Posts by damon Reynolds

Eurostar tunnels through UK border ring of steel

@AC 15.27

We do have border controls both here and in Paris for Eurostar. e-Borders has nothing to do with immigration control. you still need a passport, it's still checked and if it's not EU you still need relevant visas etc. e-Borders is exactly as @AC 15.49 says: signing in and out of the country.

Up until now though if i had a ticket - any ticket - and a passport i was free to travel. now my ticket has to match my passport, ie the state can monitor my movements. this is very bad thing. and the whole 'nothing to hide nothing to fear" drivel doesn't apply in this case either. I'm sure most people couldn't care that through passport records, the state knows where they are. this is about another layer of pointless bureaucracy for marginal benefit, if any, that will inconvenience a large number of people.

Texting peer gets prison

@ everyone

Doesn't anyone read the story or do their background research before posting?

From the BBC: "Lord Ahmed's Jaguar hit an Audi car that had crashed into the central reservation and was lying stationary across the middle and outside lanes."

In other words, there was a fair chance that whether he was texting, phoning, adjusting the CD player or even just driving normally but not with the sharpest of reactions, he may have hit the stationary car in the 'fast' lane of a motorway.

I'm not disputing "one law for the rich... blah, blah," nor trying to explain away that this was a terrible accident, but there is a bit of a difference between someone ploughing their 40 tonne lorry into family driving along minding their own business because the driver fell asleep after 18 hours driving without a break, and not having fast enough reactions (phone induced or otherwise) to avoid an accident that had already taken place.

At least I assume that this is what was taken into consideration. That's the funny thing about UK law, it's really keen on facts and likely probablity. Not guesswork and conjecture.

Bryan Adams pulls a Prince on fan sites

Pedants corner

The "Everything I do..." dirge was only partly penned by the great Canadian. The tune was written by film composer Michael Kamen. BA just slapped on some angsty lyrics and the rest is top-pop chart hogging history.

DVLA coughs to data slip

You don't make money from 0845 numbers

A company pays for the privilege of having 0800 numbers (free to the caller) and 0845 numbers (calls charged at local rate). Both the DVLC and HMRC will be forking out, therefore, not making money.

It's revenue sharing 0870 numbers and of course Ant & Decs favourite: 09 premium rate that get the cash rolling in.

Petrol latte for Kiwis in dairy biofuel push

I thought science and IT went together

"the more so as the whey distilleries use quite a lot of hot steam..."

as opposed the more usual cold type of steam?