Interesting Links for 04-10-2012

[andrewducker]

• The EU moves to open up the single market further.
  (tags: europe eu competition business )
• What the Department of Transport got wrong when choosing First over Virgin for the West Coast Line.
  (tags: uk transport trains government EpicFail )
• How progressive is the new tuition fees system?
  (tags: uk academia fees )
• 20 Spectacularly Nerdy

Comments

What the Department of Transport got wrong when choosing First over Virgin for the West Coast Line

[cartesiandaemon]

I admit I predicted this completely wrongly. I assumed Virgin's objections were just standard sour grapes, but it seems they were actually right, and regardless of whether Virgin are a good thing, they apparently really are better than their competitors.

[momentsmusicaux]

That's not funny at all -- the writer got fired for a fuck-up that was someone else's fault! (Well ok it's funny up to that point.)

[cartesiandaemon]

All of the trenches stories seem a bit like that to me. I imagine if you actually work in that kind of situation there's a lot, lot of grim humour about the fuck-ups. But the humour usually feels a bit tacked on to me, I mostly just get depressed that so many companies assume that if there's any possible doubt, it's better to err on the side of treating people like shit.

[danieldwilliam]

I’m pretty dismayed by the whole Jimmy Savile thing

[a_pawson]

Many years ago I read his autobiography, so it wasn't much of a surprise to me. He didn't hide it, he even wrote about it. There's actually an article in today's Daily Record about it, one of their journalists dug up a copy of the book and has written about it.

The world was a different place then, and many things were accepted by society in a way that (fortunately) they are not nowadays. From what I have read, even when people informed the police they took no action because he was basically a rock star shagging (vulnerable and under-age) groupies and this was 1970 when that sort of thing was ignored by the authorities.

[danieldwilliam]

Aye - lot’s of people don’t appear to be surprised from those who walked in on him in flagranti delicto or whom he told face to face to those who read his autobiographery and thought, hang on a minute, did he just say what I thought he said.

[brixtonbrood]

Remember, Bill Wyman had sex with a fourteen year old with pretty much the entire world looking on and her mother cheering him on from the sidelines. Never faced any consequences whatsoever.

[soon_lee]

Re: Nerdy Science jokes.

I had to look up the Batman one, then wished I hadn't. Oh, for a time machine.

[andrewducker]

Now, of course, you must share the pain!