John Allsopp

Professionally engineered Internet solutions for humans

Widgets: 29 June 2005: A friend showed me Apple Widgets. I wondered whether this was a really good front end to something like web services. But no, they're just plain old web applications. Apple has just made an environment, used their imagination, and created something that differentiates them. This could always have been done. It's just imagination.
The Bookseller of Kabul: 29 June 2005: I read The Bookseller of Kabul. You can tell it's written by a journalist. It suits both my desire for factual detail and my partners desire for a story with emotional depth.; I was left with a feeling of sophistication. For instance, arranged marriages that seem so wrong to us in the West, seem perfectly reasonable within their context, and the codes of practice surrounding them are so sophisticated it's just wrong to think of arranged marriage as somehow primitive or barbaric.; The descriptions of what it's like to wear a burkha are worth reading too. Apparently there's an Afghan saying "No-one can own us, they can only hire us".
MEPs and letters: 29 June 2005: After the news about Diana Wallis I wrote to say that a) I hadn't received a response to my first letter, and b) I wanted to add my voice to those who would like her to vote according to the views she and her party are expressing.; I received back a stock response to my first email, which was almost identical to the one I received a few months back. Then within a few minutes, in response to my third email, another stock response.; So now I'm thinking .. is this just so much paperwork? Where before I was pleased to get what looked like a personal letter which had me impressed at how considerate our MEPs were, now the extent of their mailmerging activities is clear.; At least with Laurie Quinn we knew through the grapevine he kept a tally of whether people were pro or anti the issues.; They say people have lost interest in politics. While I thought I might be able to take a part I was interested. Now I'm feeling like the system is immovable and designed to give us the feeling of being heard without our voice actually being heard. So what will it take to be heard? Is this why people march, go on hunger strike, take direct action? Do I have to go and meet them? That's a bit more difficult with the MEPs, with an MP there's only one, with our MEPs there are five or so.; I may test the Conservative MEP. In his letter, he asked for evidence that software patents would lead to a slowing of innovation. I now have that evidence. I'll send it to him and we'll see if he sends another stock letter asking for evidence.; I may also test my system of "let's take this as far as it will go and see who blinks first". For instance, what will happen if I write back to the MEPs about their stock-letter system. Do they have a stock letter for that? What if I write a letter about nothing much at all .. how will they categorise it and determine which stock letter to respond with? What if I write about something they won't have a category for? Will we get into an ever faster loop leading to burnout if I adopt the same policy, replying to their stock letters with a stock letter of my own? What if I stock vote?
Blood pressure: 27 June 2005: Apparently my blood pressure's 132/76 (compared to last year), my cholesterol 4.5. My LDLs might be a tad low but besides that, fine. I asked whether the blood pressure measurement was a way of checking whether my arteries are furred up and she said not. The only way to check that is to have an angioscopy (is that what she said?) and in the following half second I imagined the procedure was to insert something into an artery to get a look at the lining. I didn't want that, because I didn't want any of the furring to get dislodged, that might well lead to a stroke. In her next breath she said "and that might kill you".; Apparently the only way to protect yourself against arterial furring is to lower your risk factors, and we all know those .. more exercise, no smoking, less saturated fat, and so on. Boringo, I want to see the clogging before I change my lifestyle! Maybe it just isn't like that. She did say that there will be some clogging because of my age.
GM: 24 June 2005: I'm going to have to buck my ideas up a bit. In the EU they voted to retain the ban on GM foods, good. The problem is a) despite being involved in GM protests, I had not a clue the vote was planned, b) the UK government voted to overturn the ban.
The Lib Dems' Diana Wallis and software patents: 23 June 2005: The Lib Dems' Diana Wallis didn't reply to my software patents letter, then apparently voted against party policy and for the Software Patents directive as it stands, which is without Rocards amendments aimed at clarifying the situation. This despite writing to me back in April that "I hope that you are assured that Liberal Democrat policy is clearly against allowing the patenting of software". That makes me unhappy.
Punks graphic artist: 23 June 2005: I didn't realise Jamie Reid defined the look of punk through graphic design, as much as Vivienne defined it through clothes. Interesting how these things come out, and also how Reid and Maclaren were friends from school. Jobs for the boys worked even then.
Brits came second: 17 June 2005: I was surprised to read at the weekend that the British people are seen by other nations as educated, polite, honest, trustworthy, intelligent and, err, boring. We are by far the preferred nationality to employ and we're even reasonably hospitable. Curious. AFAIK we live in awe of societies such as India where they reputedly invite you, a stranger, into their homes to share their dinner, even if it's the last food in their larder. Brits wouldn't dream of doing that unless you'd first had a good shower, a police check and combed your hair. Btw, I'm not implying that Indians are mostly starving, I'm just trying to emphasise my point.; The study says that it "measures the power and appeal of a nation's brand image", it's "the first analytical ranking of the world's nation brands", that it's a "unique barometer of global opinion" without emphasising that a) it only ranked eleven countries (there are probably 192 countries in the world, so that's just 5.7%), and b) while it claims in the fourth paragraph to "poll our worldwide panel of consumers", at the back it turns out that panel consists of people in Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, United Kingdom and the United States. Just ten countries then, 5.2% of the countries of the world. World-wide, in my dictionary, means "covering all parts of the world". It isn't. It's not even close to being representative of the world's population.; The survey took 1,000 people from each of those countries. Why? So a vote from Denmark, with its population of 5,432,335 and buying power per citizen of $32,200 represents 5,432 people, while a vote from America with its 295,734,134 people and $40,100 of buying power represents 295,734. If you include buying power (which is clearly the audience this is aimed at), that gives a Danish vote 68 times more weight than an American one. The 241,973,879 people of Indonesia, 186,112,794 in Brazil, 162,419,946 in Pakistan, 144,319,628 in Bangladesh, 143,420,309 in Russia, 128,765,768 in Nigeria and 106,202,903 in Mexico were ignored seemingly because the authors don't have a presence there. Nice work. Authoritative.; I'm also faintly disturbed by the line "it was still a shock that the USA came fourth". I thought research wasn't supposed to have any bias, any pre-formed ideas that could twist the results, but clearly the authors expected the USA to come higher and were disappointed it didn't.; So, it's nice to believe that people like the Brits. It would be very nice to have some authoritative answers to the question of national brand value. If only this survey provided it.
El Golfo: 17 June 2005: El Golfo doesn't look like much on the Lanzarote map but we liked it a lot. Being in the volcanic part of the island, the beaches are jet black but contain green jewels if you look closely, and the sea is a crystal blue. El Golfo itself has at least ten good looking restaurants. Very romantic.
Timanfaya: 17 June 2005: I've a few housekeeping blogs to write. This one's about Lanzarote's Timanfaya tour of the volcanic national park. I just wanted to say it's certainly worth doing the tour. It cost us €8 each. Basically, you arrive and it's unclear what to do but, after milling about for a bit trying to work it out, you just get on a bus and it takes you around the sights. The best seat seems to be the middle of the right hand side of the coach.
Many ducks, wrongly accused: 15 June 2005: I knew when I wrote "a flock of Wigeon" I was wrong. I didn't check it at the time, but the opportunity arose the other day, and yes, it should be a raft, bunch or my favourite, a paddling of ducks on water, or if in flight, a team.; Yesterday, running along the sea's edge, I was joined by a flight of Sand Martins. Quite beautiful.; Steve, I think the red legged bird you asked me about yonks ago might be a Redshank.
The Conservative's reply: 13 June 2005: This one is interesting. Previously, and I haven't compared the two but they might even be duplicates (now I have, they are), I didn't warm to Mr McMillan-Scott's style, but now that I've studied the issue more closely I appreciate it more. I think there are errors, though, in what he's saying and I'll be taking him up on them in due course. Of course I'll post my letter here.; Dear Mr. Allsopp,; Thank you for your recent very detailed letter on the European Parliaments review of the very important Directive on Computer Implemented Inventions.; The Council Presidency has now formally adopted the Common position, which it was entitled to do under its rules of procedure. These rules are the responsibility of the Member States Governments, not the European Parliament.; The full co-decision process is being observed, in which Parliament has full rights to amend the proposal at both first and second reading. MEP's have been closely involved in the scrutiny of this proposal.; In judging any future amendments, it is essential to have a full understanding of the objectives of this proposal. It is intended to clarify existing patent law so that software is specifically excluded, whereas genuine inventions which may include digital technology (estimated to be around 60 - 70% of all patent applications) are allowed. There is absolutely no intention to apply patent law to "computer code" - this would, in any case, be impossible to achieve since patents cover technical concepts, not specific coded solutions.; We will now be evaluating the adopted text to see whether it achieves the desired objectives; to provide patent inspectors with a common framework within which to examine and if appropriate, grant patents for innovations involving digital technology. We must ensure that computer software or business methods that do not involve new innovative concepts or make a technical contribution are excluded from patents. This will give the EU a distinctive and different position from the US and Japan.; We need to consider the potential effect of the Directive on software development. You indicated in your letter that this would have a disastrous effect on innovation and even affect open source software. We would be glad to have your evidence of this. We have consulted open source experts and there appears to be nothing in this Directive that will affect the expansion of open source solutions. There is little evidence from the USA that software development has been slowed down by the US patent regime. If the EU Directive is passed, it will be more restrictive than the current US patent environment. There is also little sign from the USA, of large companies pursuing small companies for patent enforcement -evidence suggests that the opposite is the case. Also, patent specialists consider that the passing of the EU Directive will exclude the attempted enforcement of existing US patents across the EU. We may need to tighten up the proposal to ensure that this happens.; We are also especially concerned to protect innovative companies, especially small firms, using digital technology to produce genuinely original technical solutions. We have been contacted by many of them and they are very concerned that they may be excluded form the patent regime by inappropriate amendments to the EU proposal. Patent royalty income is very important to these companies and is a major incentive to innovative research. If their needs are not taken into account, the impact on innovation could certainly be "disastrous."; In the end, the Parliament must balance all the arguments and reach a sensible solution that is right for everyone involved in the European economy. Conservative MEPs will be, as has been the case throughout, very much involved.; Yours sincerely,; Edward McMillan-Scott MEP (Yorkshire & Humber, UK, Conservative), Vice-President of the European Parliament; ASP 14E 102, European Parliament, Rue Wiertz, 1047 Brussels, emcmillanscott@europarl.eu.int, Tel: +32 2 283 7959, Fax: +32 2 284 9959, Website: www.emcmillanscott.com
Labour's reply: 13 June 2005: Labour's Richard Corbett has replied. I think this is the same reply as before:; Dear John Allsopp,; Thank you for your message. My view is as follows:; This issue is far from settled as there is a considerable difference of views between the European Parliament's first reading position and the position reached in the Council (which has only just been formally adopted, but with growing reticence among some national governments). The text can only become law if it is approved in identical terms by both the Council (national ministers from each country) and the European Parliament, with up to three readings in each institution. My position is as follows:; * I am not in favour of patenting of software as in the US.; * Europe needs a uniform legal approach to stop the drift towards extending patentability to areas which would not have been traditionally allowed, and to stop patentability of pure business methods, algorithms or mathematical methods.; * Software products as such must not be patented.; * Opensource software must be allowed to flourish and this Directive must not have adverse effects on opensource software and small software developers.; * Patents and the threat of litigation must not be used as an anti-competitive weapon to squeeze out small companies.; Thank you for writing in on this important matter. Best wishes,; Richard Corbett MEP - Yorkshire and the Humber
UKIP wins the race to reply: 13 June 2005: It appears UKIP's Godfrey Bloom works weekends because he wins the race to reply:; Thank you all for your email regarding the above, one of a considerable number we have received on this subject.; It appears that this legislation is being proposed for the benefit of large, often multi-national, companies and not for the benefit of smaller businesses or individuals.; I and my UKIP MEP colleagues will be opposing the legislation and I will make sure the Commissioner responsible is contacted with your concerns.; Yours sincerely, Godfrey Bloom
A letter against software patents: 11 June 2005: I've just emailed my MEPs to ask for their support in ensuring that pure software does not become patentable when the EC votes in a few weeks time.; The letter I sent is below. Feel free to adapt it and use it yourself, perhaps in your workplace or Linux User Group. You can find your MEPs here.; Dear; I am writing to ask you to use your influence to ensure that software remains unpatentable when the Computer Implemented Inventions (CII) Directive (Software Patents) is considered on the 21 June and 5 July.; Software should not be patentable; The European Patent convention of 1972 and the World Trade Organisation's TRIPs agreement state that pure software should not be patentable.; We find it a point of principle that ideas must not be patentable, and that ordinary people will not accept a system that allows businesses to own common processes. The effect will be to criminalise the majority.; In America, where software patents were recently made legal, software patent applications are often frivolous, yet are granted. Perhaps 60% of US software patents would fail a rigorous prior art search and up to 95% would fail the other two validity tests (ref). In other words, even with America's resources, software patents are proving unworkable because they are so difficult to check.; If software had been patentable fifteen or twenty years ago, we would not have a free-to-access Internet now. It would be available only for those able to pay for it, with the effect of preventing access to human knowledge for poor people and widening the digital divide.; The open source movement is uniquely vulnerable; Since the Internet enabled free communication between people regardless of distance, software developers have co-operated to create open source software applications such as Linux, the word processor I'm using to create this email, and the software that delivered it across the Internet to you. Now open source software offers a real alternative to commercial software. We believe this people-led, philanthropic movement to share knowledge and capability is perceived as a threat to the interests of established software companies and they are applying strong lobbying pressure to bring about software patents to protect their own interests. Most of those companies are American, so to accede would be to allow a net outflow of money from European citizens to American corporations.; Furthermore, open source software is by definition more vulnerable to software patent lawsuits because the software is open to inspection by anyone (normal commercial software is not visible). Open source projects are already affected, VideoLAN is one example. A software patent law is probably capable of making the free software movement unsustainable, leaving us all, consumers, business customers, and the public sector, at the mercy of commercial interests.; Small software companies are vulnerable; The Professional Contractors Group says that software patents would be 'enormously harmful' to tens of thousands of freelance developers and small or independent software developers.; The effect would be to remove the option for people and businesses to employ a small software company to develop their software and, by removing competition, to raise the cost of software development overall, affecting inflation and the pace of innovation. The legal, technical and economic effects of software patents is the subject of an EC funded study due to report in 2007. Legislation passed now will not benefit from the knowledge that study will bring.; If software patents were allowed, software developers would be in danger of infringing a patent with every line of code they write. They have no easy way of checking against the thousands of patents that would exist. When an infringement occurs, the developer must re-write code to avoid the idea, attempt to overturn the patent (expensive), or buy a licence from the patent owner. The owner is not obliged to grant licences and may name their terms.; In replies to my previous letter politicians claimed that big companies play legal games with each other over software patents and there is no danger to small companies. On the contrary, big companies can defend themselves with their own patent portfolio. It is the small companies who are defenceless and yet pose the greatest threat to commercial interests through open source software development. If the EC gives them the legal framework, big software companies will make small-scale software development extinct.; The law must be clear; The issue rests partly on the meaning of terminology. Software that controls a physical system (eg. a computer controlled lathe) is currently patentable and that is accepted. Pure software, however, because it is simply the expression of an idea, should not be patentable because it would damage our economy and our freedom. Copyright is enough protection for software.; Even if the principle that pure software should not be patentable is agreed, there is an additional danger of passing a form of words that accidentally allows patents for pure software or that allows later amendment (this seems to be happening in Canada).; You may be aware of the problems with the current definition highlighted by the UK Patent Office workshops which found "the definition in Article 2 of the draft Directive as it currently stands was .. ambiguous and too liberal". This and the work done by the Groklaw community shows there is still much to be done to achieve clarity.; We are aware that pure software patents have been passed in the UK because of unclear legislation or practice and that is one reason for wanting a directive. We therefore argue for clear legislation that protects software from patents and ask that you represent our wishes in Europe.; Yours sincerely; Jamie Adams, John Allsopp, Al Girling, Rob Hall, Stephen O'Neill, Madeleine Parkyn, Pete Redwood, Martin Webb, David Webster, Des Wood. Scarborough Linux User Group; PS. If you need a simple way to keep up with developments, this page provides a selection of the most interesting articles. If you use RSS, there's a feed here.
Bob: 11 June 2005: I think I've written before that a sure sign for me of intellectual laziness is the use of clichés. Swearing is mostly laziness, so those who can swear and insult creatively, such as Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker demonstrate a fantastic ability to escape the routine.; So I'm still reeling from how fantastic Bob Geldoff was on Friday night with Jonathan Ross last night. Geldoff was doing his very serious thing but wasn't being heavy, and Ross just kept interrupting with drivel until Geldoff said "look, I know we're guests on your show and we try to be nice and everything but you're intellectually incontinent".
Dire Straits: 11 June 2005: I have a dilemma. I just played drums with a friend and his mate and had a good time. For their own very good reasons, they only played Dire Straits tunes.; When Sultans of Swing came out I was still in punk mode and punk required the rejection of all old school music. Granted, Dire Straits was a new band, but played very much in the tradition of American MOR rock music. Everything punk wanted to burn, in other words. So I avoided it. Quite successfully actually, I knew nothing about them.; I won't be doing the drumming with them again because it stressed me out thinking I should be working while I'm doing this. That's the genuine reason, but here's something else that's been happening too.; As I've been listening to Dire Straits music in preparation, I've found all sorts of kindling to put around the base of the stakes and pole I keep out back in case I ever meet Knopfler in the street. That's not hugely unlikely as it turns out he's not American at all but quietly did his thing less than a hundred miles up the coast from here, and got his degree at York University. So that's one thing .. wtf did he make music with such an American style? I mean, I'm not saying we all have to stick with what we're born into, but let's be honest, that was a financial, not an artistic, choice wasn't it.; It turns out Knopfler asked Sting to sing on Money For Nothing. My feelings about Sting are well documented.; Then there are the lyrics. Oh boy. Being normal and listening to Dire Straits must be what having a lobotomy and listening to normal music is like. It has no meaning. No message. Hardly a discernible direction. So why does it exist?; As far as I can tell, it exists to affirm the comfortable white middle class yankee college boy way. It's music for Americans to feel smug to.; The problem is, it's great fun to play drums to. Bugger!
Text messaging: 11 June 2005: I'll bet you can remember the first time you realised you could send a text message using your mobile phone. To your brain, it's as important as where you were when 9/11 hit, or if you're old enough, when Kennedy was shot.; I was in the Brunswick Inn in Derby with a group of people I was only mildly familiar with and two of the guys were playing with texting and I asked what was going on. They demonstrated texting by sending someone to the bar, and then texting him their order while he queued. He came back with the right drinks and I was impressed.
Pace: 7 June 2005: It's the start of the month, so I measured my pace on the treadmill at the gym today. At around 141 heart beats per minute, my pace length in April was 3.22 feet, in May it was 3.38, and now in June it's 3.67. That's a good thing, an 8% improvement in just four weeks. These longer runs must be the answer, I'm running for an hour nowadays once or twice a week. Next year, when my long runs can be eight or ten miles, I should see another lot of improvement. Excellent.
Resting heart rate: 6 June 2005: It probably wasn't the ideal morning on which to measure my resting heart rate but I hadn't done it for a while so I tried. 53. Previously it was 55, so that's some progress. Still 15st 2lbs though, but I seem to have gained muscle so overall although I've lost only a pound since February I'm beginning to think that, were I ever to need to place a small ad, I could legitimately say I had an 'athletic' build, not just 'slim', so that's an improvement. Actually, it's a first.; Wierdly, a lower resting heart rate brings my heart rate range down and means I end up running slower, albeit almost imperceptibly. That seems counterintuitive somehow. I imagined I'd run faster, push harder, as I got fitter.
Rezillos: 6 June 2005: Wow. It's the morning after The Rezillos at Leeds Cockpit. I didn't catch The Rezillos first time around, and I'd never been to Leeds Cockpit, but walking in there last night was just like walking into a punk gig 27 years ago. Except, most people had less hair, not one could muster a mohican. Even the smells seemed the same. I felt comfortable there, like we had shared history, unlike in the Chemical Brothers a week ago where I felt alien.; A support band, AB Negative did a good job, there's no doubt singer Darren Gray works hard at his art.; When the Rezillos came on my first impression was "oh boy, this isn't going to work". They seemed somehow laboured, but by the third song they'd found their groove and all was well. Very well. Very bloody well indeed. My g/f and I grinned from then until the end of the third, or was it fourth encore.; There was much punk attitude, but behind all that, as I'm finding while I work back through many old punk tracks, there's real professionalism. The punk attitude's there in Fay Fife's and Jo Callis' frequently displayed undergarments (or lack of), the professionalism's there in the 'stageshow'. They've clearly worked out the moves for each song .. when Fay comes over here she and Eugene Reynolds dance those beautiful fifties moves, and Jo does something with his guitar, then this happens, then that. In "Somebody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight" it borders on theatricality and in any other setting it would be just that, but with a punk spirit it just joy. It's done with such carefree abandon that you can't help but grin. Maybe that's the secret of punk .. that it's so professional underneath that everyone can just relax and mess around. There are new songs too, so all seems good on Planet Rezillo.; So what is it that made my heart dance to the Rezillos but my mind wander to the Chemical Brothers? I think it's that humans are made to like humans. If it weren't so we wouldn't make baby humans. So try as they might, the Chemical Brothers are inexorably drawn towards knob twiddling and the Rezillos (with Jo Callis trying and failing to play all the notes at the right speed (but I guess he's forgiven if he wrote the tunes)) are inevitably drawn towards beautiful chaos, a soul lifting, spirited, awesome mess of energy and a feeling of "is this uncool?" "sure, but it feels so damn good, let's do it some more".; I was moved to the point of buying posters. I never do that. But perhaps The Rezillos have lasted more than any other punk band. "Destination Venus" gives me an internal tsunami every time I hear it. "(My baby does) good sculptures" is one of 'our songs'. "Cold wars" is still playing in my head now. So many tunes take me back to the days of laying in bed listening on headphones to John Peel, recording stuff, and playing them endlessly .. "No", "Glad all over", "Bad Guy Reaction" .. I can almost remember which cassette tape they're on.; Oh, and I should mention the drummer Angel Paterson. In my band, the tune that's giving me the most problem is "(My baby does) good sculptures", the hi-hat is just so fast it takes everything I've got to keep up just for a few seconds before falling behind again. I imagined him to be like Animal from the Muppets, or like the drummers of American grunge rock bands I see on MTV at the gym .. all dripping hair and huge gestures. In fact he sits poker backed, expressionless, wearing a suit and tie and sunglasses, and he plays everything effortlessly on a kit with just four drums (bass, snare, middle tom and floor tom) and four cymbals. Zen and the art of drumming maybe.; At the end I went to the toilet and as I walked in the urinals were fully occupied and facing me was a guy pissing into the sink. Except, the sink was higher than his hips, so he was arcing into the sink. As I stood in the queue, he was drunk enough to think he'd finished so on unstable legs he stopped aiming at the sink and got ready to put his tackle away .. but he was still fully pissing, all onto the floor. All the while he was talking unintelligably to me. I retired to a cubicle. When I came out, I thought .. shall I wash my hands? Nah, probably not. But walking past the hot air dryers, there was Darren Gray drying his hands. Nice boy. Eeh, gigs aren't what they used to be.
Non, Nee: 2 June 2005: The Non's and the Nee's are quite depressing. If, as it appears, the main reason for the 'no' is too-fast integration and fears over people from the new countries coming and 'taking our jobs', then we have almost no hope of establishing a fair trading system in the world.; If we can't even extend help to people on our own continent, if we want to continue our comfortable lives at the expense of others, if we want to protect our own comforts regardless of the consequences, then Monbiot's Age of Consent is dead before it starts. If people are not charitable at heart, if they vote for short term benefit, for their own wallet, then the problem isn't government, it isn't 'them', it's us and we have what we deserve .. 9/11 included.
Broadband: 1 June 2005: It appears more people have broadband than dial-up Internet connections now in the UK.
Honda Jazz: 1 June 2005: We picked up the new car, a Honda Jazz, yesterday and drove it to Whitby to test it out, and whereas before I was rather cool to the whole thing, it's winning me over. It's a really good example of Japanese manufacturing versus American .. our old car is a Chrysler Neon.; American style is heroic .. they'll aim for the big idea, the breakthrough. Japanese manufacturing counts everything as important, and aims to make a fast series of small steps forward on all fronts. I've said it before, but when, as a boy, I used to go fishing I did enter a few fishing competitions and obviously the thing is to catch a few big fish to win, right? Then I found a book about winning fishing competitions in Long Eaton Library, and the author's technique was to create a feeding frenzy of small (but stupid) fish (larger fish have gotten large by being wary), and pick them out at rates he'd worked out .. for instance maybe 2 a minute. To optimise his process, he used barbless hooks so he could catch a fish, take it off the hook, bait it and get it back in the water as fast as possible. That's more like the Japanese manufacturing technique and it's more my style too .. continual innovative pressure, always improving, never ceasing.; Anyway, so the result of this Japanese technique is that everywhere I look the Honda is full of good ideas and little things that make a difference. The Neon had no clock, the Honda has. It also has a temperature gauge. The ashtray is removable, so it's washable if you use it, and if not you have an extra place to store drinks and so on. The seats are adjustable between me (6'6") and my g/f (5'0"). The car feels huge, yet it's much smaller than the Neon. It actually feels like you're driving a greenhouse, visibility is great and it feels that big, yet it's definitely a smaller car .. hang on .. the Jazz is 3845mm long, 1675mm wide and 1525mm high, the Neon is 4364 x 1714 x 1369.; Oh, and Continually Variable Transmission (CVT), in other words, no gears. I know it's an automatic, but in the Neon there was a place where, going up a hill, one gear was too low to stay at the same speed, but kickdown took you to a screaming engine. I'm thinking CVT will overcome that. I read about this in a Ford Fiesta so many years ago I can't begin to count, and wanted it, but then heard no more about it. The transmission innovation doesn't stop there. There are three settings for the automatic .. standard, sporty, and loaded, and if you want to play, you can switch to manual and use steering wheel paddles to change gear. I haven't dared use that yet.; When I last bought a new car the first service was at a thousand miles, and then every 6,000 miles thereafter, so I was a little concerned when the sales chap said servicing was, I can't remember exactly, but £200-250. It turns out the first service for this car is at 12,500 miles (or one year), and every 12,500 miles thereafter. That's almost maintenance free. Fantastic.; How can this be, in a car that's cheaper to buy than the Neon? It's not only cheaper, but it holds its value better (secondhand Jazzes are rare), insurance is cheaper, road tax is cheaper, and it's 28% more fuel efficient.; This is all before we even begin to talk about the rear seats that fold up completely to give you a box shaped storage space from footwell to ceiling, and our belief that my g/f will be able to fit her surfboard inside. Yep, I'm sold, I like it.
European Constitution: 1 June 2005: I think I know why France and presumably The Netherlands rejected the European Constitution. If you were given a vote but told that 'yes' is the only acceptable answer, that there is no plan B, and that to vote 'no' would be to wreck Europe, wouldn't you feel just a little bit manipulated? Just a little bit like .. if this is how Europe behaves now, what will it be like if we give it more power?; It's like when Tony Blair talks about holding a referendum on joining the Euro at a time when he thinks he can win it .. isn't the point about holding a referendum that you seek the opinion of the people, not that you pick a time when you think you might be able to win approval for what you're planning to do anyway?; I also think we should proceed with our referendum. It would be interesting to see just how different we really are to the French and Dutch people. I've a sneaking suspicion we may not be so Eurosceptic after all.