Another early start avoids delays

Another business trip for my wife tonight, which means we have to swap shifts so I do the toddler pick-up instead of the drop-off.  Also that I'll be working from home tomorrow.  The upshot of that is, again, that I have experienced no delays this morning.  Read my soon-to-be-Nobel-prize-winning theory on why this is here.

Last night's journey home came complete with a little delay - a minute on the Bakerloo Line and another three on the connecting train to Hampton Court (three in total to my final destination), adding another £7.50 to the pot.
Other than that, very little news of note (that I could uncover at any rate) on all things TfL since last week, other than this little nugget from the BBC.  London's 'living wage' has increased 25p from £8.33 to £8.55 per hour (let's ignore, for the moment, the BBC's maths, which does not add up at the time of writing, and the fact the living wage is stupid since it's entirely voluntary for businesses).  TfL's cleaning staff, however, are paid national minimum wage, a more paltry £6.19 per hour.  I don't for a moment claim that tube stations are clean enough to eat your dinner on - or at certain stations and times of day, clean enough to want to pass through - but in my experience, the cleanliness of the tubes is usually about the only thing about them that isn't terrible.  Maybe cutting the rest of TfL staff salaries down to minimum wage is the answer to making them work harder/at all.  After all, if they can't be in it for the money, maybe all that's left will be pride in a job well done.  Yeah, right.

Finally, and on a completely unrelated note (an F-sharp), results of the US election start rolling in tonight, something I always like to monitor as closely as the time difference allows.  So, Americans reading this blog, will you opt for another four years of uninspired leadership under Obama, or the even more worrisome gun-loving, serf-crushing, abortion-denying, women-and-minority-hating, planet-destroying, oil-guzzling religious lunatic* that anyone with half a brain knows Romney patently is.  And I only say that because I like him so much.  I don't envy you your choice.

While we're on the subject, can someone please explain to me why it is that every election seems to be described as neck-and-neck, when results often show this is far from the case?  Granted, some have actually turned out close in recent memory, but everyone was calling Obama-McCain close until the final minute and in the end it was fucking landslide for Obama.  Something to do with all-or-nothing electoral college votes, no doubt.  Seems to me it would be far fairer to split them proportionally, but there you go.  No one asked me.  That bit of inspired political advice was a freebie: Signal Failure for Prez 2016!


* I say religious lunatic not because he is a mormon, but because he is religious - and proudly, avowedly so - at all.  Religion being the last socially acceptable form of severe mental disorder I can think of.  If you are offended by this sentiment, I really don't give a flying fuck.  You might be worthy of respect as an individual, your puerile superstitions are not.  And if you associate yourself so strongly with mumbo-jumbo that you have a crisis of identity any time your beliefs are questioned, then you're unworthy of respect too.