In genetics, “Mitochondrial Eve” is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor of living humans. She’s not the “first” or “oldest” female. Obviously she had ancestors and contemporaries. And her contemporaries had descendants, and her contemporar…
Catching up with podcasts, the diabetes genetics and cell biology expert Frances Ashcroft, director of Oxford’s Centre for Gene Function, explains on The Life Scientific half of the reason why I mostly blog about transport and towns instead of gen…
I forgot to file away this bit from Ian Kennedy’s 1980 Reith Lecture. Again, nothing that isn’t basic public health stuff, I just liked the way he put it. It seems like a good moment to mention that Ian Roberts is booked in for September’s Street …
from Ian Kennedy’s 1980 Reith Lecture, just rolling past on random play. This is nothing exciting — totally basic public health stuff, the same thing Goldacre was saying about “the deserving poor” — I’m just saving the quote for potential refere…
Joe Moran in On Roads has a chapter on road rules and road rage — specifically, the peculiar British approach to them — entitled “please don’t be rude on the road”.On Lord Cottenham in 1928: Cottenham believed that most motorists, cyclists and p…
random playing through a massive podcast backlog, I got this from David Aaronovitch on Little Atoms, presumably the episode from March 2007. Last year, in the borough that I live in, Camden, which was a well run borough, not– you know– council m…
Here’s a thing I wrote in July 2009, back when British alternative medicine was simultaneously trying to silence critics in court and complaining that there was a powerful conspiracy against it. It disappeared in blog reorganisations and possibly was just about amusing enough to deserve saving… So I was rummaging […]
Just making a note of “Mayor Culpa”, p38 of Private Eye 1300 (28 October 2011), for future reference. Thank Free OCR for the typos. BORIS JOHNSON ls forever on his bike posing as a modern environmentally conscious man. But when it comes to stoppin…
Another note from Tolley in Docherty and Shaw, discussing the failure of the National Cycling Strategy — which was left to be implemented by local authorities — to deliver the national targets for growth in cycling: More optimistic — and realis…
…that I discussed in the origins of shared use post.Rodney Tolley’s chapter on walking and cycling in Docherty and Shaw’s Traffic Jam: ten years of “sustainable” transport in the UK (Policy Press, 2008): Under the Thatcher administrations from 1…
Cycle Tracks Bill debate, 30 March 1984: Mrs Lynda Chalker (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Transport; Wallasey)In our safety publicity and in our work with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents we continue to stress the need for contin…
proper blog post tomorrow. Transport questions, 1 Nov 2010. Ian Austin (Dudley North, Labour)To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Bikeability cycle training scheme.Norman Baker (Parlia…
John Griffin of pantomime bad guy fame says: A few years ago, almost every school child did a cycling proficiency test, which involved negotiating their way around bollards and learning the Highway Code. What has happened to that, and why is it no…
Hansard, 28 Feb 1994. Mr Robert Key (Salisbury)I shall shortly announce a new Government cycling policy. I am not sure that we have ever had one, but it is high time that we did.The announcement was presumably of the policy that led to the Nationa…
For a blog post, coming soon. Hansard, 17 Feb 1993. Mr Andrew Robathan (Blaby)There has been an encouraging increase in the sale of mountain bikes, but sadly there has been no marked increase in cycling???indeed; there is anecdotal evidence of cycli…
Hansard, 9 May 2006. Note the claim that off-road routes are not being taken into account in the statistics. I will have to look into that. Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith, Labour) I am aware that the figure for Britain may be a little …
from a parish plan for a nearby small rural village divided by a primary route. It seems that guardrail, though less requested than speed cameras and a crossing, is surprisingly popular with residents… 9. Roadside BarriersRequested by 28% of res…
Phil Goodwin says: So let us do a role-playing game. Suppose you are the investment manager for XYZ Pension Fund, considering whether to invest in the M999 bridge and motorway widening programme, vitally necessary, you are told, because it is alre…
LTN 1/89, “Making way for cyclists”:LTN 2/08, “Cycle Infrastructure Design”:As a result of concerns over the safety of parallel cycle tracks crossing side roads, it is becoming common European practice to reintroduce cyclists to the main road in a…
LTN 1/89, “Making way for cyclists”:imgimgimgimg
Followup to the introduction of shared use at the start of the 1980s, guidance from the mid ’80s in LTN 2/86, “Shared use by cyclists and pedestrians” (PDF) — their original emphasis: 2.1 Allowing cyclists even limited use of facilities previousl…
Earl Howe, now Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health, points out that you need to have an organisation like Cycling England to hold local authorities properly to account — the exact conclusion of the DfT review of the…
These have to be read in the context of the introduction of the first dual carriageway roads. Amazingly, in 75 years, some folk still haven’t noticed that the context has moved on a bit…29 April 1937: Mr William Craven-Ellis (Southampton)asked t…
The Guardian, “75 years after the UK’s first cycle lane opened, the same debates rage on”. BalbKubrox14 December 2009 10:52AM@felixcat:I suspect that the cycle track in the original report is similar to the ones beside the Liverpool- Preston road,…
Hmmm. Transport questions, 22 Dec 1954. Viscount Hinchingbrooke (South Dorset)asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he is aware of the waste of land and money involved in the provision of cycle tracks as well as footpaths on e…