Salocin

Breaking news : fast food may contribute to obesity and diabetes. Doh.

Lasers shone into cockpits of planes as they land - US investigating.

Make a snowflake. I am probably very weird for finding this incredibly cool.

Be inspired : see a list of things other people accomplished when they were your age.

As community sites go, stumbleupon is very cool. And Firefox Plugin Compliant!

Hangover headaches are caused by your shrunken brain being too small for your head, and pulling on the membranes that attach it to your skull.

I feel like I live on the Eurostar these days. That I'm getting really used to it. I have never seen it like it was this morning though. I arrived 30 minutes before departure, as you're meant to, but the departure hall was completely choked up with hundreds of passengers trying to get past security. I made it to my train with 5 minutes to spare, and I'm fairly sure that a large number of people were not so lucky.

I'm on my way back to Belgium for 4 days over Christmas. As usual, I'm quite productive on the train, and I've written Christmas Cards (yes, I know it's the 24th, but they'll get them not long after New Years and know that I was thinking of them) and now I'm writing this. I also had a spooky how-did-I-know-you-were-going-to-say-that moment with the girl in the restaurant car.

Yesterday was the Christmas party for my department at my new employer. It was nothing grandiose, and it had to be done over lunch for various logistical reasons, but seeing everyone outside of the work environment gave me the opportunity to get to know them a bit better, and based on the people, my first impression is that I think I've been very fortunate in terms of where I've ended up.

I stayed with friends in London (who are terribly indulgent and let me stay in their spare room every time I'm passing through) and then got up in good time to make it to the Eurostar. I'm pretty good about travel, I don't get upset or stressed, and I plan reasonably carefully, so I felt that while I was cutting it a bit thin for the Christmas period, I'd be fine to catch the train.

Then I saw the crowds at Waterloo station. A lot of people had arrived late for the previous train, and were being pushed to the front of the line so that they could go through security first. Unfortuantely, this was making everyone else late for their trains too, despite the fact that we had all arrived on time. I spoke to one of the Eurostar representatives early on who assured me that we would be called when our train was about to leave, and so I left it at that, figuring that whether or not she was telling the truth, we were all in the same situation so there was no point in pushing and making it worse for everyone else. Another representative told us later that our train would be delayed 20 minutes. Since in fact we left exactly on time, I think he just told us that to calm people down. What he really meant was, "You're quite likely to miss the train, and may have to wait for the next one, but if I let you go ahead, I'm just screwing someone else, so I'm just going to say something to make you miss your train calmly rather than stressed out". Dirty liar, but I see his point.

It's remarkable that despite knowing there are metal detectors ahead, and that everyone is in a hurry, and having 20 minutes to prepare as you line up, most people arrive at the metal detectors totally unprepared, and then have to fish lots of metal things out of their pockets and put them in their bag, or struggle out of their jacket at the last minute despite the sign that says, "take your jacket off before you pass this point" some 3 metres back. Under pressure, people seem to become quite incredibly obtuse, dense and slow. Then they insult the security guys as though it's all their fault. I wished them a happy Christmas and their faces went from severe to friendly in under a second.

I made it to the Eurostar, and had barely put my stuff in the overhead rack that they announced the doors were closing.

I've written 10 Christmas Cards (I'm missing 2 of the addresses though) and bought myself a breakfast. While I was ordering the [not very appealing, microwaved ham and cheese compressed bread-like substance that makes up a Eurostar] breakfast, I asked the girl who was serving me if she found it tough to have to work on the day before Christmas, and she immediately said, "I was absolutely sure you would ask me that". It was a bit weird. Maybe everyone's asking her that, but that's not the impression she gave me. Anyway, she was very friendly, and she said she had to organize a dinner for tonight because she was having guests around. I hope her dinner goes well, although I can't imagine why I care - must be the Christmas spirit giving me lots of empathy for my fellow man.

So to all you random surfers who drop by from time to time, have a great Christmas and New Year, may all your dreams come true, all your wishes be fulfilled, and all the other cheery things we're supposed to say to retain our karmic score over the commercial festive period. Now get off the bloody internet and go hug someone you care about, it's not the time of year to be staring at a computer screen. Go on. The real world beckons.

There's something about first days at work - something mystical and cosmic - that draws down upon the new employee the cosmic weight of all the bad Karma they have accumulated since they last started a job. At least I hope that's the case, because I'd hate to think that what happened to me on Thursday is simply an act of rough, ruthless random chance.

I drove my brand new second hand car to work, and arrived early - as you do when you're being cautious about traffic. I asked to see my new manager, and found that he was not yet at work, so after receiving a bright shiny guess pass to the building, I went back to my car to go down the road and buy myself a coffee at the local petrol station.

My coffee quickly consumed, I returned to the office closer to the appointed time, and parked the car. I admired how the central locking closed all the doors at once - I haven't had a car in almost 3 years and I'm noticing all the little things, like central locking, so as the little knobs slid into the doors in unison, I thought, 'isn't that great, I don't need to worry about leaving the car unlocked'.

As I walked towards the front door of the building, I reached into my trouser (pants) pocket for my guest pass, and as it came out, so did the car keys, which fell gracefully straight down, missed the floor, and also (somewhat maliciously, if you ask me) missed the grate that covers the drain that I was standing on at the time.

Despite the valiant efforts of a security guard and a gardener, the sewer proved too deep, the water too murky and the contents too slimy and voluminous for my keys to be recovered. But I had a cunning plan. At home were the spares. I would do a good days work, then I would take a taxi home (12 miles, more or less), get the keys, take the taxi back, and drive my car home - problem solved. So I ordered the taxi for the evening, and went to work, trying to put this problem out of my mind until later.

Once I got home, I went looking for the keys, and after 5 minutes, it occurred to me that (1) they were not here. (2) I had been wearing my jacket when I bought the car 2 days ago, and quite possibly they were still in the jacket pocket, and (3) my jacket was in the back of the car. Back at work. 12 miles away. Locked.

Central locking is no longer my friend.

So I take the taxi back, and we stop at a garage along the way, where an interesting conversation ensues.

"Can you get into a locked VW Polo?"

"Sure guv'nor".

"Because, you see, I've locked myself out of my car."

"Right, and you want to break into it to get the keys?"

"Yes, that's right".

"S'easy".

"Oh good".

"Just don't ask me to bend the door back into shape when I'm done, mate."

"Never mind then, I'll be going now. You stay here."

Then I call the AA (automobile association, AAA to you yanks), where we have another conversation...

I'd like to join the AA please.

Of course Sir, that costs 99 pounds for a year's cover.

Excellent, because I've locked myself out of my car.

In that case, Sir, it'll be 154 pounds.

Right, I'll call you back. (hangs up). Wankers.

Then I call Dyna-Rod - the drain cleaning people. "We clean drains Sir, we don't fish keys out of them, you should call the council. I'm absolutely convinced they can do that for you". Well I'm not convinced, but I don't have a better idea at this point.

So I call Bracknell Council. "We're the city council, you need to call the county council, they deal with drains". Ah. Local Government Nuance.

So I call Bracknell Forest Council. "Oh of course Sir, I know just the person you need to speak to, I'll just call him. (long pause). Oh dear, I think he's left. he was going on holiday for the Christmas period tonight. Anyway, since it was in a company car park that you lost them, I'm afraid that's at least 3 metres outside Council jurisdiction and he would probably not have been able to help you. Anyway, in 11 years, I've never heard of us helping anyone with this problem". Always the same with officials, can't tell the difference between 'able' and 'willing'.

So I finally call the RAC (Royal Automobile Club, competition to the AA, for the yanks), and ask them how much they'd charge me to break into my car, and they say 112 pounds including the one-year membership, which is cheaper than the AA, and so I figure I don't have all that much choice, although if the keys aren't in the pocket of the jacket, I've no idea what I'm going to do. The RAC respond in record time because a van just happened to be driving past at the time (I figure my bad karma reserves had finally run dry), he broke into the car in under 5 minutes, without permanently damaging the door, and the keys turned out to be in the pocket of my jacket, which allowed me to finally draw a line under the entire sorry episode that was, my first day at work.

New house, no DSL, this will get posted (and backdated) when I get my computer back online.

I've moved in, bought a car, obtained insurance, bought all the little things you need to maintain a new apartment (cleaning products, salt & pepper, olive oil - you know, the essentials), run countless errands over the last 3 days, and feel quite satisfied with myself. Now I'm sitting at my new dining room table, and trying to draw lessons from the experience, and I don't know if it's the horrible speed at which it's all gone, or the the fact that I'm halfway through my second whisky, but I'm finding it hard to feel very happy about the experience.

The positive, of course, is that Windsor is a lovely town, and that I'm likely to make lots of new friends over the coming months. Unfortunately, the nitty gritty of the experiences I've endured over the last 3 days, most particularly the purchase of the car, fall into that category that makes you less naive and more jaded, and I find myself somewhat attached to my naivete these days, so I resent such experiences because of their gradual encroachment on the little nugget of childlike innocence I have left.

I realised, as I ran all over Berkshire tracking down one advertiser after another, that in today's world, especially when you're doing something like buying a second-hand car, you can afford to trust nobody. Everyone is trying to sell the car for more than it's worth. This is expected. Everyone quotes a dishonest price and expects you to negotiate it down, but is hoping for a sucker. Everyone's holding a deck of cards and hoping you fall for their bluff. It's very draining operating in this kind of environment, but worse than that, it's unnecessary.

When all's said and done, cars are on average sold for the right second-hand price. Occasionally, individual exchanges go through where someone (either the buyer or the seller) gets conned. Ultimately though, the averages ring true, despite the fact that some people overpay and others get rich taking advantage of that. It saddens me immensely that there are people who live in this space where someone gets conned and someone wins. It angers me that such a large proportion of car traders are dishonest about the value of the cars that they sell - because this is somehow perceived as OK by society, and therefore expected - that you can't trust a bloody thing they say. They are, after all, car dealers.

In the end, I had a choice of 3 cars. The one I chose (a little VW Golf) won out not because it was better value (although it may have been, I'm no great judge of these things), nor because it had all it's papers (although it did) and service history (that too), but because I trusted the man I bought it from, because he seemed like a nice guy. What bothers me even more is that I'm not so great a judge of character than I am necessarily right about him being honest, but I saw something that seemed familiar in him: he replied to questions the same way I might have, with implicit honesty, showing the problems the car had to make sure that I walked away feeling well treated rather than ill-used. Maybe he's a better actor than the others, I still have to ask him about why the airbag warning light is permanently on, but ultimately, his forthrightness is what won me over.

And I like VWs, that helps.

In another episode of the moving mini-saga, less than 24 hours after I moved in, the gas company accidentally cut the gas mains leading to my apartment. Actually it's a bit more complicated than that. Such is modern life. The gas UTILITY company (not supplier) that maintains the pipes, SUBCONTRACTED another company to do some work that involved cutting a mains and replacing it with a new one. They rerouted all the apartment's gas supplies to the new mains but accidentally missed 2 of them, then filled the old mains with plastic filler before cutting it into little pieces and pulling it out of the ground.

So now I have no gas, which means no stove and no heating.

In Winter. Which, in England, is grey, overcast and cold.

A bit like summer, really.

Regardless, after 6 or 7 phone calls, I've been told it will be reconnected around 10:30 tomorrow morning, so I'm going to bed fully dressed tonight.

It's amazing how we take things like a gas supply for granted. Not only am I freezing because mine has been cut (and it would be worse if I wasn't in a building where the apartments around me are all heated), but they've claimed they can fix it in 24 hours. That's pretty impressive - they're going to go under the road, and splice the main line to reattach my supply line to the mains in under 24 hours. I don't even know what that involves, and wouldn't know where to start if I were asked to do it myself, but the man on the phone tells me it's no problem.

How competent. I'm very impressed.

In the meantime, I'm still freezing.

UPDATE : They had to dig up the back garden, find two pipes going through the wall (apparently, they problem is that they're modern, and therefore plastic, and therefore hard to detect). It took them most of the day, but they finally got my gas connected again at around 9pm. Amen to the end of that saga.

I found out today about a company called Overpeer. Run by Marc Morgenstern, a one-time VP of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), this company seeks to protect copyrighted content by making it harder to download from P2P networks. It does this by offering for download a very high quantity of low-grade or sabotaged versions of the file. In the case of music, this could be a low-quality rendition or a short-length sample to encourage users to buy the song, and in the case of computer games, they could be offering the demo version or a crippled version disguised as the real thing. Obviously, file-traders are very upset that anyone should offer non-valid files through their networks and therefore jeaopardise their ability to get music for free. In a move that may well enter the all-time hitlist for hypocrisy, the self-declared mouthpiece of the "don't pay for it" brigade, Zeropaid.com describes Overpeer as "Greedy Fuckers".

But when you look at Overpeer's activities through the lens of the filesharing networks defense attorneys, they're really above reproach. In a recent judgement, a filesharing network was acquitted of wrongdoing because it was judged that they were not responsible for what was being done on their networks. If, however, they were now to complain in any way that Overpeer's actions damaged their networks, they would be acknowledging that what gets transmitted over their networks *does*, in fact, interest them, and that by damaging the ability of illegal filesharers to copy copyrighted material, Overpeer damages the value of their service. This would totally compromise their defense, and so they won't do it.

In reality, all the record companies can do in the face of filesharing is try to sue individuals, and bitch and whine. But the reverse of that coin is that all the filesharers can do in reaction to Overpeer's sabotage is bitch and whine, and they can't even sue, because what Overpeer does is perfectly legal.

Overpeer forces nobody to download anything, it doesn't damage your computer in any way. All it does is encourage you to download a legal piece of data. Legal because they have the copyright-holder's permission to distribute it, and that's all they do - use filesharing networks to distribute free data. Exactly what the networks claim they were designed for. They don't illegally use up bandwidth because the only bandwidth they use up is from people requesting the compromised files in the first place - and they're breaking the law by that very action, so they haven't got a leg to stand on. This is one part of a strategy of smart retaliation.

There are parallels between terrorism and filesharing - ok, so this is a bit farfetched, but the there's a little truth in it: The problem with terrorism is that you can't attack any coherent entity in return for their attacks on our society. The problem with filesharers is that they are equally difficult to track down, for similar reasons - they hide behind anonymity, technology and one-to-one (peer-2-peer) relationships. You need to be innovative to combat this. The RIAA/MPAA didn't start the fight, they're just adapting to the opposition's guerilla tactics, and it's interesting to watch!

What? Did you think they were just going to lie down and surrender?

Teachers can now use online services to catch plagiarist students, from HOC.

Google testing google suggest - autocompletes search terms with suggestions as you type.

I told you they were adorable. It almost broke my heart to see them go to the animal shelter, although the staff there told us that given how cute they were, they'd have new owners within a fortnight, so there was no risk of their being put to sleep.

  

Posted by nlvp at 05:03 PM | Comments (1)

The BNP (racist UK political party) accidentally booked a black DJ, and walked out on their own Xmas party.

Company launches vocational course in wheel clamping. Seeks to teach clampers to 'use empathy to see the situation from the customer's (now stationary) point of view'.

The London Underground is so old, it has to buy it's own spare parts off collectors on eBay.

I was interested to note that the UK is introducing HOV (or High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes on certain motorways. I’m absolutely behind such initiatives, and wish there were more like them. It provides an incentive and a significant bonus to those who share cars to work. Since a very large number of cars on motorways have only one person in them, you’ve essentially got almost 3 empty seats going to work with you every day, which you pay for in gas, and everyone else pays for in environmental impact. To the extent that we can encourage people to reduce this without being draconian about it, I think it’s a great idea.

But then you get to the issue of enforcement. If you’re going to have to employ a bunch of police officers to police the HOV lane, and you’re going to have to set up cameras to monitor who’s using it, and set up shop-a-cheat telephone hotlines to catch the abusers, then I think there’s a social cost in terms of what society has to become in order to make the HOV lane work, which is extremely distasteful and imposes a totally different kind of cost, which is even harder to measure than the environmental impact cost of the empty seats.

In principle, a vast majority of people would agree that having a lane dedicated to people who share their car space is a good thing. We would expect that lane to go faster, and we would expect those who use it to get to their destination quicker, and they deserve to because they are doing something that mitigates, to some extent, the environmental impact of their commute to work. But that’s not how we feel when we’re behind the wheel – that simple shift of perspective is fundamental.

All of a sudden, you’re a hard worker, who goes to the office for somewhere between 8 and 15 hours a day, and you really don’t see why you should spend 30 minutes more in the morning, and another 30 minutes extra in the evening, commuting to and from your place of work, when in reality you contribute just as much to the damned economy and work just as hard as that bloody idiot who just zoomed past you in the HOV lane at 3 times your speed.

Of course when we think this, we’re guilty of a cognitive malfunction. We are comparing two things that are essentially not comparable. We’re saying that the time we’re forced to spend on our way to work is somehow inversely related to our worth as an employee. That’s not the case – it’s linked to the environmental cost of our journey. Electric cars should also be allowed to use the HOV lane (unless they’re so slow they clog it up).

Then of course there’s also the gradual encroachment problem. On the first day you obey the rule and stay out of the lane, but on the second day, there’s this really slow car in front of you, and you think, “well, if I just use it to overtake this one car, I’m not really using the lane, and I won’t be getting in anybody’s way because there’s nobody on it at the moment anyway”. This is a selfish delusion, and a classic prisoner’s dilemma game. If everybody thinks the same way at the same time, the HOV lane immediately becomes clogged up. It only works if everyone else obeys the rules, and you’re the only one breaking them – of course we don’t like to think of ourselves as selfish, and so we don’t acknowledge that logic – we simply state the facts as we see them : it’s empty, if I use it, I’m not hurting anyone… In fact, what gets hurt is the system, as everyone else immediately thinks, “well, if it’s OK for him to do it, it’s OK for me to do it”, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

But the biggest threat to such systems are those who are truly selfish: Those for whom the argument in the paragraph above makes no impact, because they simply don’t care. There’s an empty lane right there, and they don’t care if it’s breaking a rule, and they don’t care if they can justify it or not, although they’ll try if you argue with them, but they’re taking that lane. You know these people – if you ski, you’ve seen them cut in line in front of you at almost every ski-lift. They take their skis off, walk all over everyone else’s and move forward twice as fast as everyone else. They’re the self-important suit-wearing businessmen who barge to the front of queues in airports, or charm their way into the frequent flyer’s line rather than wait in line like everyone else. They’re the arrogant poorly-dressed loudmouths in the restaurant who keep complaining in loud voices to the Maitre’d because they want this, or that, or something else, and ruin everyone else’s meal.

The reality is that our society is run through with such systems. They work because enough of us play ball by the rules that it all hangs together despite the free riders who abuse the general public’s honesty. The easy test of a free-rider is simple, and you can do it next time you see someone breaking a rule that looks silly on the surface: ask yourself what the consequences would be if everyone broke that rule at the same time, if the rule didn’t exist. If someone cuts to the front of the queue, what happens if everyone does it? There’s no queue. The only reason one person can do it and the system hangs together is because everyone else in the queue stomachs the fact that they’ll all have to wait a little bit longer. If enough people break the rule, then there’s no point in anyone following it anymore, and the system breaks down, people might as well fight to be the next to be served.

Will the M1 HOV lane work? In the UK, it will work for a while. The British have a reputation for being very good at lining up and being orderly. Apart from their football fans on occasion. There are, like anywhere else, the selfish jerks who will seek to abuse the system, but the remainder of the population has a stronger sense of discipline about such things than in most places, and so the systems tend to survive. I think that over time, however, it will gradually degrade. In a few years, possibly less, you’ll have traffic cameras on the HOV lane, and once again, authority will be required to keep everyone in line.

It makes you wonder by how thin a thread all the order in our society really hangs.

2 days ago, while walking our dog in the woods around our farm, my father saw someone abandoning a box with 3 female kittens in it. He tried to catch up with the guy, but he ran to his car and drove away. So he brought the box back to the farmhouse and we took care of the kittens for a couple of days before taking them to the animal shelter. We were going to keep them if we got the impression that they might be put down, but there was only one other cat there, and the staff said that they were so cute they'd be gone to families within the week. It would have been complicated keeping them on the farm because our friendly Jack Russell (who is only curious, not at all threatening) frightened the poor animals silly, and they responded by taking a swipe at her nose with their tiny, but very sharp claws. Now the poor dog's terrified of kittens, but still chases cows and horses around the fields.

I absolutely love cats - I know so many people that detest them and I just don't get it. They're incredibly curious, very dextrous, and independent. I think that's the part people don't like - the independence. As far as most people are concerned, if they have a pet, it should depend upon them for everything, be very obedient and always look lovingly at their master. Cats aren't like that.

The kittens soon made their way out of the box, and started exploring the room we had put them in with great attention. They examined every nook and cranny, climbed every climbable item (and some that I would have thought unclimbable), jumped from great heights down onto the floor, spent large amounts of time cleaning each other, and after a fairly intense first meeting (I'm going to have scratch marks on my hands for a while) soon grew to like us so much that they'd start purring the second we touched them, curling around and playing with our hands just like they do with each other.

We bought a litter for them, and they required no instruction at all, they immediately decided they'd much rather do whatever business they had to do somewhere where they could bury it rather than anywhere else, so we had nothing to clean up the next day, and when the heating cut off at night, they dragged a small cloth on top of the blanket we'd put in the box, and snuggled in the middle of it, curled up around each other for warmth.

It was heartbreaking to let them go, but we can't cater for them properly here at the moment, and the dog is already traumatised and a little jealous. She's recovered somewhat since they've left but is even needier than usual. I think we will get a cat at some point though - if we get it young enough (because these kittens were not newborns), I think it will be able to get used to the dog rather than trying to tear its nose off at the first opportunity.

Who links to me?

In a matter of days, I will have to up roots, rent an apartment, buy a car, and do the other thousand things that are involved in moving from one country to another. I am leaving Belgium and going back to England for a new job, and have spent the last 4 days looking for apartments in Windsor. I have until mid-December to move, because I start the new job the last working week of December (the better to get to know my co-workers, get the paperwork out of the way and hit the ground running come January).

Windsor seems nice. I met a particularly lovely couple of people yesterday when I was visiting apartments in the city center, and with any luck, there will be people like that around when I get there.

This is far from the first time I move country or city, I know absolutely nobody in Windsor, and this adds to the general adaptation difficulties. I make it to London on a regular basis to see the people I do know, but it would be nice to build a social life in Windsor. The question is, how does one go about doing that? How do you meet people with similar interests? It sounds like such an easy question, and there's lots of traditional wisdom on how it's done, but I've moved more often than most of the pundits who claim to know the answer, and I've yet to crack the problem; I've yet to find a way that doesn't involve going out a lot, doing many things and hoping that random chance is on your side today, and the time that takes is always a little intimidating. Either way, Windsor seems nice. I entered the postcodes of the properties I'm looking at into the UpMyStreet website and asked for an ACORN (demographics) profile and got this...

Type 19: Suburban privately renting professionals


(1.09% of the population live in this ACORN type)
Likely Characteristics: This type is found in Richmond-upon-Thames, Sutton and Bromley in Outer London, and in Cheltenham, St Albans and Guildford.
Family Income : High
Interest in current affairs : Very high
Housing - with Mortgage : Medium
Educated - to degree : Very high
Couples with Children : Very low
Have satellite TV : Very low

These young people have made a lifestyle choice to reside close enough to the major conurbations, to obtain the benefits of the city without actually living in its centre. In their twenties and early thirties, they are well educated and are developing their careers in professional and managerial jobs.

They are living in purpose built flats in attractive suburbs and satellite towns. Many are still renting, although some have purchased their homes. They use diverse means to get around. Where possible they will travel to work by public transport, by bike or on foot. However, the majority do have a car and will often buy new, expensive models.

These people are very comfortable using the Internet in all aspects of their life including financial services, purchasing gifts, CDs and books and booking their holidays and leisure activities on-line.

For holidays, the USA, Canada and other long haul destinations are popular, as are weekend breaks and winter snow holidays. In their spare time they enjoy sport and exercise. They also like spending their money on shopping for clothes and eating out.

They are interested in current affairs, and whilst they tend to read mainly the broadsheet papers, they show no bias to any particular title.

This of course is extremely reassuring, because it sounds like my age group, has my interests, goes to the same holiday destinations as me and so on, so hopefully I'll meet people who are similar to me. Unless they're all working too hard, which is a distinct possibility.

Of course, the going out and doing lots of things business is fun in and of itself, and so I can look forward to joining a rowing club, perhaps taking up a martial art, maybe doing some voluntary work, and the dozens of other things that constitute "integrating into a new community". The truth is, no matter how many times I do this, moving somewhere on your own is a strange mixture of excitement (who knows who you might meet) and anxiety (weeks spent not knowing anyone until you start actually becoming a familiar face to a few people).

The people at work may be some help, but the truth is they're fairly spread out over Berkshire country (some even live in West London, 75 minutes commute every morning), since nobody actually lives near work. That probably gets in the way of workplace socialising, because if everyone drives home, there's only so much scope for going for a drink after work.

Whatever. A positive attitude is half the battle, so I have a glass in my hand, and I'm raising it to new beginnings. Again.