Tag Archives: London

What’s Ken’s equivalent of the Congestion Charge this time?

Ken Livingstone’s first term as Mayor of London is intrinsically associated with the Congestion Charge. An unpopular idea at the start it is now impossible to imagine London without it. The quid pro quo for it was the investment in London’s buses, now almost without exception modern and disabled-accessible. The plan was visionary, bold, determined and – viewed over the medium term – right.

Fast forward to 2012 and Ken’s re-election bid next year and what has he got? The problem this time is that Ken does not look like the radical outsider he did in 2000. This time he is the institutional one, against Boris the buffoon who many still love despite his policy inadequacies. While Ken may struggle in the character stakes, he could partially make up for it with eye-catching policies… but what could those be?

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A visit to Berlin tinged with sadness – am I just doing everything wrong? Or everything by halves?

It’s 12:22 on Saturday 24th September 2011 and I’m sat in a friend’s flat in Berlin. At about this time 10 years ago I first set foot in this city, the start of a remarkable journey through European politics, work and further studies that has been a brilliant rollercoaster ride in many ways.

But did I do it all wrong? And am I still doing it all wrong?

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How to follow a breaking news event on social media

For good or bad we’ve had a glut of gripping stories this summer, those sit-glued-to-the-TV moments where everyone wants to know what’s going on. For me the Oslo / Utøya attacks, the London riots, and the rebel advance on Tripoli have been three such events.

Only now there is a complement to the TV – social media, and especially Twitter. Yet that has of course not stopped a whole host of nay-sayers bemoaning the role of social media.

Here then is a practical guide to following a breaking news story via social media, and what to watch out for.

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How to consistently get London-Brussels or Brussels-London Eurostar tickets for €49 single

I’m a regular traveller on Eurostar, and I often travel onwards from Brussels to Germany by train, so much in fact that I am used to booking tickets of DB’s website. In the past I happened to discover that through tickets from Germany to London were cheaper than tickets booked from Belgium to London. It seems DB is muscling in on the Eurostar business before liberalisation of the channel tunnel is due in 2013.

Here then is a guide to how to get the cheapest Eurostar tickets on the London-Brussels route, using DB’s website rather than Eurostar.com. The standard price is €49.00 single, sometimes a saving of 50%. Continue reading →

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Google judging the Icelandic economy? Embassy represented by a shopping trolley

The usual symbol for an embassy on Google Maps is a flag, yet the Embassy of Iceland to the UK is represented by… a shopping trolley. You can see the contrast in the screenshot to the right, and see it on Google Maps here.

Is Google passing a judgement on the Icelandic economy, that the country and its embassy are up for sale?

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Lorries and cycle safety

A friend has mailed me a link to the ‘See Me, Save Me‘ campaign, run by the mother of a cyclist killed by a lorry turning. That campaign wants to pass a written declaration in the European Parliament, making it the position of the European Parliament that sensors and cameras must be installed on lorries. A written declaration is a long way from becoming EU-wide law (that would need a legislative draft from the European Commission) but the campaign is interesting.

It’s not too dissimilar from the ‘No More Lethal Lorries‘ campaign by LCC. Here the emphasis is different, with a 5-point plan: Cyclist-awareness training for drivers, Drivers must take more responsibility, Safer design for London lorries, Higher standards from lorry operators and More responsible procurement. I prefer their multi-faceted approach, but determining if these points are achievable is rather more complex, and how apply this to London only, when so much European law is involved in all of this?

I think there is also a lot of progress to be made on road and cycle lane design to help deal with this issue, a matter raised numerous times in the excellent ‘Traffic‘ by Tom Vanderbilt. Cycle lanes are often too narrow to allow safe passage along the inside of trucks waiting at traffic lights, and when cycle lanes are in place they often make lanes for traffic very narrow – that’s very much the problem with the Cycle Superhighway 2 currently in development though my part of London.

Anyway, in conclusion: I’m not going to mail my MEPs about the See Me, Save Me campaign, but I have finally got around to joining London Cycling Campaign. You can sign up here.

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London’s multitude of events means I go nowhere

In Brussels it’s reasonably easy. There I was (and indeed still am) the EU politics blogger nerd. So if there are events and conferences to attend I go to ones about EU politics on the web first and foremost. Then I will go to ones about institutional reform or centre left politics. It’s all quite simple.

But not so in London. What is my role in this city? It’s a bit hard to define, and the events here demonstrate that.

I attended and ran a session at Netroots UK, but the session was on fundraising and not about blogging or networking or party politics. I couldn’t attend the Fabians’ New Year conference but suppose I would have pottered along and have been generally underwhelmed. The RSA today ran an event with Evgeny Morozov about Wikileaks and I hadn’t even realised it was happening…


This weekend is ukgovcamp but I am not public sector enough for that, so will not be there, even though I know most of the organisers. Policy Network are running an event entitled “What future for Europe?” – worth going to that as it’s one of the few big EU events in London? But I wouldn’t have gone to something like that when I lived in Brussels, it’s too general. The Fabians have something similar a week later. I’m a leftish blogger and Fabian member, but their event doesn’t even have a programme yet… I will for sure be at eCampaigning Forum in Oxford in March, primarily an event for NGO campaign folks, even though I have done rather little work in that sector since the Atheist Buses. Further into the future I’ll probably be at PdF in NYC in June and the World Humanist Congress in Oslo in August.

What a mess!

More worryingly all of this sums up my general confusion being in London. What am I here? Am I a web nerd? A web comms trainer? An EU training person? How much am I about intellectual stuff, how much about practical training? Am I better off working with the public sector, with political parties, with non-partisan campaigns, or with NGOs? How much EU stuff should I do? How much UK stuff? How much blogging? How much party politics, either offline or online? At the moment I’m trying to do all of that, working silly hours, and have a rubbish bank balance. Something isn’t right.

Ideas how to fix it?

Photo: E01 “London Bus”
February 8, 2008 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution
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Köln-London €66.50, or Bruxelles-London £121, booking today on exactly the same trains – odd, no?


Above are screenshots taken within the last twenty minutes (i.e. between 0900 and 1000 on 18th November). The first is for prices for a ticket between Bruxelles Midi and London St Pancras, second class, non-flexible, for the morning of Saturday 4th December. The second is from the ticket I booked – Köln Hbf through to London, changing in Bruxelles Midi onto the very same Eurostar on the same day. DB prices are from their website, and Eurostar prices are from Eurostar.com. All this follows the complications of the outward journey that I’ve blogged about here.

The shocking thing is the price.

Köln-London is €66.50* and Bruxelles-London is £121 (€142.38). Even if the Eurostar ticket were part of a return journey it would still be £86.50 (€101.79). The inflexible through ticket from Köln is less than half the price, AND includes the extra journey from Köln to Bruxelles!

So if I want to book cheap single tickets from Bruxelles to London, should I at the same time consult DB to see if their options are cheaper, and simply disgard the Bruxelles-Köln part? Will that even work, as the barcode on the DB ticket is different to a regular Eurostar barcode? Whichever way something is very odd here, and I’ll report further once I’ve taken this trip in December.

* This price contains a BahnCard 25 reduction. Without BahnCard the price is €69.00 – i.e. BahnCard reduction seems to not apply to Eurostar.

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