Ivan, crochet and fare dodging

Well, I just read the news. Ivan Noble, the BBC Science correspondent died of a brain tumour on Monday. I just stared at the screen when I saw the headline on the BBC website this morning. I am sad. I've mentioned him in a couple of blog entries, and a link to his diary is in last Thursday's blog. 37 years old, he leaves a wife and two very young kids. His diary has been an inspiration to many. I've been following it for about a year. I heard his voice for the first time today, in a fairly recent interview he did for the BBC. Straight away his enthusiasm and intensity comes across. I should think they will keep his diary online for some time to come. A collection of his diary entries is due to be published later in the year. Good night, Ivan.

There was a woman sitting next to me today on the blog train. She was knitting. No that's not the word. Crocheting. She was creating what looked like a baby's shawl with beautifully soft looking white wool. Her fingers were going a mile a minute, just a blur. What amazed me was that she was looking out the window at the time, paying no attention to all the activity round her fingers. I haven't put a crochet needle to good use since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I'm thinking it might be fun to try again one of these dark winter evenings.

One good thing to report on the BlogTrain. There is much more evidence of security these days and inspectors are checking tickets left, right and centre. I have no problem at all with that. Its about time too. Unfortunately a lot of people have been seeing the BlogTrain as a free ride, so have been dodging fares. Which means that we all end up paying more in our taxes to subsidize fare dodgers rather than improvements and extensions to the service. This evening as I was leaving the station, some people were running up the steps to catch the train, and then equally quickly running down again when they saw the inspector waiting for them.

The BlogTrain will never make a profit. That's not the point. But at least those who use it, should pay their fares to contribute to the cost of running the bally thing. Unless we say, to heck with it, its keeping enough people off the roads, saving a lot of fuel, and helping to protect the environment, so maybe we make it free. No that doesn't work, as we'd have to make the buses free too, and I haven't even got round to mentioning the BlogBoat.

So I wish we had a better mechanism of enforcing payment. Sure it would be fantastic to have a honours system with everyone voluntarily buying a ticket. Sadly its just not practical or workable. I think the BlogTrain powers that be have looked at options but at this time an automated system is too expensive to implement. Other countries have it, why not us? Darn shame if you ask me.