Monday, 18 September 2000

More on Rides round Britain

Listening to:

Oscar Peterson's finest hour. My birthday present. I’ve listened to this a number of times since then and I’m coming to like it more and more.

Still reading:

John Byng, Rides round Britain. This is coming along well. I read a long account of a trip to “the North” over the weekend. He goes to a variety of places south of Manchester, in an area that I guess is now known as the Peak District. He is very scathing about Buxton. Later in the same trip he goes to East Anglia and Hertfordshire. He goes to Cambridge and hates it. The inn was expensive, of poor quality, and he couldn’t find anyone to let him into King's College Chapel (easily Cambridge’s most famous landmark).

I would have probably read more over the weekend, but we ended up playing quite a bit of Roller-coaster Tycoon. This is a very appealing game, and quite addictive. I’m not much of a park administrator myself. However, as a “backseat driver”, I really come into my own! :-)

As promised, my argument disputing claims that Britain's high fuel taxes disadvantage Britain’s hauliers (truckers). The claim is that French truckers can out-compete their British counterparts because they can get their fuel more cheaply in France. If however, French trucks are competing on the same routes as British ones, then the British drivers only need to follow the French trucks, and refuel at the same places as the French drivers to incur the same fuel costs as their competitors. If the French drivers are not competing on the same routes, then there is no fair comparison possible.

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