By coincidence, on the day that one of my small handful of readers left a comment describing the Millennium Dome as an ‘Upturned Tupperware Dish’ I was planning to write about it in this, my next post. And that is because, now called the O2 Arena, I had just been there for the very first time.

Back in what were affectionately known as the ‘Swinging Sixties’ I spent a lot of my time in London having been raised at the nice end of the Central Line. Weekends were often spent travelling up to various points due west of Holborn and during those years, and my first two working years in Fleet Street, I grew to both love the city and to loathe it. Loved it for it’s vibrant undercurrents, it’s endless choices, it’s history – loathed it for it’s grubbiness, it’s decay and it’s overcrowded streets. London was a city that could charm one moment and appal the next and since those days trips to London have been more or less limited to necessity and have been planned as an incisive strike. Get in fast, do what is needed and no more, get out again as quickly as possible.

And then Mrs Swordfish bought me a delightful birthday present of tickets to see Eddie Izzard at the O2 Arena and we decided to stay a couple of nights in Leicester Square, take the Thames Clipper from Waterloo to Greenwich instead of using the tube and pay a visit to Harrods for some shopping.

And it was great. Well on the whole it was great. I did forget the rule that says if they describe a hotel as ’boutique’ and charge you £300 a night then you really do end up with a room that is crowded when there is more than one person in it. I mean you couldn’t have swung a cat in this room because the cat wouldn’t have been able to get in. But apart from that it was great. And to my great surprise, London – or at least that part of London – seems to have re-invented and re-invigorated itself. It’s looking really pretty good.

So – back to the O2 Arena. I too was one of those who grumbled at the building of the dome. It seemed to me ill-conceived and – as history shows – indeed it was. But what a truly magnificent structure it is. Stunningly beautiful as you edge around the bend in the river and you catch the first sight of it dominating the landscape, all lit up against the night sky. Same goes for the London Eye. A long, long time ago we could have built something like this and then there seemed to be a long period spanning a large part of the twentieth century where we lost our way. The old ‘Centre Point’ building was about as good as it got! It’s good to see that we have that vision back and have the will to undertake such projects.

And finally, we nipped in to St. Pancras Station to look at the renovations and were pleasantly surprised by what a great job has been done. Sadly, our train home meant using Kings Cross next door – a grim reminder of the ugly, dirty and neglected marriage of Victorian grandeur with mid to late twentieth century budget building.

Oh – and Eddie Izzard was great fun.

Yes it’s a Segway. Or – to give it it’s full title, a Segway Personal Transporter. A relatively common sight in many US cities and, I am told, European ones as well. Unless you happen to live in England that is, where I doubt very many people have seen one at all.

Probably, like me, you noticed the launch back in 2001, the hype surrounding the first video clips of it in use and, if I recall correctly, pictures of George Bush using one. And then, as far as us Brits go… nothing. I suspect most of us old enough to remember probably placed it in the same category as the Sinclair C5 and promptly forgot about it again. If you still don’t know what I am talking about then wikipedia as always, offers a quick memory refresh.

I have to admit that I had forgotten all about them. But that changed back in October when, encouraged by my son who had tried one, Mrs Swordfish and I booked a Segway tour of Washington DC and for me at least it was an instant ‘poop poop’¹ moment. I was in love with a machine.

With a top speed of around 12 miles an hour and a range of about 24 miles per battery charge, the Segway is truly a remarkable ‘vehicle’, perfect for those quick, short trips where you know you shouldn’t take your car but always do. They are amazingly easy to master and control and are incredibly manoeuvrable. And they are, simply, great fun!

And they are also illegal.

Our beloved government – the ones who promote using public transport over the car, who want us all to be ‘greener’ and care about the environment, who steal more cash from us for driving higher CO2 emission vehicles in the thinly veiled fight against global warming – invoked the Highway Act of 1835 – yes you read that correctly – confining the Segway to private land use only.

The 1835 Highway Act – to put it simply – bans wheeled vehicles from public pavements. In 1835 this meant a horse and cart. The Segway is not allowed on public roads because it is neither a car or a motorbike and therefore can not be taxed or have a license plate. And in a country where the building of cycle pathways has actually been pretty good you can’t use a Segway because it is motorised.

The 1835 Highway Act did not, of course, envisage the rise of the automobile or the motor bike. It did not envisage the bicycle either. Curiously, all three date from about 1885 a full 50 years after the Act arrived on the statute books. Steam powered vehicles might have been a small problem but in 1835 I doubt many people had seen one and Traction Engines were not really developed until around 1850-1860. Invoking such an archaic law in the year 2002 is ludicrous, short-sighted and beyond belief. If I didn’t know better I would suspect the ulterior motive of tax revenue. Nah… couldn’t be.

There is an active but sadly ill-supported campaign to get the humble Segway legalised in the UK – even if only on cycle pathways. This would simply require a small change to legislation such as happened for the ’scooters’ used by the handicapped that are allowed to go just about anywhere their owners want them to go. Well cycle ways, pavements, and minor roads at least.

I implore anyone reading this – whether you like the idea of the Segway or not – to sign the petition at the campaign website. Do it because it is the right thing to do. Do it because we have had enough of stupid, archaic laws being used to strip away our freedoms. Do it because technology like the Segway needs to be championed if we are ever to move beyond petrol driven vehicles.

But most of all – please do it because I want one.

(¹ In case you don’t know, ‘poop poop’ comes from Kenneth Graham’s children’s novel The Wind in the Willows and was the sound made by the first motor car seen by Mr Toad (the horn of course) who was instantly bewitched and sat, on the side of the road in a daze intoning the mantra ‘poop poop’.)

According to MacUser, two separate Apple centres in the USA have refused to carry out repairs on a Mac because the owner is a smoker. Not because they feel that smoking has contributed to whatever has gone wrong but because their technicians consider the machines ‘contaminated’ and a ‘bio-hazard’.

Due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, that has voided the warranty and they refuse to work on the machine, due to ‘health risks of second hand smoke’.

I agree that nicotine residue can be sticky and unpleasant stuff. But second-hand smoke? So much for Apple Care – the expensive, three year warranty agreement you can take out on a new Mac. I can see I wont be doing that next time around.

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When Internet Service Providers and every other organisation connected to web provision told the governments of Europe – including our own – that their ill-thought out plans for tackling music and video piracy wouldn’t and couldn’t work they were duly ignored by people with the technical understanding of a wardrobe. So it comes as no real surprise that ZDNet reports today of the first result of their idiocy. A pub – currently unidentified – has been fined £8000 for illegally downloading unspecified copyrighted material.

Only, of course, it wasn’t the pub at all. All the pub landlord did was offer a free WiFi hotspot to his customers. A nice gesture, thoughtful and generous and a good way of getting a few more customers through the door. Except that one of them abused the privilege. And the IP address used for the download belongs, of course, to the pub.

And that means that people offering hotspots all over the country will, sooner or later, be wondering if it’s really worth it.

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I’ve lost the link now sadly, but a BBC news item a few days back reported that some researchers have decided that letting your kids get dirty – or good, old-fashioned play – is actually, wait for it, good for them! Helps build up the immune systems. Of course, it’s not that long ago that we all knew this anyway and the extra benefit of a childhood not spent in antiseptic isolation was that we were not only healthy and largely allergy-free, but we had fun and learnt to socialise properly because you can only get seriously dirty outside.

Perhaps it should be a question asked of budding Apple technicians: “did you Mum let you play outside and get dirty when you were a kid?” Although, of course, they will probably regard such individuals as a bio-hazard.

The young man in the local 3 shop said “it will just work”.
“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “That’s what T-Mobile said and that never worked”.
And neither did 3. Well – that’s not strictly true. It didn’t work in Washington DC and it didn’t work in Denver or anywhere else in Colorado. Didn’t work anywhere in Utah either. Or Arizona. Or Nevada.

But it DID work in Delaware.

So – when we arrived in Denver I emailed 3 customer support and said “The young man in the local 3 shop said it will just work. But it doesn’t. Although it DID work in Delaware. I can’t make or receive calls to the UK or to friends in the USA. But I CAN send and receive text messages. So what am I missing” How do I get this to work outside of Delaware?”

Next thing I am woken at around 3:30 in the morning by my phone announcing a text message. It’s from 3 customer support to tell me that they couldn’t get through to me and have left a message on the voice mail. Which, of course, I couldn’t call. Well – not without taking a flight back to Delaware which seemed a bit over the top.

And they did this three nights running! The stupid person at 3 didn’t think to themselves – “There’s no point in leaving voice mail because he CAN’T MAKE CALLS”. Not even “hey – this guy is in Denver which is 6 hours behind us so I wont text him at 9 in the morning in case he’s asleep”.

So – International Roaming. As long as you are in Delaware.

You watch the movies and the English guy get’s off the plane in New York and immediately makes a phone call home on his mobile. How does he do that? James Bond never has this problem. And I bet he’s never even been to Delaware. I use all the right codes. The +44 for the UK. 001 for the States. I connect to the local ‘partner’ network with no problem. Then nothing. Try and make a call and up it comes “Connection Error – Please go to Delaware and Try Again”.

If anyone comes visiting this sad and neglected corner of the web and knows how to make this work then please let me in on the secret. Unless, of course, the only place you ever visit in the USA is Delaware.

(When we got back home I accessed my voice mail to find three calls from 3 asking me to phone them to talk about why I couldn’t make calls. They weren’t laughing either).

While my wife could no longer resist the JDOCD burning within and set off for yet another day standing around in Leicester Square in 30 degree heat being pushed and shoved by screaming teenage girls, I set off for a nostalgic trip back to my home town and surrounding villages where I had not been for a good many years. For me, a big part of such a journey was to set foot again in Epping Forest, the playground of my childhood.

I was lucky enough to be bought up a mere 30 yards or so from the edge of the forest and, as I mentioned in a recent item, not many days would pass without me walking or playing in this wondrous place. It is what I have always missed the most since leaving and was the second thing I wanted to do on this trip – after taking a look at the old house.

The boundary of my freedom as a young 7 or 8 year old was clearly defined. No further in than the small area we always called ‘Drum Maids’ although nobody seemed to know why ir bore that name. Drum Maids was a small amphitheatre shaped clearing and at one edge was a small hill that kids liked to roll down in the summer and toboggan down after snow. It obviously looked bigger when I was 7 of course. Pathways to Drum Maids were clearly defined and it was quite a highpoint so that once you got passed it you were treated to a panoramic view of the forest to the distant horizon many, many miles away. This was an enchanted place and a summer evening would not be complete without the laughter of children running around keeping the long grass at bay in the clearing.

My first problem yesterday were that the pathways, worn down and distinct in my childhood, were no longer there. In the place of the patchwork of pathways and trails were dense patches of nettles growing right up to the oak trees I used to sit under collecting up acorns and growing right up to the forest edge. When I did eventually find a way in it was still overgrown with nettles and brambles but I finally broke through and while there were still no clearly defined pathways I managed to get to where I wanted to be. Except it wasn’t there any more. The photo shows the surrounding trees beyond which was once a small clearing and a favourite place for children to play. It is now merely an overgrown tangle of bushes, nettles, brambles and is completely impenetrable. In short – it has been abandoned. Nobody comes here any more.

In fact, there was little evidence to show that many people visit this part of the forest and this is a tragedy. And for me, a great sadness. And for the kids of today an experience missing from their lives.