SIZZLING SECOND EDITION!

Here we go again...

To nobody's surprise except my own, we arrive at the (probably not actually) sizzling second edition of "The LB Tabloid" which ends up following rather more quickly on the heels of the first than was expected, and being rather less 'pithy' than I'd hoped. It seems that I really am incapable of doing 'pithy' after all. No wonder my experiments in Twitworld have been so unsuccessful.

"So, what's been troubling the fine inhabitant of Lesser Blogfordshire this week...?" I fail to hear anyone actually ask. Well, there's not been a great deal going on but, as ever, a few things popped up in the media to vex and confound me, but not enough to trigger a full-blown, all-out rant. Instead, here are a few choice nuggets that would have formed part of my day-to-day conversation, if I actually had anyone unlucky enough to be around me to talk to during my daytimes.

As you have no doubt already realised, writing rubbish on the internet that nobody actually reads is what I do instead.

PAYING BY SMARTPHONE

"Smartphone" - Blogfordshire style

When I bought my Radio Times last week, I felt that I had to apologise to the nice young fellow serving behind the counter for including 10p of the asking price in 2p pieces because that was all that I had in the pocket of the battered old hacking jacket I'd put on as I launched myself out of the front door in order to face the business of that particular day.

Later on I discovered that more and more people never seem to feel the need to carry cash at all nowadays. Yes, it's not just the Queen, or that bloke who never gets his round in any more, who can claim to be 'cash-poor' when you want to tap them for that tenner you lent them, because anyone with an all-singing, all-dancing foxy new telephone can now wave it in the air like a little Harry Potter with his wand and zap!, all the stuff you've been buying is bought and paid for.

Personally, as someone who's not even over keen on using the 'self-checkout' at the supermarkets, it isn't a step that is being greeted with the greatest enthusiasm by me, but I suppose we should embrace progress, no matter how annoying we might personally find it.

It could quite possibly make the job of the security guard all the more difficult, too, because you might be able to legitimately stuff all your purchases down the front of your jumper and claim that you were actually going to pay for them but you didn't have a bag with you.

Anyway, the real point is that I don't actually have a Smartphone which, by a ridiculous stretching of some bizarre leap of dubious internal logic now means to me that one day, unless I decide to spend a fairly large chunk of my money on something I don't really want or need, I won't have access to any of my own money. There's also the slight worry that are plenty of ways already that the world manages to find to ensure that the month seldom runs out before the end of the money as it is without some computer taking it upon itself to withdraw my cash via some random bleep when I accidentally pass some malfunctioning electronic reading device as I'm rattling my way around Tesco's.

It's no use, I'm really going to have to start calling them 'Stupidphones' because, ah, you just knew I was going to anyway, didn't you?

OLD AGE

Happily, I do tend to think that I'm old enough and ugly enough nowadays to discover that I'm rarely swayed by the presence of some kind of recognised label when I shop for clothes at least. The only jeans I have that still have a 'recognised' label have a huge hole in the knee, and any bought after those have tended to be the sort found at the cheaper end of the supermarket range. Apparently this might very well be because I'm no longer considered to be 'young', although there are few people I expect who would accept that I ever was.

Those enigmatic 'surveys' that you sometimes hear about now 'reckon' that the people of Britain have the lowest perception of the age that marks the boundary of being 'young' of any of the counties in Europe, and (surprise, surprise!) as a nation, we also set the boundary we consider people to be 'old' considerably lower, too.

Apparently to be considered 'young' in Britain you have to be less than 35, and you're "officially" old at 59. That's a pretty sobering thought to have on a grey old morning in your latish 40s, although I wonder whether if they asked the same people the same questions again in around ten years or so they'd get the same answers?

CYCLISTS vs MOTORISTS

Whilst I tend to think that it's probably only fair to describe myself as being a 'motorist' nowadays, I was, once upon a time, known to have a foot in both camps, right up until the day when someone - not necessarily later to be a famous rock star - broke into the garage I had back in those days when I lived in the relative flatness of the urban jungle, and stole my bicycle whilst, rather significantly I've always felt, leaving my car behind. Whether that means that whoever it was had a vehement dislike for the motor car, or merely that were too young to drive, will no doubt never be known.

However, the ongoing battle between the two factions does seem to be hotting up these days, and I just wanted to try and prove at least the vaguest possibility of being impartial about these matters, despite having been berated in print by a 'radical cyclist' a few years ago (it's the kind of short, but very dull story that even I would hesitate to share).

The problem really seems to come down to the fact that both sides have more than their fair share of idiots amongst their numbers. There does seem to be an accepted belief amongst cyclists that ALL motorists are careless, just as there sees to be a belief amongst motorists that ALL cyclists are less concerned than other road users with things like stop signs, crossings and other accepted 'rules of the road'. As ever, the truth falls somewhere in between, but I was interested to find out that there is now a plan being mooted that, when it comes to any road traffic accident, the larger vehicle is likely to be considered as having been in the wrong. So if a car is hit by a bus, no matter how ridiculous the car's manoeuvre, it would still be the fault of the bus driver, or if a bicycle is hit by a car it is, by default, the fault of the car driver.

Personally, I'm not convinced by this idea although, happily, the potential risk is now meaning that certain trucks are now installing cameras and other sensor equipment to help the driver to be more aware of any bicycles lurking in some of the 'blind spots' that they have. Ultimately there can be those who do wrong on both sides of this argument (try asking some pedestrians in the city centre what they think about the average cyclist, for example), but as long as everyone is trying their very best to keep everyone safe, then that can only be a good thing.

Interestingly the whole debate about cycle helmets seems to be escalating too, with many quite learned heads insisting that wearing one is no advantage when it comes to collisions. I will state that, having known some people who have had severe, life-changing disabilities following accidents in which they did not wear the helmet that could have significantly reduced their injuries, I still come down on the side which says quite categorically that the more protection you have, the safer you are, and keeping everyone safe is really what it should all be about.

LOUIS THEROUX

This week, "Louis Theroux" presents yet another of his documentaries showing life from the inside of an American prison. Oh, Louis, it seems as if you're always inside an American prison... In fact, Louis, old sport, there's not just the slightest possibility that you're actually 'in' prison is there? I'm just asking, that's all, because you do seem to spend an awful lot of time within the system for someone who doesn't have to be. I mean, it's really not the sort of place I'd imagine anyone wanted to spend any more time than they actually had to inside, is it?

I mean, there's only really one person in the world that I've found who knows how to put up with me and my little ways, and even they have started going out a lot more lately, but I'd like to think that no matter how bad my life got, I'd still rather not choose to spend any of it in an American penitentiary, or one in any other country, come to think of it.

A few things that I feel I should have remarked upon recently and then... didn't:-

The final mission of the Space Shuttle "Endeavour".

Tales of allegedly rapacious Bankers and simultaneously, the Kenneth Clark fiasco.

This rather fun link to some rather fun spoof IKEA manuals which I hope still works:
http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6500868/sci-fi-ikea-manuals