What's wrong with Car Free Day?

From our intranet:

[Car Free Day aims] to encourage us all to leave our cars at home and explore other options for getting to work. Organisations across Devon have previously participated in the day, with staff using tandems, space-hoppers, wheel-barrows, rowing boats, skateboards and piggy-backs to get to work, as well as more ‘normal’ sustainable travel options. This is a fun day with a serious underlying message as transport is one of the biggest contributors to our carbon footprint.

Space hoppers.  That's what's wrong with car bloody free day.  It's a one-off, a silly smug novelty that does nothing to apply pressure where pressure needs applying.  You want to cut driving to work?  Cut parking spaces.  The Unions will whine that it unfairly hits the lower-paid staff, well, tough: driving to work is a luxury.  If you can't afford to drive forty miles to work on your modest salary, move closer or get a bus or change your damn job.

You want to boost cycling?  Covered bike racks where staff can see them.  A memo to managers not to be shirty to people who turn up in weatherproofs.  Our bike racks fill in a delicious parody of predict-and-provide.

You want to boost bus travel?  Tickets at a reasonable price from where people live to where they work.  It's not hard (it just may not be as profitable but hey, you did sell the bus companies).  Call 'em sub-prime or social routes and insist that the companies serve them or take away their licences.

You do not have a right to drive cheaply to work.  You have a responsibility to get to work on time and a responsibility to not squander your wages on tat when you've mouths to feed.

Entitlement culture, it's the thing that will kill the west (if hurricanes and bird flu don't get to it first).

Pies are your friend [trainingfilter]

Interesting article here for the tri training posse.  Basically: shovel down 4 grammes of carbs per pound of bodyweight and after an initial puff-out you become a lean mean hyper-fuelled training machine.  Most endurance athletes are wretched starvelings, it seems.

Bonkers taxidermy

Courtesy of a nutter on the Brass Goggles forum, behind the cut (to spare delicate sensibilities) you'll see... an anarchist squirrel bomber.  Because regular taxidermy is just too mundane.

( Fear the rodent... )