What's going to happen?

A few years after London made its Oyster smart card unnecessary by integrating contactless bank cards for Tube and bus journeys, Scotrail has finally enabled Flexipasses on their own proprietary smart cards. My home station is a ticketless station. I feel there are a couple of aspects of the scheme for smartcards that have not been user-tested from the point of view of users of small rural commuter stations. Of which there are many on the Glasgow-Edinburgh lines and many more throughout Scotland. I'd like to always arrive with plenty of time for my train in the morning, but sometimes the train is even early. At Kirknewton, Scotrail have placed the Edinburgh-bound smartcard reader by the main car-park entrance, halfway along the platform, about 50m from the entrance nearest the road where late arriving passengers - some detained by the level crossing - scramble for the train. Maybe Scotrail's business analysts imagine that everyone always arrives for a train with 90 second...

Took our daughter's EHIC card along to the hotel doctor after she hurt her chest diving off a boat. 120 Euros, EHIC no use. A simple five minute checkup on a child. Made me appreciate living in a country where healthcare is free at the point of use.  However, the doctor, the same guy I had seen earlier in the week, agreed to take a credit card, automatically charging me in pounds, not Euros. That cost me another £7. So, the reason I saw the doctor earlier in the week was another little scam, introduced about 2010 by the Spanish Government. To dive in Spain, you must have a current, annual medical certificate. Earlier in the week the doctor had only been able to take cash for this service, 35 Euros. He must have spent 90 seconds sticking a pulse-oximeter on my finger, listening to three heartbeats - not lung function - and a quick glance in my ears.  It's my understanding having learned to dive in the 1990's that the BS-AC national medical committee assessed available ...

In my opinion the first thing Theresa May has done right.  Our system does not require it, but the country did not elect her party to government for her to take charge. The Prime Minister has enormous power in our system, but no-one could have voted for Theresa May to get the job because she was not leader of the Conservative Party at the last election. I have to wonder if she made her decision to hold the election on the grounds that 15 or so MPs are at risk of criminal liability for knowingly falsifying election expenses. Her majority is 12. So now we have a choice. Support Theresa May's Tories with more than 36.9% of the vote - the proportion that led to David Cameron's victory in 2015 - and we'll get: Hard Brexit. Throw ourselves out of the European Union, sticking two fingers up at the countries we do nearly half of foreign trade with, saying we want them to have permission - a visa - to cross our borders in future, yet expecting free entry to their countries f...

I hope a lot of people quickly realise current low-level wind turbines are nothing more than "greenwash".  Reports in the last couple of days of the Arctic Ocean becoming part of the Atlantic and the Great Barrier Reef suffering its second die-back in two years - it's seen just four die-backs in recorded history - have me asking "How much more evidence do climate change deniers need?"  With wind-turbines replacing a maximum of just 35% of the fossil-fuelled capacity it matches, as well as doing tremendous damage to the local environment, isn't it about time the myths around these profitable industrial plants were debunked?

What a contradiction. Isolationist America he promises supporters. We're not going to waste US lives and dollars on foreigners. Then a despicable government appears to again use weapons of mass destruction against its own people. 25 million dollars worth of cruise missiles dropped on a Syrian airbase. And now, a carrier task group moves in near North Korea. "If the Chinese don't sort it out, we will". Well he's full of surprises, but I'm not sure this is going to end well.

OK, this is pretty out-there, but I have to say it, sorry! Invoking Article 50 is not the brave thing to do. A truly brave leader might stand up and say: "Mistakes have been made. Referendums are great tools of direct democracy, but most countries have a written, considered constitution and do not base decisions that will affect the future of everyone alive today for the rest of their lives on the electoral flip of a coin as my predecessor did. Lies have been told, on both sides, but there is even evidence that another country was involved in engineering the result. A country whose leader believes that a weakened Europe and UK is in his best interests. This is very difficult, but I have decided that on balance I cannot proceed with the Article 50 declaration. I will instead schedule the dissolution of Parliament for a general election and a further referendum on the European question. The voters of the UK must have a further say on whether they wish to go ahead with such a momento...