I was cycling in the Cycle/Bus Lane, minding my own business. Ahead of me there was another bus pulled in to a bus stop, just before the lane ends, and there were cars queuing up in the road ahead. Despite this, this particular driver of the X5 Stagecoach bus felt it necessary to rev his engine, honk his horn, gesticulate wildly out the window, and shout abuse at me – for being in the cycle lane. He displayed a lack of knowledge of the simple road signs (the ones that indicate shared bike/bus use of a lane), and an inability to read the road conditions ahead (he wasn’t able to drive further ahead even if he had been able to pass me), quite apart from obviously not concentrating on the matter at hand, ie. driving the bus safely.

/rant

Here endeth the rant.

Why we must stop shopping in Tesco

from Simon Hoggart’s week, The Guardian, Saturday February 25, 2006

It’s heartening to see the wave of antipathy billowing out towards Tesco. And it’s producing results too. Near where my parents live in Norwich, a persistent local campaign has stopped Tesco getting permission for a store that would wipe out a street of local shops, including two terrific butchers, a greengrocer, a fishmonger, an old-fashioned pharmacist who delivers, and two fine bakeries. Money spent with local people goes back into the community, to the plumbers, hairdressers, solicitors and dentists, whereas money given to Tesco winds up hundreds of miles away in Tescoland, wherever that is.

Oh, and we also hate the so-called “Tesco’s Finest”, which seems to translate as “Tesco’s More Or Less Adequate”. But Tesco will be back. They always are. Do they never have a board meeting at which someone says: “Look guys, we’re all making a fortune. We don’t need any more money. Why don’t we just stop expanding?” Of course not. It isn’t in the nature of the beast. Which is why all these anti-Tesco websites (Tescopoly, Every Little Hurts, etc) are springing up.

Where we live there’s a new, smallish Tesco store and we all complain like mad about the way their vast delivery trucks clog up narrow streets when we’re trying to get to work, or people are collecting their kids from school. What are we going to do? Clamp them? Enforce a citizen’s arrest on the driver? But there is an answer. We have to stop going there.

In spite of all the strong local feeling, our Tesco has long queues. Why? Given that the lorries are so vast, why do they never deliver anything we want? Why are there yards of fizzy drinks and nasty snacks, and little you’d actually want to put in your stomach?

If we truly hate Tesco we have to plan our shopping so we get to the small butcher and the greengrocer and the baker while they’re open. And if Tesco is the only choice, we have to do without for the time being. Not selling stuff is the only language they understand. Otherwise they will carry on, getting bigger and bigger, destroying our country, our towns and our cities, even faster than John Prescott.