Ertblog

I love my Garmin Edge 800

I had a wonderful Christmas surprise: a Garmin Edge 800 GPS device for my bike. Karen has always been very generous! It's been a revelation. 

Years ago, I couldn't see the point of satnav for cyclists. But I realised I was wrong late last year. The Garmin is so much more than a navigation device. It captures an enormous amount of information about your ride, from the usual bike info (speed, average speed, time spent), to heart rate info (heart rate, average heart rate, time in various heart zones) and plots all this and more online so you can share your ride - and download details of other people's routes. Even more fun, you can race against your earlier rides - and your target performance. 

This screenshot shows details of my ride today, uploaded to Garmin Connect. You'll gather that I set no speed records, although I knocked a modest four minutes of the time I took to ride the route on 28 December - my first Garmin ride. (Not as impressive as the four hours I cut from my Bucks century time in summer 2005!) I wish I'd had this remarkable gadget on my Land's End to John O'Groats ride in 2002...

The Garmin has given a real spur to my new year resolution to get back to cycling. And to lose a few pounds!

High speed ahead for HS2

The government has given the go ahead to a new high speed rail line from London to Birmingham: HS2.

It's a hugely symbolic act. It marks a new era for the country's railways. At last, Britain won't be the poor relation to its continental cousins, who have been building high speed lines for the past 30 years. We'll have our first new domestic intercity railway since 1899, the year Great Central trains started running from the north to London Marylebone.

But HS2 has been hugely controversial, especially in the Chilterns. As I blogged when Labour announced the original HS2 plan, our own village, Chalfont St Giles, is on the route. As you'd expect, few people here are in favour of a railway that won't benefit us (there won't be any local stations) but whose construction will blight the area for many years. The anti HS2 campaign has been witty and well organised - with posters on the road to Chequers asking prime minister David Cameron if he's on the right track. Local MP Cheryl Gillan has supposedly threatened to resign as Wales Secretary if the government gave the green light. We'll see if she's still in the Cabinet at the end of the week...

I share the many of the misgivings of the protesters. I find it hard to justify the massive price when public spending is a being slashed to cut the deficit. (It seems a strange priority to splash out on an expensive rail line when youth clubs for deprived inner city teenagers are being closed.) If we're going to invest in rail, wouldn't it be better to improve existing rail lines?

But that kind of make do and mend approach isn't good enough. Britain's intercity rail network was born just before Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837. It was the wonder of the world. Nearly two centuries later, the world wonders why Britain is so reluctant to build a new railway. HS2 opponents say we should just modernise the west coast mainline. That line was created from a series of 19th century railways. It has been 'modernised' twice in the last fifty years. It's still in essence a Victorian railway. Its London terminus, Euston, is a soulless place. I pity anyone who has any time to kill there. The same is true at Reading, Cardiff Central, Bristol Parkway and countless stations across the country.

So HS2 is the right thing to do. It will transform the experience of train travel in Britain. Our village will suffer during the long construction years, but I'll be able to show Owen the building of our first new domestic railway since his great grandmother was a child in the 1890s. (I never thought I'd have the chance to emulate SWA Newton, who photographed the birth of the Great Central in Buckinghamshire and beyond.)

PS: Other mainlines were build in Britain after the Great Central, notably the Great Western's 'cut-off' lines before the Great War, but none was a complete inter city line.

My maturing endowment

My 25 year mortgage endowment policy matures tomorrow. It's a rite of passage: I've had the policy for more than half my life, and took it out the year I started work.

Inevitably, the policy has fallen short. It was supposed to pay off a £27,000 mortgage. It looks as if it will produce £6,000 less. But I can't claim I was mis-sold the endowment as I sold it to myself when I was working for Nationwide in Newport, Wales.

But I totally understand the outrage people felt about the way the banks and building societies flogged endowments. In 1984, 80% of mortgages were repayment, which meant that the borrower knew they'd have paid off their loan at the end of the term. By 1988, 80% were interest only, backed by an endowment, even though the tax benefits of endowments had disappeared in those four years. The reason? Banks and building societies had realised how much money they could make from flogging endowments.

Back in 1988, I inadvertently told the Daily Telegraph how much Nationwide made from endowment commission. "You won't do that again!" said Nationwide's general manager. I didn't, but felt uneasy about the endowment circus.

PS: 25 years ago, I'd have been amazed by the fact I've written this post on a tablet computer with far more power than my Nationwide Nixdorf computer - let alone the idea I'd then publish it to the world in a taxi!

In praise of the wonderful RAF Museum, London

Above: Owen and the immortal Hawker Hurricane, RAF Museum

Karen was off Christmas shopping yesterday, so Owen and I went to the RAF Museum at Hendon, London.

What a wonderful place. Owen's too young to appreciate the significance of the RAF's role in saving Britain 70 years ago, but he loved the aircraft - and the hands-on gallery that explains the wonder of flight.

He was intrigued by the film about the famous bouncing bomb that the valiant dambuster squadron unleashed against Nazi Germany in 1943. What he doesn't know is that his grandmother regularly saw dambuster leader Guy Gibson in her hometown of Penarth during the war: Gibson's wife came from the seaside town.

Yet I was slightly uncomfortable as we had a snack in sight of the peerless Avro Lancaster bomber. Yes, I share the regret of many that the enormous sacrifice of Bomber Command crews was brushed under the carpet after peace came in 1945. (Back in 1942, the nation was grateful that the RAF was alone in taking the fight to Nazi Germany. Three years later, the politicians were more queazy about the resultant death and destruction.) But as we sat underneath the gun turret, I knew that I'd want Owen to understand that war is something to avoid rather than glorify.

Here's my video of our day at the RAF Museum.

 

 

At last: free parking in Chalfont St Giles

Back in 2008, I blogged about the threat to village shops in Chalfont St Giles from Chiltern District Council's car parking charges. The council dropped plans to charge for on-street parking - the reason for the blogpost. But it still charges an extortionate 60p for anyone using Blizzards Yard car park for a few minutes while they pick up a newspaper or pint of milk. 

Sense has finally prevailed. The Buckinghamshire Advertiser reports that the council is introducing an hour's free parking, matching the very successful arrangement in neighbouring Chalfont St Peter. But it appears that no thanks are due to Chiltern Coumcil - it's the parish council and Chalfonts Local Area Forum who have stumped up the cash to end Chiltern Council's drive to get everyone to shop at Tesco. 

It's great news, as it encourages people to use village shops and the brilliant local deli rather than go to Tesco in nearby Amersham. And it also means that people have no excuse to park illegally to avoid the punitive parking charges. 

Poppy day pride - and prejudice

Above: my father and uncle in uniform during the second world war

I wore my poppy with pride today, as Britain marked Remembrance Day. 

On Friday, the 93rd anniversary of Armistice Day (11.11.11), I left my office in Richmond to walk to the Poppy Factory, the place where remembrance poppies are made for people in Britain and many other Commonwealth countries. The modern entrance stood in stark contrast to the original building, built soon after the end of the Great War.

Above: Richmond's Poppy Factory

The last veterans of the Great War have passed away in recent years. Yet there are still some very old people alive who lost a father in that terrible conflict. The Guardian yesterday interviewed several, in a very moving feature. As Donald Overall, 98, said, "I'm an old man, I am supposed to be tough. I thought I was hard but I'm not. He's my dad and I miss him." The killing fields of Flanders exert a powerful emotional pull down the years. 

My grandmother (born 1891) and her siblings lived through terrible times. The two world wars left millions dead and injured, while economic depression and recession blighted many other lives. How lucky we are by contrast. 

The poppy appeal is a simple call to commemorate the dead of the great and small wars alike, while helping today's veterans. Yet my father, Bob Skinner, who served in the army during the second world war, is uneasy at the way this quiet tradition is becoming a compulsory exercise in sentimentality. He asks whether BBC newsreaders would be allowed to go on screen without a poppy. Political correctness has taken over. Bob hasn't worn a poppy for several years. 

I'm also uneasy. I was appalled by the undignified argument between England's Football Association and FIFA over whether players could wear a poppy on their shirts during a game. FIFA's view that it was a political symbol was as crass as the FA's totally inappropriate aggressive stance. It's significant that these arguments are raging now, over 70 years after the end of the second world war, and not in the immediate aftermath of those great wars. This is the era of Daily Mail intolerance of alternative opinions - especially ones that are critical of the military. Back in 1921, when the first poppy appeal took place, no one would think to glorify war. The object was to mourn, to commemorate and to help survivors. Almost a century later, Britain is much less likely to criticise its warriors, their leaders or the decision to send them to war. As a result, we've been involved in wars that have nothing to do with us for well over a decade. 

 

 

Life online: my 15 years on the internet

Fifteen years ago this weekend, I got onto the internet for the first time. Life has never been the same since.

Back in November 1996, life online was a revelation, despite the tardy 56k modem connection. My browser was Netscape, my search engine Altavista (I liked the name - it sounded like an appealing brand of coffee). I went online on my first PC, an Intel 486 based machine I bought in November 1994 from a long-forgotten company called Escom from its shop in Cheltenham.

I was used to company email: I was emailing within Nationwide Building Society in 1987, sending daily summaries of news coverage. But being online to the world was different. I loved, and love, the serendipity of the web: finding out about everything and anything almost instantly. Within months I'd found out from the BBC website who had become my MP in the 1997 general election. I followed progress of Ireland's historic Good Friday agreement online. And I dated the cricket bat my grandfather gave my dad in the 1930s from information we found on an Indian cricket website. Two years later, I got onto the web and external email at work at Eagle Star insurance. 

A decade and a half later, I have the internet in my pocket. I can shop, pay and enquire anytime and (almost) anywhere. I can find my way around London with an app on my phone. I follow with great interest the lives of my old school friends - even those I've not seen since 1982. I share my thoughts with the world on this blog - and Twitter. I share videos on YouTube. 

Life online is a joy - up to a point. My only concern is that our attention span is shortening. The constant stream of emails, Facebook and Twitter makes us twitchy. When we attend a lecture, many of us are more likely to be tweeting quotes than paying proper attention. (Something that I noted ironically at yesterday's excellent Institute for Government and Fishburn Hedges Media & Government debate about the respective influence of the media and social media.) We're rushing to judgement and comment, rather than reflecting on things.

But I strongly believe the online benefits outweigh the disadvantages. The internet has been a good thing. It has shared influence and power. It slightly redresses the balance of power in society - newspaper owners, politicians and big business have a little less influence over the rest of us. And we've barely begun - just wait another few years, and we'll see the huge benefits of the mobile revolution.

My first steps online were in a very different world. Back in 1996. John Major's dysfunctional government was tottering from one crisis to another. Tony Blair was a fresh faced leader who captured the imagination of the country. Major had started the disastrous denationalisation of Britain's railways. The Spice Girls dominated the charts, along with Oasis and the Fugees. The IRA ended a ceasefire, with bombings that devastated London docklands and Manchester. The country mourned the victims of the massacre at Dunblane school in Scotland. And the inventor of the jet engine Frank Whittle died aged 89. I imagine Frank Whiittle would be excited by the online revolution, which has had an even greater impact on the world than the jet age.  

PS: Apologies for using the terms internet and web interchangeably in this post. I do know the difference... 

iCloud and iOS5 calendars and notifications: what a mess

UPDATED: Monday 31 October 2011

At first, I loved Apple's iCloud, as I explained in my blogpost iCloud: getting rid of duplicate calendar entries. 

I thought I'd solved the one apparent problem: duplicate calendar entries. But then I discovered lots of other frustrating flaws. How could Apple launch a service riddled with so many faults? 

Here are the ones I've noticed:

• My iPad and iPhone have access to my old Mac iCal calendars. Yet there's no sign of them on the iMac itself.
• The iCloud calendar only includes entries since 25 September. If I want anything before this I have to tick on calendars 'from my Mac' in the calendars tab (see my blogpost above) to show them. Yet this duplicates all entries since 25 September - and recurring ones before as well.
• The notifications service duplicates calendar notifications - even when the event appears only once on the device (through having just one calendar visible). 
• iMessages written on my iPhone don't appear on the iPad.

As I said in the earlier blogpost, I gave up on MobileMe because of the frustration of duplicate entries. It's hugely disappointing that iCloud is even worse. Didn't Apple test the damn thing before launching it? They even had four months between announcement and launch to make sure!

I still like Photostream, though...

Is outrage driving out reasoned debate?

The Guardian's Julian Glover today raised an interesting question. Is outrage the common currency of political debate? He pointed out that commentators and columnist deal in absolute opinions. Yet real life is more uncertain. 

As Glover said, "Uncertainty comes over as weakness. Tribalism thrives. On these pages over the last few years I have sometimes expressed ideas in categorical terms about which I could never really be sure. The greater challenge for any writer is mounting a defence of compromise. It is, perversely, sometimes feeble to sound bold and bold to sound feeble."

He's right. It's ironic that the death of ideology in British politics has coincided with a far more aggressive approach to political debate. That's partly down to the 24 hours media - their short attention span and need for drama polarises modest differences. (In more ideological times, current affairs programmes like ITV's hour-long Weekend World tried to explain rather than create controversy.) The media demands instant answers, instant judgements. Reallife is not so simple. Yet a politician who says he or she doesn't have all the answers is seen as weak. (That said, wouldn't we respect an honest politician who admitted the truth more than a blustering one?)

Glover's article prompted a stream of critical comments, not least because he's leaving the Guardian to become a speechwriter for David Cameron. It's hard to think of anything more likely to inflame the passions of the Guardian readers. 

That, in one sense, proves Glover's point. I'm no fan of David Cameron, and am horrified by many of his government's policies (that broken promise not to lay waste to the NHS by yet more destructive reorganisations is high on the list). But like most voters I don't see him as the devil. I'm capable of making my own judgements about his actions and policies. 

It's not just political debate that suffers from this mock outrage. Just look at any story about Apple on the BBC or Guardian technology web pages. Critics of Apple insist that anyone who buys an iPhone or iPad has more money than sense. Apple fans claim that rival products don't work. Needless to say, neither claim is right. We all make choices. That doesn't make other people idiots because they've chosen another type of phone or computer. 

Live and let live...

 

A promise: my letter in The Guardian

Today's Guardian includes a short letter from me on one of my favourite topics: how simple phrases are being replaced by ugly, longer ones.

It was prompted by a letter from Mary Williams about a query in the paper's Notes & Queries column asking why many people now say train station instead of railway station. In my letter I asked what fool decided to replace the lovely expression 'keeping a promise' with the horrible 'delivering on a promise'. 

Politicians and business leaders are the worst offenders. (The founder of BlackBerry-maker RIM, Mike Lazaridis, used a variation, 'deliver on a goal', in a RIM YouTube video saying sorry to customers whose smartphones had been out of action for days.) 

I've never understood why business people and politicians use gobbledegook. The simple way to get a message across is to use plain English. But as I've said many times on Ertblog, too many think simple language is somehow inadequate or unimpressive. The opposite is true.

On the subject of language, I discovered Tim Phillips' Talk Normal blog today. I loved the post about the nonsense spoken by sports commentators. Tim confirms the suspicion that politicians use obscure language to make unpalatable messages unintelligible - take this example from the HS2 high speed rail proposals. 

 

 

 

Thank you, Virgin Trains

People are quick enough to complain about Britain's railways. (And I've been known to grumble...) But I've enjoyed outstanding service from Virgin Trains today.

I inadvertently got on the wrong train at London Euston this lunchtime. I was booked on the 1300 to Manchester but boarded the 1307 to Liverpool at the next platform. Luckily I realised my mistake as the Manchester train was leaving and got off quickly.

My ticket was non transferrable, but the female ticket inspector at the gate was brilliant. She said the next Manchester train was just 20 minutes later, and marked my ticket so I could travel on it at no extra cost.

It's the kind of kindness and flexibility that makes all the difference to a company's reputation.

I quickly tweeted (from @robskinner) to say thank you to @virgintrains, and got an almost instant response, inviting me to email Virgin Trains so they could pass on my thanks to the member of staff. I was delighted to do this.

It's the second time in a week that I've praised a rail company. Chiltern Railways responded to a tweet offering me help after I got on the wrong train last week. It's good to see our rail companies using social media so well. It will be a talking point at tonight's Some Comms social media awards in Manchester.

And I'll be more careful about which train I board in future!

iCloud: getting rid of duplicate calendar entries

UPDATED 25 October 2011

I love iCloud, Apple's new way of sharing information, documents and photos wirelessly across Macs, iPhones and iPads. But when I started using it, I was frustrated to find it copied one of the worst flaws of MobileMe - duplicated calendar entries. 

A quick Google search suggested various ways of solving the problem. But I found a very simple solution myself.

On an iPhone or iPad, open Calendar, and open the Calendars tab on the top left. I had 'All from my Mac' ticked as well 'as All iCloud'. Unticking All from My Mac got rid of the duplicates.

I'm now on iCloud 9!

UPDATE, 25 October

Sadly, things didn't prove quite as simple. Everything's fine on the iPhone. But on my iPad I've now got the problem Frank describes in the first comment: clicking between calendars doesn't get rid of the duplicates. Bizarrely, I now have duplicate entries of recurring calendar items. But they're not identical: they're copies of the earliest entry, duplicated for every subsequent entry.I've got duplicates of a stack of old entries on iCal on my Mac - but I can't see any way of selecting any calendar other than iCloud in iCal. 

Apple, this is a total shambles. 

 

 

Guardian's iPad app: good news

The Guardian's iPad app

The Guardian finally released an iPad app this week. It was worth the wait.

The paper has been a digital pioneer, but (apart from the brilliant Eyewitness photojournalism app) has been left behind as the Daily Telegraph, The Times and Sunday Times have launched apps for Apple's hugely successful iPad. 

But the Guardian's effort is the most stylish of them all. The design is gorgeous, with big photos, and clear text on white background. Navigation is straightforward.

The app also takes advantage of Apple's Newsstand app, which automatically deivers new editions as they become available. That's good news: no need to wait for an edition to download before racing out of the door to catch your morning train.

Editor in chief Alan Rusbridger acknowledged in a blog post that not everyone will be happy. As he says, it's a 'reflexive, once a day Guardian', rather than the website. Many commenters complained that the app won't include comments on articles. But that reflects the fact it's a digital newspaper, not a live website. The printed paper doesn't include comments, apart from the daily letters to the editor, which also appear in the app. The criticisms show we now have different views on what a newspaper is. Traditionalist see it as a printed product, and like the apps that provide a digital version. Others think the old idea of a paper as a once a day snapshot of news is hopelessly out of date. (They'd point out that the app makes no mention of Liam Fox's resignation, which happened five hours ago.) 

The app doesn't include everything - the excellent Weekend magazne isn't included, for example. I'm sure this will follow. (The Times app's Saturday edition originally missed most of the Saturday print content, which appeared a few months later.)

But I still like the idea of the reflexive Guardian, as Rusbridger describes it. I know all about Fox's departure - I read about it on Twitter, confirmed it on the BBC news site and heard more on Radio 4's PM. I'm a Gaurdian print subscriber, and welcome the chance to download a version to read on the train on my days in London. In time, I'm sure newspaper apps will be updated more often - The Times brought out an app update to mark Steve Jobs' death last week. 

I also like Rusbridger's view of the changing Guardian: "The Guardian is many other things. You can now watch, listen to and join in with the Guardian. You can literally follow it minute by minute around the clock as it reports, mirrors, analyses and gives context to the shifting patterns and rhythms of the world's news. It's Android when it wants to be, Kindle when it chooses." He's right. The same principle applies to many aspects of modern life: we want to connext to Facebook on different devices; we want to check our diary in the same way; we're increasingly looking to shop online and on the high street, on a mobile and a PC. Companies need to change the way they offer services to customers in this ever-flexible world.

The bigger question is whether the Guardian's iPad app move will revive the Guardian's finances. The group has faced a couple of torrid years, as print sales and ad revenues fall, and the GMG invests heavily in digital. The iPad app will cost £9.99 a month, while web access will remain free, unlike at News International's titles. Will the Grauniad follow NI's example? If it doesn't, it's hard to see how the losses will be reduced significantly. A growing number of readers don't buy the print edition, and won't pay for an app while they can get all the web content for free. Yet I share the view of a few commenters on Rusbridger's blogpost: I want to contribute to the Guardian's quality journalism, and like the idea of the app. Time will tell if enough of us cough up. 

Below: photos come to life on the Guardian app

 

In praise of Steve Jobs

Apple marks Steve's passing on its UK website, seen on the iPad, his last great creation

The world today mourned the death of Steve Jobs, the mercurial genius who revolutionised the music, mobile phone and computer industries with products that are a delight to use.

Steve's death was not a total surprise: he resigned as Apple's chief executive in August during his latest period of medical leave. But it was still a shock. Many still expected him to take part in Tuesday's launch of the latest iPhone 4S. Little did we realise his time was almost over.

Steve's story since he returned to Apple 15 years ago is the stuff of legend. Apple was in crisis. Many were writing the company off. But Jobs had a vision. Apple should focus on what it was good at. Only Apple would make Macs - ending the days of getting a cheaper 'cloned' Mac from another company. Great design would win back the fans - and new converts.

In time, Steve's vision reaped unimaginable dividends. The original, colourful iMacs created a stir. The iPod and later the iTunes store transformed the music industry, making Apple the world's biggest music retailer and stealing Sony's position as the master of music on the go. (Walkman RIP.) The iPhone made smartphones mainstream, and put the internet into our pockets. And the iPad proved the tablet computer had a future after ten years of failure by other tech brands, notably Microsoft. 

Steve's greatest strength was his ability to see things from the user's point of view. In an industry renowned for making complicated products that need huge instruction manuals, Apple under Steve took a different approach. My experience is typical. Back in 2008, I tried to find my way round London with a BlackBerry and a Sony Ericsson phone. I couldn't work out how to get a map on either device, and was forced to looked up an A to Z map in a shop. Days later, on my first iPhone, I was just one touch away from my location and destination on the map app. In the same way, the iPad got me to the BBC home page in seconds, compared with five minutes on my Windows laptop, as I explained on this blog: Greased lightning: why I love my iPad. 

Steve wasn't perfect. (Few people are.) By most accounts, he was very difficult to work for, with his punishing drive for perfection. I'd normally condemn such macho leadership, but I can't dispute the extraordinarily postive legacy Steve has left. And Leander Kahney, in his book Inside Steve's Brain, disputes the legend of Apple staff being 'Steved'. He quotes Jobs' former personal assistant Jim Oliver who says his old boss's outbursts were exaggerated by critics.

Critics say that Apple under Steve simply took advantage of other companies' innovations. They argue that Apple didn't invent the MP3 player, the smartphone or the tablet. True, but this misses the point. Jobs saw how all these things could be so much better - better to look at, to touch and to use. Anyone who endured a pocket PC powered by Windows Mobile circa 2001 or 2006 couldn't fail to see the Steve effect when they used the Apple equivalent in the iPhone and the iPad. Not everything Apple did under Steve was as good: I tried Mobile Me three times, and found it an abomination each time. (As Steve acknowledged when announcing iCloud in June.) But I'll forgive it one big #fail...

The other main accusation is that Apple is a 'walled garden' - with the accusers comparing the company's restrictive approach with the open approach of Google's Android mobile operating system. The accusation is accurate, but misses the point. Apple products generally 'just work'. Apple designs the hardware and operating system and approves the apps. Most users don't care that they can't tweek everything. It reminds me of a clash between the car and tech worlds circa 1998. A PC company was contrasting the revolutionary progress of the tech world compared with the car industry's snail-paced developments. An auto executive pointed out that if his industry was like the PC market, customers would be forced to reinstall the engine after popping a CD in the stereo. In short, most people want things to 'just work'. And that's Steve Job's greatest legacy: things just work. And are a joy to use.  

Rest in peace Steve. And thanks for everything.

 

 

In praise of Brindley House nursery, Beaconsfield

Today was a sad day. Our three year old son Owen spent his last day at his first nursery, Brindley House Childcare Centre, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. He's been going there since he was 11 months old. Owen starts at his school nursery in September.

We first heard about Brindley House when Karen was pregnant. A visit before the centre opened confirmed that this was the place for Owen. We've never regretted the choice. The care has been fantastic, especially in the early days when Owen was getting used to being looked after by someone other than his parents. Brindley House has reinforced our emphasis on good manners - so we were delighted when Owen said thank you to his carers today after yesterday's Gruffalo party! The party was a good example of the activities the centre runs. It also organises a very impressive Christmas concert at Beaconsfield's Curzon centre. 

Brindley House founder Sarah Fahey opened a second Beaconsfield childcare centre last year after the success of Brindley House. We've always been impressed by Sarah's professional and caring attitude, and haven't been surprised at how popular both centres have become. Parents want the best for their children, and that's exactly what Owen has enjoyed at Brindley House. 

We’ll always remember Brindley House with affection and gratitude. 

PS: just one less happy note. We've only today received the cheque returning the deposit we paid when Owen joined Brindley House - eight weeks and three chasing phone calls after Owen left. 

RAF Lyneham's Hercules farewell

Above: farewell to RAF Lyneham from the iconic Hercules. Photo: Siân Wildeboer

The skies above Wiltshire lost an icon on Friday with the departure of RAF Lyneham's famous Hercules aircraft. The huge transport aircraft have been transferred to RAF Brize Norton, ahead of Lyneham's closure. The above shot, taken by my niece Siân during Friday's flypast, captures perfectly the 45 year relationship between Wiltshire and the Herc. 

Lyneham has played an important role in Britain's defences, especially in times of crisis. I remember the constant Hercules flights over Wootton Bassett during the Falklands war, and the base has played a similar role in later conflicts. When I lived in Wiltshire in the 1990s, the sight of a Herc on final approach added interest to many long waits on Swindon station. There was always something special about the aircraft - an echo of Britain's earlier four-engine propellor 'heavies'. Back in the 1970s, I enjoyed making the Airfix kit of the Herc, complete with Land Rover cargo and moving loading ramp!  

Winston Churchill himself flew from RAF Lyneham during the war in 1943, in an unheated converted Liberator bomber, bound for Cairo and Moscow in 1943. When he returned to Lyneham, his train was waiting at Dauntsey to take him back to London. His staff had arranged for the PM to be served breakfast on train, but this was hurriedly changed to dinner after WSC's flight from Gibraltar left much earlier than expected!

 

 

In praise of the A303, England's holiday highway

Above: far better than a service station: Crown & Victoria, Tintinhull, Somerset

We had a magical drive home from our Devon holiday on Saturday afternoon. The traffic had vanished by the time we set off from the beach at Blackpool Sands near Dartmouth. The sun was out, highlighting the under-stated beauty of Southern England.

We took the A303, which is normally a slow road, with its mixture of dual carriageway and twisting, hilly single carriageway sections. The lack of traffic made it a wonderful choice, as its quirky character made a great change from the M5 and M4. Best of all, we were able to admire the sublime majesty of Stonehenge without the usual long queues.

We stopped for a drink at one of our favourite pubs, the Crown & Victoria in Tintinhull, a Somerset village just off the highway. It was a glorious evening and Owen enjoyed his picnic in the garden. (We were too early for the pub's food service.) It set us up for an equally enjoyable final leg of the drive - and even the M25 behaved itself.

Start of the Pier show: Penarth wins lottery money

Snow on Penarth pier pavilion, 23 December 2010. Photo: Bob Skinner

It's lovely waking up at Mum & Dad's home on Penarth's seafront and looking out the Bristol Channel past the town's pier. The view wil be even better soon, as the Heritage Lottery Fund has just awarded £1.65m to Penarth Arts & Crafts' plans to restore the distinctive art deco pavilion at the pier entrance. Fittingly, I heard the news after we got back from a weekend in Penarth.

Penarth is a small town in the shadow of the Welsh capital, Cardiff. It was once a significant port, but is now best known for its short seafront and pier. Penarth has featured in countless family memories - ice cream on the pier and trips on P&A Campbell's steamers to Weston and Ilfracombe. 

The winners of Penarth's lottery funding, Penarth Arts & Crafts, are based in the excellent Washington Gallery, which hosted the launch of my father Bob Skinner's autobiographical book on 60 years in journalism and PR, Don't hold the front page. 

Penarth has a special place in our family. Mum was born here in 1928, and both parents started their journalism careers on the Penarth Times in the 1940s. (Mum took Dad's job as chief reporter when he joined the army in 1944!) Now Owen is the latest member of the family to discover the town's charms. It will be even better when the iconic pavilion is open again. 

The pier and pavilion, November 2010

Winter sunrise: 28 December 2004

Penarth Pier, February 2008

 

 

Obama in Britain: let's stop talking of special relationship

An essential relationship? Photo © Prime Minister's Office

President Barack Obama's visit to Britain has been a huge success. We like America's 44th president. We're touched by his place in history as the first black president. And we cheered his election, as I blogged at the time. So the fact Obama has stolen hearts is no surprise. 

But I was dreadling the visit, in a small way, as I knew it would prompt a wave of comments about whether Britain and America shared a 'special relationship'. This is an obsession of politicians and the media. Yet no one in the bars of London, Cardiff or Edinburgh would give it a moment's thought. If they did, they'd surely point out that the UK and US have lots of relationships with lots of countries. And then get back to talking about Ryan Giggs.

Yet The Times carried an Obama and Cameron article lauding the essential relationship. 

It's true that Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt forged a very close relationship during our darkest days, the second world war. But the war leaders weren't in total harmony: FDR was soon tormented by WSC's wilder ideas, and Churchill was rightly frustrated and frightened by FDR's complacency about Soviet designs on eastern Europe. 

And all this talk of a special relationship encourages the two countries' addiction to military adventures, as the Guardian's Simon Jenkins comments today. At a time when the BBC's World Service (not to mention all our public services) has had its spending slashed, David Cameron miraculously found £1 billion to burn on a war in Libya that has absolutely nothing to do with Britain. Yet a BBC reporter said in all seriousness that America thinks Britain should spend more on 'defence'. 

Britain admires America and its president. But neither country has any reason to spin an idea of a mythical special relationship.

 

A strange revolution: Ryan Giggs, the celebrity, Twitter and the law

It's a crying shame that Britain's clash over the respective rights of privacy and freedom of speech focuses on a footballer's affair. It's hard to imagine a cause less likely to justify a public interest case - as opposed to the interest of tabloid papers. As the Guardian's Michael White put it, it's not exactly Tahrir Square, the centre of Egypt's revolt against tyranny. 

Yet it was obvious days ago that Ryan Giggs' injunction preventing him from being named was a futile exercise. Twitter users knew what newspaper readers weren't allowed to. Yesterday, a Scottish newspaper became the first to name Giggs - and this afternoon Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming relied on the protection of parliamentary privilege to follow suit. Within minutes, Sky News and other major news outlets decided to ignore the legal order. Despite this, Tugendhat J this evening became the second judge today to reject News Group's attempt to lift the injunction. The legal establishment is understandably reluctant to abandon the rule of law to what has been described as Britain's biggest act of civil disobedience. Yet the longer this goes on, the less respect the law will enjoy.

The biggest lesson in this saga is that a cover up often ends up creating a bigger story. Anyone wanting to minimise bad headlines should think very seriously before going to law to try to stop it. Ryan Giggs isn't the first person to find that managing the story might have been a far better tactic. 

But we should also pause before accepting that a Twitter storm is somehow more legitimate than a reasoned legal judgment. Alastair Campbell made the point well in an interview on BBC Radio 5's Drive show.  The media, he suggested, were relying on a 'useful idiot' like John Hemming MP breaking cover so they could name Giggs. He added that something that interests the public isn't the same thing as the public interest. News Group itself struggled to claim a public interest in naming Giggs. 

The prime minister weighed in again today, arguing that Britain's privacy rules were unsustainable. But he repeated his concern about judge-made law, rather than legislation passed by parliament. This is facile. Much of our law is case law - an act of parliament is never the final word. It's the job of judges to interpret the law and - in the higher courts - establish precedent. If parliament doesn't like the results it can legislate to change them, but parliament has a far from unblemished record - as anyone who remembers the Dangerous Dogs Act of the 1980s will recognise. That was a classic example of the adage that hard cases make bad law. 

The greatest irony is that Britain had no general right to privacy until the 1998 Human Rights Act incorporated the European Convention of Human Rights into UK law.  How curious that this new right should almost immediately be eroded by the explosive growth of social media and the new power of the crowd.