Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Congestion Charging

Read this and try not to laugh. If you drive into Central London during certain hours you will have to pay a fee. And how is the fee paid? Well you have to do the honourable thing and own up....and then pay up. If you don't eventually they'll track you down and fine you. This is being introduced because the traffic speeds have reduced to less than 10mph for the first time in...well..almost history! Red Ken thinks the way to stop people driving in is to charge them. What he didn't bother to do is sort out the Tube and bus system so that they can cope with the number of people that want to enter London each day. I started commuting to work when I was at school....just two days a week for my evening/Saturday job. That must have been about 16 years ago. The Underground service was lovely then....lots of trains, prety frequent, no worries. Admittedly it's been a while (2 years or so) since I've been there but I hear the horror stories from family/friends. They've gradually spent less and less money on public transport so that now the trains, when they run, are overcrowded and unreliable. Often they don't run the full length of the line leaving people stranded at stations nowhere near home. So now Ken expects people to all of a sudden return to the Tube? I don't think so. Maybe he thinks he'll get all this extra money from capturing photos of people driving in? Yeah, right. The article lists the various tricks to get round it...you think people won't try that? Or maybe sabotage the cameras? Or how about this? There was a case a while back of a driver that was photographed speeding. When the case went to court it got thrown out because they couldn't prove that a digital photo HADN'T been tampered with......! It's all too stupid. He should have introduced tollbooths if he really wanted to do it properly....although that would have cost money...which would be better spent on public transport than on causing more beauracy for some local government department to wade through. I can see the adverts now.....job available.....ability to wade through hundreds, probably thousands, of photos each day and check up on car registration numbers and then see which owners paid and which didn't!!!! Mmmmm...sign me up for that one!!!! And the bit that really annoys me.....there's a line in there about firefighters/nurses also having to pay!!!!!!! No way...that's ridiculous! So it seems the world is watching this with bated breath...yeah, just waiting for the moment they can burst out laughing......

And now back to reality. Yesterday was tough....not! Microsoft came in and took us to lunch. JB suddenly looked at his watch in the middle of lunch. Shit! Wot? I have a conference call at 1pm. Someone's going to have to drive me back to the office. Ooooops. We finished lunch and returned.....JB's looking sheepish. I don't want to talk about it. There wasn't a call was there? Yes. Really? Yes....but it's tomorrow.....LOL And then he took us out for dinner last night...two meals in one day....great for the diet....!!!! Went to Mothers. Very nice. Introduced JB and BK (he's the married one that keeps making comments....one day I'm gonna scare the hell out of him by doing something to him!) to the joys of Cointreau. Drank too much (back on pain killers!) and ate too much but it was lovely.....mmmmm........Oh and he's invited me to a dinner party at his place.....although the date he suggested was when I'm gonna be in NJ so that won't work. Bring a date....hmmm...that could be a problem...not sure I have anyone presentable enough to meet the boss....wonder how he'd react if I turned up with a 20-something?!

There was a little hiccup in the day's proceedings though. Rob called me....I've been fired. No, stop messing around. I'm serious. Babe!!! Why? Whole department got laid off. Last day March 11. Oh no. Poor thing. Although he does have a cushy overpaid job so I'm not totally surprised. Think he was a little devastated. Can you be a little devastated? Probably not. Never mind. Too early for semantics. So now wot? We'd been joking around yesterday morning that if he got fired he could come and live with me. Only said that cos I know he'll never come to Buffalo! By the afternoon I think he was almost up for it....as long as it doesn't get in the way of my lifestyle! Now wot could he mean by that? Oh yeah.. I know......ha ha ha.......how to cure a bad back, sleep with a chiropractor (I'll save that story for another day I think!).

I skived off work today. Not done that since November. And I only remember it was then cos that was the day I broke the bed (!). I won't be repeating that today. My back's in a mess and they're talking about lots of snow...albeit a little further south but, hey, that's good enough for me. Just made the trek down to Walgreens to get my painkillers refilled. No more auto refills. Booohooo. Although she did give me 90 so that should last me for a while. If I get through all of those I probably do need to go back to the doctor.....so let's make 'em last...! Think I'll take some now and have a little nap....I can't believe I was living on these things for so long. Every time I've taken one in the last few days I've been floating round the room. Amazing how this stuff can screw you up.......oh well....a girl's gotta do wot a girl's gotta do!

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