Tag Archives: column

Opinion

How to clamp down on roadside garbage

There was a superb column in The Times just lately in regards to the state of Britain’s roadsides, which ceaselessly are liberally strewn with litter.

It recommended that we get critical about cleansing it up. Any marketing campaign to get that performed would obtain my assist, too. But I do not know that we must always really feel fairly a lot disgrace about litter’s existence as we typically do. I wager that, fly-tipping apart, most of it will get there by chance.

I am unable to place a bin bag exterior my entrance door late at night time to hold it to the wheelie bin on the finish of the lane within the morning as a result of by then a rat or a crow may have taken just a few chunks out of the bag and the whole lot inside may have began blowing across the backyard.

And there is a lay-by down the highway from me the place I usually see black luggage left poking from the highest of the wheelie bins. I’m positive the intent is sweet, however it’s not more likely to finish effectively, provided that Britain is a windy island within the North Atlantic with loads of scavenging wildlife.

Similar bin-cramming occurs on the town centres; stuff is positioned close to the highest of these bins which have a gap on each side, creating the proper wind tunnel for sucking light-weight garbage precariously positioned in them.

So by all means let’s get Britain’s roads tidy once more, however on the similar time let’s make a plan to stop it going flawed once more.

Often it is thoughtlessness over malice. So let’s have extra bins, higher designed, extra ceaselessly emptied and with large indicators about not overfilling them. And make native amenity suggestions free once more, too.

Opinion

Was the Leyland Eight the first ‘supercar’?

In my previous column on 16 August, I expressed my frustration with the practice of car manufacturers charging ongoing fees for certain features in their vehicles. It bothers me that they want to maintain some level of ownership or control over a product long after it has been purchased.

I’ve received a lot of feedback on this issue. Only a few people have defended the practice, but even with well-reasoned arguments or analogies, I remain unconvinced. The majority of people agree that it is an unpleasant practice.

In light of this, BMW has announced that it will stop charging fees for hardware-based features in its future cars (although software-based features will still be subject to fees).

Pieter Nota, BMW’s sales and marketing boss, explained at the Munich Motor Show: “We initially thought that offering the option to activate certain features later would be an added service for customers. However, the level of acceptance among users was not high.

Many people felt that they were being charged twice, which was not actually the case, but perception is reality, as I always say. That’s why we decided to discontinue this practice.”

Let me provide an analogy. Imagine a property developer who constructs 1000 houses with identical designs, all of which have an en suite bathroom. This helps keep costs down instead of building some houses with and some without en suite bathrooms.

You purchase one of these houses, move in, and are thrilled with it. It’s a fantastic place, and it’s all yours! But what’s behind this door? Oh, that, the developers say, is an extra bathroom. However, you can only access it if you pay them £30 per month indefinitely.