Grombles

Laugh and cry! I have no idea whether this is true or not, but you can see how it might happen. I suppose you could argue that someone had to manage the parking and he ended up being a paid volunteer, but at the end of the day, it's theft of course, from both the visitors and from the zoo who should have had the money - but then the visitors would still have paid someone, so maybe it's not theft from them. More complicated than it seems perhaps.

Most art galleries and museums in the UK are paid for by the state and/or private fundraising. Why don't we keep them free for British citizens but charge foreign visitors to use them. Not only might this cut down overcrowding, but it would raise essential funding where government grants are being slashed to the bone (and beyond). All you have to do is bring your passport. Another problem sorted.

Politicians would universally fail as businessmen. They'd be more worried that I haven't included business women in my opening sentence than worry about what business means. Politicians' customers are their electorate. What they sell is popularity. Their currency is votes and their mission is to promise Nirvana within a world of mirrors. What they can't do is build and sustain a growing economy (a business) because they are measured on short-term deliverables by people who all want as much as they can get, for the least personal cost and risk, but who nonetheless believe they have a right to wealth and welfare. Promise the people 'change and prosperity' (assuming your hairstyle is appealing), and you'll get into power - until you inevitably fail to deliver it and then the next bloke has a go. That is why successful businesses aren't democracies and turkeys don't vote for Christmas - although if they realised their species' survival depended on i

Petulant, puerile, spoilt brat. I was there. I watched David Nalbandian, the otherwise brilliant Argentinean tennis star (Wimbledon finalist a few years ago), despite being a set up against Marin Cilic in the final of the Aegon Championship (the grass warm-up for Wimbles), lose his temper and injure a line judge. The previous point (an unforced error) he bounced his racquet twice on the ground (right in front of me). In days gone by, the umpire would have fined him a point for racquet abuse. This might have either immediately controlled his anger, or driven it deeper. But he would NOT have reacted in the way he did after he lost the following point - which was actually a really well played cross-court from Cilic. There was no alternative except to disqualify him. The crowd hated it because they wanted to see good tennis. But to have gone on to win the championship having injured a line official would have been totally wrong, so they were unfortunately right to call a ha

I'm typing this on a train between Guildford (the wealthiest city in the UK) and London, 35 miles away. Mobile signals (forget 3G) drop out between 10 and 15 times during this popular 45 minute journey through mostly built-up areas. And when I am connected, I'm hanging onto 1 bar (did you know that means 1 bar for reception, not transmission). Where I live, in SW Surrey, we rarely get a mobile signal at all. So much for the UK being in the vanguard of technology. We're in the dark ages compared to most developed countries, and many more far less economically successful. Why? Get used to it (notice the bars mean nothing) There are four major mobile networks competing for our money in the UK (now that Orange and T-Mobile have combined). In 2000 the British government had a wheeze. 'Lets have an auction for the mobile 3G bandwidth'. So every company who wanted to provide a 3G service tried to outbid each other for a slice, and ended up paying billions of pound