small clearing off the man path, conker trees stand tall overhead, ancient matresses lie rotting in the undergrowth and I'm thinking about doing rude things to girls.

How many generations of kids have played here on their bikes?

Some trees appear broken, not just branches, but whole trunks torn assunder. Do giants walk in these regions?

Parkland populated by seagulls, dog walkers and litter picker uppers. I feel like I'm in Doctor Who's England.

Wembley's arch looming on the horizon, a burnt out motorbike in the trees, a small pair of knickers too close to the water's edge.

Why does my car take so long? Isn't it just an oil check and a brake check?

McDonalds for dinner, the Wembley arch still looming sinisterly behind some trees. The Big BBQ burger is nothing special, I wish I hadn't bothered.