So, with the news that one of the UK’s largest van hire firms is set to renew 20,000 vans, a third of its fleet, in the expectation that the economy has/will pick up to an extent where the expense is justified, one has to feel that, assuming the money men at Northgate have done their jobs right, this has to be a good sign for the wider economy. Afterall, 20,000 vans are not going to come cheap and, even if the vehicles which are being replaced are so clapped out that they can’t be rented anymore, the implication has to be that the firm thinks it will need a capacity significantly greater than the 40,000 vans which it would have left.

A lot of Northgate’s business traditionally comes from businesses in construction and manufacturing, as opposed to private customers, so the firm’s commitment to renew their fleet strongly suggests that they have confidence in these sectors to flourish over the next twelve months, and if that’s the case then that would certainly be a good sign for the wider economy; particularly when one considers that the construction industry was one of the areas hit hardest by the recession, and the resulting crash in house prices.

Only time will tell whether or not it’s an astute move which will leave them well placed to profit from any recovery we see this year, but they’re by no means the only company to demonstrate optimism over the economy’s near future, and quite often the economy seems to function as much according to expectations as because of any real monetary factors, so, although my tendancy is to be wary, overall I’m thinking that the signs for recovery are looking hopeful.

The prizes are awarded, each year, by Improbable Research an organisation whose purpose is to highlight scientific “research that makes people laugh and then think”. They operate year round, bringing news of off the wall science to the masses (well, ok, maybe just masses of geeks,) but their big event each year is the Ig Noble prizes, where prizes are given out in a range of categories, much like the real Noble prizes.

The 2010 prizes aren’t due to be awarded until the end of September, but some of the highlights from the 2009 roll of honour include:
VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: to the researchers who discovered that named cows produce more milk than unnamed animals.
CHEMISTRY PRIZE: to the team who synthesised diamonds from tequilla. (I knew there had to be some use for the vile stuff!)
MEDICINE PRIZE: to the man who cracked the knuckles on just one of his hands every day, for 50 years! in order to demonstrate that the activity doesn’t cause arthritis.
LITERATURE PRIZE: to the Irish Police, for issuing over 50 speeding tickets to one “Prawo Jazdy”, a Polish phrase meaning “Driving License”.

Life saving lingerie: a bra which doubles as a gas mask!

Really, I’m not making this up, SEE -even the BBC reported it!

I guess the idea is that most woman wear bras most of the time, which I suppose means that the “life saving” lingerie is always likely to be available, should the need arise, &, even better, each woman in the area of the attack would be able to offer a hand (or should that be cup?) to someone less well prepared.

My mother used to tell me to change my pants in case I got hit by a bus, which always struck me as odd since I imagine that, even if the pants were clean that morning, the no doubt frightening ordeal of being hit by a large, heavy vehicle would ensure that they were no longer clean by the time the paramedics arrived.
In the future are young woman going to have their mothers telling them to make sure their underwear is clean? Just in case there’s a gas attack and they’re forced to share half their bra with a stranger -imagine the embarrasment of having to offer a stranger a slightly soiled bra-come-gas mask! never mind that they may be more concerned by life threatening gas, or somewhat distracted by the spectacle of women around them frantically removing their tops!
In fact it might end up making gas attacks a somewhat salacious affair, which I suppose, in it’s own right, might not be a bad deterrent to the evil doers of this world, or at least those who hold strong views about women showing as little skin as possible.

I also wonder if this lingerie-lifeline is merely the tip of the iceberg, in future are we to be treated to a whole range of everyday items which double as emergency equipment? Maybe household furniture which can be quickly converted into a nuclear bunker? (scarily not so far from official govt advice, during the cold war era, as to how the public should protect themselves in the event of the 4 minute warning sounding.) Or perhaps M&S will start stocking little black party dresses which, in the event of a terror attack, quickly convert into a full NBC suit?

It’s actually a bit of a fund raising phenonomen, Marathons in other parts of the world don’t have nearly such a strong philanthropic ethos as the London Marathon, which has had charitable status since before it’s first race was even run, & is now the world’s biggest annual one day charitable fund raising event. Last year’s participants raised £47.2 million, & it’s expected that the 2010 London Marathon’s 36,000 runners will raise at least as much, if not even more!

The London Marathon is a major charitable fund raising event, as well as being a sporting spectacle

Marathons, as a sporting event, are actually a relatively recent invention. When the modern Olympics were established in 1896 the organisers wanted an event which would tie the games with their classical Greek counterpart, &, with those first games being held in Athens, the idea of an event inspired by an important episode in ancient Athenian history obviously seemed the way to go.
The historical derivation comes from the Battle of Marathon, which was fought between the Athenians and the Persians, in 490 BC, during the first Persian invasion of Greece. The Athenians won the battle, and, in the process, also halted the Persian invasion, that much is historical fact.
However there is also a legend that, following the battle, the soldier Pheidippides was ordered to return to Athens, with news of the victory, as quickly as possible. The story tells that he ran all the way back to Athens, without a break, burst into the Athenian Assembly, and managed to gasp out news of the victory, before collapsing and dying.
There’s a fair degree of doubt over whether this part of the story is true. Various Greek writers give differing names for the runner, plus it’s also recorded that the Athenian army forced march back to the city, on the same day as the battle, to guard against the possibility of a naval assault by the Persians. Details which seem to cast doubt on whether there ever was a Pheidippides, or whether such an epic feat would be required to deliver news of the victory to his countrymen.

In any case, the most likely route from Marathon to Athens was calculated as being approximately 26 miles, and this was the distance which was set as the length of the modern Marathon race. During the early years the exact distance of the race was left with the organisers of each individual Olympics. The modern distance of 26 miles 385 yards only became a standard from the 1924 Olympics onwards, although it was first used during the 1908 London Olympics, on which occasion the extra 385 yards were added to the course to ensure that the finishing line was in front of the Royal Box, in the Great White City Stadium.

So, first up, I’m going to aim my sights pretty low price-wise, and think about grabbing a week or two out in Spain.

It has a number of advantages as a holiday destination for Brits. It’s in Europe, which cuts out any kind of worries about visas or the like. Also, EU countries are part of the “European Health Insurance Card” Scheme; essentially, once you’ve applied for (& received) your free card, you’re entitled to free emergency care throughout the EU, and some other European countries. It’s not a complete replacement for travel insurance, something which might still be worth looking into at a later date, but if you’re travelling on a shoe string, are disorganised, or don’t mind taking a chance, it’s a pretty good safety net to have in place.

Quaint though traditional Spanish transport is, car hire might be a better way to go...

Another advantage is that, being more or less due south from the UK, it is pretty much the closest country with decent weather. There are also a load of the low cost carriers who fly out to Spain, which should make deals pretty easy to find; being over 6 foot I’m not too keen on the lack of leg space which inevitably comes with a budget flight, but at least it’s not a long flight.
The prevalence of English in the country is also an attraction for me, it’s not that I mind trying to learn other languages, it’s just that I’m woefully bad at it; I’m all for making the effort, but my spoken Spanish breaks down after the most basic greetings and food/beer orders, so it’s nice to have a back up plan.
Having said that I’m not one for expecting countries I visit to totally pander to Brits, and I actually like getting off the beaten tourist track. I’m all for the odd lazy day in the sunshine, but it seems like a waste to spend too much of a foreign holiday basking on the beach; after all there’s all the other sites to see as well, and being a big fan of history it would seem almost criminal to me to go to all the effort of travelling to a foreign country and then not spend a little time taking in some of the culture.

As far as where to go in Spain is concerned I’m really not sure at this stage. Between the Costa Verde and the Pyrenees the north of the country has some beautiful scenery, and is definitely less touristy than a lot of the south, but weather on the Atlantic coastline is always a little more unpredictable than the Mediterranean coast. It is tempting, but good weather is a big draw for me, so I may well go for the south of the country instead.
I’m certain there must be un-touristy places in the south, and I know for a fact that there’s a lot of very interesting history going back to the time of the Moorish kingdom of Al Andalus, & the Reconquista.
If I’m heading to the south then Malaga airport is looking like a pretty good bet, and if that’s the case then getting car hire from Malaga Airport seems to make sense.

As I said at the top, these are all pretty rough ideas at the moment; I’ll have to do some more looking around at some point to narrow down potential locations a little more…

Valentine's Flowers are all very nice, but what's wrong with giving flowers on the other 364 days of the year too?

I wouldn’t mind it if it was something which hadn’t become compulsory, but surely any holiday about love which actually causes relationship problems, if one doesn’t comply fully with what society expects (& mostly this seems to equate to spending money), has become twisted to the point of losing its meaning. So, if you’re attached you pretty much have to spend out, at what’s a fairly tight time of the year for most people, or else risk the righteous wrath of one’s other half.
On the flip side the holiday also serves to remind singles that they’re single and lonely, and, damn it, can you get any of your friends to go out for a few consoling beers? well, not if they’re attached, obviously!

So there you have it, Valentine’s is a rubbish holiday! If you’re single it’s an uncomfortable reminder of loneliness, while if you’re attached, you’ll find expectations foisted upon you, and you’ll be a bad, bad person if you don’t spend, spend, spend for that special day.
Overall the only winners seem to the negligent types, who are seemingly quite content to get all the year’s romance over and done with in one day, and the vendors of Valentine’s related gifts.

I first caught news of the Haiti Earthquake late on Tuesday night while catching some headlines on the BBC before going to bed. Even at those early stages it seemed clear that the damage caused by it, and it’s aftershocks, was going to be immense, but over the last couple of days, as more and more news has filtered out of the impoverished Caribbean nation, the true scale of the devastation has started to become clear. It beggars belief.

The quake itself measured 7.0 on the Richter Scale, and as such is classified as a “Major” earthquake, while even the aftershocks measured 5.5. and 5.9 on the scale, making them significant earthquakes in their own right. To put things a little more in perspective, a magnitude 7 earthquake is the equivalent of a 32 megaton nuke, 1000 times more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb. In addition, the quake was relatively shallow occurring only 10km below the surface. Shallow quakes are less likely to trigger tsunamis, but also tend to cause more damage in their immediate area, as we’re seeing in Haiti at the moment.
Even in a developed nation, with well constructed structures, a magnitude 7 earthquake would be a serious event, but in a nation like Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, the level of destruction is almost unimaginable! That the quake’s epicentre was only 15km from the densely populated capital, Port-au-Prince, has only exacerbated the situation.
Many of the city’s buildings were poorly constructed leaving them especially vulnerable to the quake, and it appears that many of those killed or injured were indoors at the time of the quake, or close to buildings which collapsed. Even so the death toll is staggering. So far it’s reckoned that 50,000 have died although there are fears that this could rise to as much as 500,000. Half a million people, it’s a simply stunning figure!

In many ways though the quake was only the beginning of the disaster, and looking after the survivors is now the main priority. Many Haitians live on less than a dollar a day, & even in normal times the country is heavily reliant on foreign food aid, but providing clean water, food & shelter for the thousands of, now homeless, survivors is going to be a huge task. Also, with so many dead to recover from the rubble, there’s a massive risk of disease.
Offers of aid and support have been flooding in pretty much since the quake struck, but even so, given the Herculean scale of the task, more help is needed. Most major charities have started appeals, for example Oxfam’s Haiti Earthquake donation page.

One of the things which I’m very glad hasn’t come to pass, was the descent into another global financial crisis, which, for a brief time, it looked like Dubai World’s financial problems might have sparked.

In the end it took a $10bn bail out from Abu Dhabi to save the troubled company, and in return the company showed it’s gratitude by naming it’s latest project, the Burj Tower, after Abu Dhabi’s ruler Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan. The Burj Khalifa, as it’s now known, opened earlier this week, and is now officially the world’s tallest building, beating the previous holder of the title, the Taipei 101, by about 300 metres.

As part of the publicity surrounding the tower’s opening two intrepid base jumpers were granted permission to leap from it’s top in a death defying record attempt. I guess it was only going to be a matter of time before someone made such an attempt, with or without permission, so maybe the owners were just trying to harness the inevitable publicity which such a stunt is bound to generate. However, before would be daredevils start booking their flights to Dubai it’s worth pointing out that the event was strictly a one off, and neither the owners, nor the Dubai authorities are likely to take kindly to further, unauthorised, jumps.

For all the cross channel rivalry that’s existed between Britain and France, for pretty much a millenium now, I do have to say that, as a nation, the French have a great attitude to protesting and protecting their rights, an attitude which sadly the Normans seemed to leave on the continent, or which, at least, has been well and truly beaten out of the British at some point over the last thousand years.
Still, for all I admire the Gallic attitude to asinine laws and regulations, any Brits planning a holiday in France this year would probably be safer to take a conventional approach to arranging their accommodation, and, for that matter, travel arrangements, I’m not sure that even the French would take kindly to one borrowing an unused car or van. No, even in France car hire is probably still the safest bet for getting around, unless you’re planning on your stay being extended, and “at the pleasure” of the French authorities.

Still, the sales’ attraction to me is purely pragmatic; they’ve got stuff I want, it’s cheap, I’ll go buy it and then get the hell out of the shops as soon as possible! So it confuses me how the marketing people have yet again managed to hype and glamourize, what should be a series of simple financial transactions into some kind of major must-do holiday event in it’s own right. Are they really that good at their jobs, or are people, in general, just really easy to manipulate? I guess the answer’s a bit of both, but that the latter is especially true if the words “bargain” or “sale” are involved; everyone likes to think they’re getting a good deal, and apparently that extends to buying pretty much anything, even things which we didn’t necessarily want or need!

Wizard needs furniture, badly!... C'mon, really?!?!?

With that in mind, the news from the AAA (Automobile Association of America) that, after a sharp dip last year, US holiday travel is set to see a boost this year should be seen as an encouraging sign that the world economy is coming out of recession; Projections are that both airlines and US car hire companies, along with retailers, will all be having a happier holiday season than they did last year.
One odd little bit of news, at least to me as I’m sat here in a cold UK office, are the forecasts that Florida, the “Sunshine State”, is looking like it will buck this trend, with predictions being that it’s set for another poorer than average year.
With it’s year round good weather I’d have thought that flights to Florida would be heaving, and that Orlando car hire brokers would be rubbing their hands in glee as holiday makers flocked in, but apparently not. *shrug*
I don’t know, maybe the whole holiday travel thing is a phenomenon which, as a Brit, I’m just not getting; Sure some years I’ll travel to see family, but surely if you were travelling for the sake of a winter get-away you’d choose somewhere warm, like, for example, Florida. *shrug*
Anyway, if you are travelling this Christmas I hope you have a safe trip & a relaxing break!