I travelled up to London on Sunday night to meet the guys from the RUGroom project at City College Norwich in preparation for Professor Stephen Heppell’s ‘Be Very Afraid’ on Monday.

The students from RUGroom were showing off their creativity in the form of GeoArt!  

Here is some GeoArt one of the groups made while at the event!:

Wow!  What an event!  I’ve written about it on our digital creativity website!  To read what I wrote, click this link….

With our work at BAFTA with GeoArt yesterday this all fits very nicely.

The last two days in Salford have been great. Cleveratom have been
tasked as project managers for the BBC Blast Truck redesign. Hal and I
have enjoyed working with the team to find out what works, needs
improvement and we are now working to redesign the truck and its
associated spaces to fit with learning needs. Youth panel next!

Great fun.

This evening I clicked the link to unsubscribe and was bemused to read
that a further email would be sent to confirm that I had been
unsubscribed when a simple message on the page telling me I'd been
removed is all that was needed.

Here is some free business ideas and advice to both Ryanair and Easyjet.

Ryanair have announced that it will soon be possible to make mobile
telephone calls in flight, Ryanair making money by providing the
connection. Ryanair have finally seen the opportunity to tap into
having a plane full of customers to sell other products and services
(other than tea and Pringles) to on the flight so the could....

Put in screens on seat headrests with access to 30 minute tv shows for
a small fee per show.

Offer on the screens access to the Argos catalogue (and other stores)
so people can order goods while in flight (Ryanair get a cut of the
sale).

Offer me a free flight paid for by advertisers putting targeted
interactive adverts on the screen in front of me.

And finally ... Make it possible for a passenger to book a hotel and
travel while in flight (and take a cut of that transaction). ... TV
screens in headrests don't have to be only about delivering
entertainment.

Why are o2 allowing these messages (which I assume are sent in volume
to lots of their customers) to get through, let me guess, they make
money out of them too even though they cause frustration (and for
some, financial missery) for their customers.

I'm sick of an increased amount of text message spam and spam phone
calls to my mobile.

I find it amazing that National Express have chosen to promote their new dot2dot shuttle bus service (in their in train magazine) by having a pop at the overcrowded London tube.

I find the overcrowded mainline trains run by National Express could really do with more carriages (see pictures) before they start pointing an ‘overcrowding’ finger at another operator to which they plan to compete with.

I really dislike National Express, does it show?

Chelmsford Borough Council: Victor says put all your staff up in the Boreham ‘Premier Inn’ hotel on a Sunday night. Get all staff to drive as far as Tesco Springfield Road at 8:30am on the Monday morning from the hotel, taking notes along the way.

Since 1997 (the past eleven years) I’ve had to ‘rush hour commute’ from Witham to Chelmsford in order to get to University (1997 - 2000), first job (2000 - 2006) my own company (2007- now).

Because of the nature of my business I have to drive, and need a car available during my day in order to get to clients, schools, etc… I also car share with my fiancée (Justina) who also works in Chelmsford, driving is the most cost effective way to get to work.

We start our journey from close to point ‘A’ and get to point ‘B’ usually very easily (usually no more than 15 minutes).  Its getting from point ‘B’ (the end of Springfield Road in Chelmsford) to point ‘C’ (my office car park) where it all goes horribly wrong, and has done for the past eleven years (except when schools are on holiday!)

When we hit the end of Springfield Road (see the red x below) it can take up to (and over) half an hour to drive half a mile to ‘B’ where I work and Justina walks to ‘A’.

Springfield Road is one of the main roads into the town, a narrow road which can longer cope with the volume of vehicles using it. Traffic joins the road from side streets, busy junctions (with traffic lights) and is slowed further by stupidity, such as a refuge collection lorry picking up bins during rush hour.

I’ve been timing the route from the X point using the stopwatch feature on my phone.  Here is the 32 minute  nightmare journey time getting from ‘X’ to ‘B’ today…

I put it to Chelmsford Borough Council that they need to do something to improve access to Chelmsford for people coming from the Colchester bound direction of the A12, it is quite simply a joke.

I’m not sure how things have improved in the past eleven years for people coming from the London bound direction but I’ve noticed how increased traffic volume has just made things get worse and worse in the past few years.

Something needs to be done.

Have you tried Chelmsford Park & Ride?

• No. It costs £4.40 per day for two of us (£2.20 each) to use, and parking is already free at my office.
• I need a car to hand for use during the day for the nature of my business, I don’t want to have to catch a bus to get to it.
• Chelmsford Park & Ride is too far out of town, and requires passing Chelmsford in order to get to it.
• I hear frequent complaints that Park & Ride is infrequent and overcrowded, I often see the black bus with lots of people standing and swaying about.
• The time taken to get to ‘Park & Ride’, park, get a bus, transit, walk to office would probably be almost the same as the time sat waiting in traffic on Springfield Road to park in a space right outside the place of work, and would cost £4.40 more than by going by car for the whole journey.

Why don’t Justina and yourself take the train each day?

• The day rate for the nine minute return train journey (Witham - Chelmsford - Witham) is £5.80 per person per day, so for us that would be £11.60 a day (£58 a week, £232 a month) and we currently spend £30 in fuel per week (£120 per month).  An equivalent nine mile journey on the (reliable) Spanish rail system would cost £1.45 compared to £5.80 in this country.

But you don’t need to pay a day rate you could get a rail season ticket for less!

• We don’t always work in Chelmsford. Next week I’m working in Chelmsford, Cardiff, Norwich, London and Colchester, Justina is working in London and Southampton. Buying a ’season ticket’ would be a waste of money as we would be ‘paying not to use it’. We need a form of transport that is reliable, cost effective and can be used to meet variations of destinations without being locked to one location to save money.
• I need a car sitting in my office carpark to shoot off to clients, schools, etc.  Justina uses the same car to shoot off to other branches of her company that need her support at short notice.
• In 2006 I tried commuting for a whole year and found ‘National Express’ to be unreliable, its no wonder that sites such as http://ihatenationalexpresseastanglia.blogspot.com exist.

Suggestions:

• National Express East Anglia Rail:  Don’t sell season tickets, sell journeys. Season Tickets only work for commuters who do the same journey every day at the same time.  If National Express sold me 100 discount Witham - Chelmsford - Witham journeys for say an upfront ‘£400′ I’d buy into that and use the train on days where I’m 100% certain I’ll be in the office all day, or Justina needs the car to go somewhere else.  Once the 100 tickets are used up I buy more.  Pay-as-you-go-trains!
• Chelmsford Park & Ride: Put a Park & Ride near the Boreham exit of the A12.  Charge ‘per car’ rather than ‘per person’.
• Chelmsford Borough Council: Like Victor suggested earlier… Put all your staff up in the Boreham ‘Premier Inn’ hotel on a Sunday night. Get all staff to drive to Tesco Springfield Road at 8:30am on the Monday morning from the hotel… Get them to take notes!

UPDATE!

At 8:15am (till 9am) on Tuesday 16 October 2008 Ray Clark, presenter of the BBC Essex Breakfast Show reported on Justina and my journey to Chelmsford from Witham after reading this blog post.

Thanks to Hal MacLean for this recording of the show:

 Matthew Eaves on the BBC Essex Radio Breakfast Show with Ray Clark : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I was just about to buy an item from dabs.com but am put off by a
review by a previous customer review of the item published on the
dabs.com product page.

Honesty of a previous customer has informed me of a poor levels if
customer service I might have to experience if my product goes wrong.

What amazes me is that dabs.com have obviously not vetted this post
(with a resolution for the customer included in that process) and have
now scared me off to amazon.co.uk to spend my money.