I was sad to hear more than once about the "dumbing down" of the BBC who have gone in for mild dirty tricks to compete for viewers against ITV.
The BSE scandal rumbles on as a 4000 page report is released indicating the British public was given false reassurances about the safety of British Beef. Over 80 cases of CJD, the human form of BSE have occured.
Members of Parliament moved into their shiny new expensive quarters, called Portcullis House in Westminster, only to find that no provision had been made to accommodate any filing cabinets. The introduction of filing cabinets would violate the look as designed by the designers. Great.
A couple of notable Millenium projects have been complete flops: the Millenium Dome has become the butt of jokes, and will close early on Dec 31st 2000 with a whimper. The organizers knew they'd be mocked whatever they tried to do to save face. The new foot bridge across the Thames opposite the Tate Modern gallery had to close after one day as it swung when too many people were on it. Engineering solutions offered I read about in the paper talked of retrofitting dampers to reduce the motion - but if it's already moving that's a bit late!
The third serious train crash in 3 years occurred during our stay. Four people were killed, several more injured. The cause was a broken rail. This prompted accusations that profit was being put in front of safety. Incredibly, one company owns the track, and several regional train operators are responsible for the trains running on them. The reporting procedures between them are ludicrously complicated. Immediately trains were told to go slower, making havoc of their schedules. A week after the accident, Railtrack, the track company decided at 1 hour's notice to shut down a major line south of Glasgow for 3 days for track inspections - evidently paranoid that more broken tracks might be found. Then one of the several regional train companies, called Connex South East, lost their franchise for offering such poor service.
A crack found in one of Britain's 12 nuclear submarines, previously dismissed as nothing serious, provoked an urgent recall of the other 11, putting them out of action for the next few months. Better not be a war for a bit!
Tony Blair's Green Policy speech was a disaster - this was a progress report on what they'd achieved and was empty on substance and full of rather waffly "spin". I'm fully behind gas prices being the levels they are in the UK. I wish they were that high in the US - it might make people rather more frugal. However it completely dismays me that with all the encouragment to use public transport, which is heavily used, investment in clean public transport is so lacking. There seems to be no effort to clean up bus emissions in particular. I couldn't believe that the old "Routemaster" buses in London (the ones with the open back) are still in service, polluting as ever. Two people told me the city of Oxford has an effective "park and ride" scheme that people use, but the whole place stinks of diesel fumes, as the buses are so dirty. What about Compressed Natural Gas? Electric?
In all our driving, we passed quite a few road crews fixing roads and motorways. It became a bit of a game to spot the workers among the watchers. I saw this kind of thing all over the place - in retail stores, on construction sites - an apparent lack of dedication to the task in hand - people just goofing off and not getting on with the job in hand. 2 of the people we stayed with were having trouble with contractors not showing up for building work. In contrast, here in California, while we were away, we had our house replumbed completely on the strength of a phone call to say "go ahead". The job was done as promised without any supervision on our part and I'll recommend Dewey Burroughs (phone: 818-953 9276) to anyone here who needs copper repipes - also his buddy Ron at Personal Plumbing Service (818) 843 5330 as a first class plumber for repairs.
But, for all that, where else can you find such an incredible abundance of well maintained public footpaths criss-crossing the country? Where else can you find such great beer? So many historical sites all neatly signposted? And roundabouts - the greatest invention which we don't have here. After being immersed in all that lush countryside, flying low over LA makes you think about what have we wrought here in the desert.....