Safer roads, but not for frogs

Catseyes – the reflective glass beads that have guided motorists on lonely roads at night for the past 70 years are likely to be replaced over time by more efficient solar-powered studs.

A popular story (there are other versions) says Percy Shaw, their eccentric inventor, had the idea after driving in fog when a cat’s gaze caught in his headlights and saved him from a nasty accident.

He set up a factory manufacturing catseyes in Halifax, Yorkshire, making a small fortune from the venture that must have saved thousands of lives over the years.

But Shaw himself had simple tastes, choosing to live in a house near the factory, spending much of his later life in a curtainless, carpetless room furnished with nothing more than a chair and three television sets, allowing him to watch, all at the same time, what in the 1970s was the full quota of UK terrestrial channels – BBC1, BBC2 and ITV.

It’s just as well he never lived to experience satellite TV. Otherwise his living room would have been crowded with hundreds of TV sets. How would he have coped?

What I'm not clear about, is whether the new invention will be able to replacate the comforting, if irritating, thunk, thunk, thunk of the raised catseyes on your tyres when you stray over the white lines.

I'm wondering whether the same material could be used to make little back packs for frogs. There are a few roads where I encounter frogs every year, particularly when it's raining, but it's difficult to pick them up in the headlights. A reflective frog-coating would be a life-saver. On the other hand it would make frogs more vulnerable to predators, such as cats.

Cats, otherwise distracted chasing reflective frogs, would be unlikely to look towards oncoming vehicles so there might then be a need for a new invention to make them more reflective at night. Who'd be an inventor?

Postcript: A few days after embarking on this flight of fancy I came across this story: glow in the dark cats.

What teachers make

A lot of comedy is social comment but sometimes you find social comment dressed up as comedy or, in this case, poetry/comedy. Whatever it is, here is a great example from Taylor Mali. Teachers will find it particularly satisfying. And lawyers? Well they can afford to buy their thick skin by the yard.

Talking of my book

Talking of my book (did I mention my book?), I noticed when creating the link to Amazon .co.uk in the last blog that they had run out of copies.

Not to worry, however, because it lists 23 copies "used and new" from 96p. Ninety-six pence! That's about 1p for every 1,200 words, good value for all these quotes. I'm worth more than that. Mind you, so is the Bible and that's all on the internet, as are the complete works of Shakespeare.

It's really time that I wrote another book and I do update my outline on the future of work (mentioned here on the dullest page of my website) quite regularly as I get there (the future, that is). Besides, I said much of what I had to say in the last book and it it really hasn't dated.

That ludicrously cheap copy is to be found at somewhere called Warehouse Deals UK. I bet it's a place that treats books badly: uses them as door stops, table wedges and fire-lighters, that sort of thing.

Now the dealer I really like on that list is Speedybookseller offering a new copy for £28.68, still remarkable value for money. But that's quite a price spread. I cannot begin to understand pricing mechanisms in the publishing industry. If you wish to retain some humility in life, write a book.....and wait for the returns.

The Trip to Panama

It has to be the publishing sensation of the year - for me at least. Congratulations to the Andersen Press for republishing one of my favourite books that has been out of print for some time.

If you have never read The Trip to Panama by Janosch, you are in for a treat. Go out and buy it now. It might help if you have small children to give you an excuse. If not, buy it anyway. Although this is a children's book in shape and form, its message is important for everyone.

I won't spoil the story but I will say that it's all about understanding the things that really matter in life. It's about discovery, making friends, and enjoying the good things in life.

In fact I found it so inspiring I went out and bought the comfiest sofa (which northerners like myself would generally call a settee) I could find. No regrets.

If you do read the book, perhaps you would share your thoughts with me about the messages in the bottles that pass by from time to time. I have my own ideas about them but I would like to know if others concur.

I have used this book many times in lectures and referenced it in my book, Blood, Sweat and Tears, The Evolution of Work. But it's a long time since I have seen a copy. Gill bought me one today as a surprise. It's made my day.

Volvo v Porsche

Volvo or Porsche? Given the choice what would it be?

Last week I was handed the keys to a Porsche Boxter Sport for a day as part of some kind of sales promotion. I am a Volvo driver so quite why my name should appear on a Porsche marketing list beats me. I suppose this says something about the quality of such lists.

On the other hand, at least I could afford to buy such a car and a pending speeding prosecution after 33 years with never a speeding endorsement in all that time might go some way to underline my otherwise flimsy boy-racer credentials.

I was heading to Builth Wells in Wales to undertake some fishing casting lessons and missed the turning in Newport after coming off the M4. There were some roadworks with a temporary 30 mph limit - one of those that appears with very little warning - and that did for me. I saw the camera flash and, sure enough, the next week a note arrived telling me that my speed had been recorded at 43 mph. What a bummer.

I think the Porsche salesman sensed my priorities when I asked him how much room there was in the boot. In fact it was very spacious with storage room at front and rear although there is nowhere to put a fishing rod.

The ride was pretty basic and the bucket-seats a bit tight compared with the comfort of the Volvo, but the Boxter felt safe, sticking to the road like glue. Its low profile gave the impression that it was travelling faster than was actually the case.

We would have taken the dog but there was not much room for him in the foot well. Still, it was fun with the top down and I didn't encounter any aggressive responses from other road users. I mention this because when travelling to the West Country last year as a passenger in a Porsche Carerra it was noticeable how other motorists on the motorway went out of their way to block our progress.

It was as if they were saying: "Thou art a Porsche, thou shall not pass." Come to think of it I feel the same way about BMW drivers.

We had a good day and I'm thinking a Porsche might well suit us when we're a little older. Just now, however, I'm sticking with the youthful appeal of the Volvo. OK, so the family has all but grown up, but no-one else knows that.

This England

What do I know about managing the England football team? Nothing, which apparently makes me perfectly qualified to voice my opinions along with at least 10m other fans, pundits and journalists in the wake of England’s failure to qualify for the Euro 2008 tournament.

Have you noticed that journalists, and fans for that matter, are very good at apportioning blame for sporting failure, but never think they should shoulder some responsibility too?

The fans think they have a perfect right to boo players whose fragile confidence needs a boost. The sports journalists think they should be responsible for team selection and at the very least should say when the manager should go – which is frequently, no matter who is doing the job.

Fans and journalists are guilty of consistently failing to give credit to opposing teams unless those teams belong to one of the traditionally successful World Cup nations such as Germany, Italy, Brazil or Argentina. They need to wake up.

Final bonus

As a rugby union supporter I can say there was no great expectation that the England rugby team would go far beyond the group stage, even though they were World Champions. Every win up to the final was a bonus.

But when the under performing football team runs on the pitch there seems to be a misplaced belief that it is one of the best teams in the world. It is not and has not been for many years.

There are many reasons for this. Where can I start? Let’s mention the selling-off of school playing fields by local authorities. When kids want to go for a kick-about these days, they are stuck to find anywhere that’s safe from traffic. So they get taken along by their parents to club coaching sessions on Saturday mornings where the kind of natural talent and flair they would develop among themselves is coached out of them.

Home-grown talent

The chance for the most talented youngsters to break through in to a premiership team is dwindling with every new foreign signing. For sure, foreign players add some class to the English game, but so many of them are playing in the UK that the home-grown talent is too often elbowed in to the reserves.

Then there is the greed that’s endemic throughout the game – greed among the players and their agents; greed among the clubs that have increased prices beyond the pocket of many fans; and greed among the owners of Wembley who decided that wrecking the pitch was a small price to pay for bringing over American Football.

It’s time that those who run football in England take a long hard look at the game and put things in perspective. In the first instance the FA should go cap-in-hand to the other home nations and try to re-establish the home internationals.

Secondly the game’s administrators should stop believing that the chequebook will solve the England team’s management problems. The reality is that hardly anyone wants to do the job anymore and why should they? All they get is abuse in the press when the team loses.

Military prowess

I sometimes think it is symptomatic of our society. There is a sneering, unpleasant and, yes, arrogant side to this country that does it no credit in the wider world. We wonder why the Scots support “whoever is playing England.” The reason is that there is a perception beyond our borders that the English need to be taken down a peg or too. The best way to deal with this is for the English to adopt some humility and to stop harping on about the Second World War and past military prowess.

I wish also, that the English football fans would cease the incessant singing of the National Anthem. What’s that all about? Am I the only one who cringes when they hear the anthem sung as a chant? I suspect the reason for this is that it’s the only song to which the average English fan knows the words.

Barmy Army

But nothing will change. The press has already decided that it knows best about the selection of the next manager. It will continue to second-guess, picking the team and criticising players that it justifies as a democratic right. But let no one call this support. Nor is it “support” to go around the world as a fan, while jeering every performance that goes the wrong way. You don’t find the Barmy Army behaving this way in cricket.

England’s long-suffering cricket fans are real supporters. They have their own original songs and a real sense of humour. The same goes for rugby fans in both codes. Football, on the other hand, is stuck in the mentality of segregating supporters for fear of aggressive behaviour, shouted obscenities by so-called fans, and crass on-field behaviour among players. In England it’s not a beautiful game; but it may be the game we deserve.

Conference break out

They announced a "break out" session at the human resources conference I'm attending, so I've broken out.

Attending HR conferences is like visiting a parallel universe where everyone looks fairly normal until they open their mouths. I listened to someone speaking for an hour yesterday and did not understand one word. He was speaking in HR, a language that shares a common ancestry with the one that I speak but which diverged on a labyrinthine path of its own in the dim and distant past.

I try to keep up and most of my columns are undertaken as a translation, but it gets more difficult every year.

I like to watch conference audiences and the kind of postures and behaviours that people adopt. Here are a few:

* The arm folder, sitting back, legs outstretched. This means: "OK, impress me."

* The secret squirrel BlackBerry user, fiddling with hands under the table.

* The in-out listener, adopting a studious appearance but constantly switching off to think of more interesting things.

* The reader - more interested in the power point slides than anything the speaker has to say.

* The note-taker, working on next week's shopping list.

* The mobile phone numpty who didn't switch it off, doesn't know where it is, and has no idea that his daughter has changed his ring tone to the latest hip hop hit.

* The enthusiast - thin on the ground - the odd member of the audience who is genuinely interested in what the speaker has to say.

* The conference junkie - focused entirely on lunch.

* The tick box king - starts filling out the "happy sheet" in the first five minutes of the conference.

* The networker - dishing out calling cards with all the dexterity of a Mississippi gambler playing black jack.

I can hear the sniffer dogs outside my room so it looks like my bid for freedom has failed. Now, where were we? Something about compensation and benefit trends in EMEA (the management bundle for Europe, the Middle East and Africa). Compensation, which normal people know as something they might get if a waiter spills soup down their frock, is the HR term for pay which is also referred to as "reward" or, even worse, "remuneration." Riveting stuff.

How drink sharpens the brain

Mentioning Denis Kilcommons in that last blog reminded me of the hours I spent as a young reporter in the Albert Hotel next to the former offices of the Huddersfield Examiner where I worked in my early career.

The Albert was famous for two things - the pie and peas and......well maybe it was just the one thing (or maybe I was thinking of the pie and peas separately). Anyway it was the place to go after work. Everyone drank halves of mild (to make the rounds cheaper).

Journalists, councillors, policemen - they all mixed together. The mild was weak but, even so, some drank more than they should have done (including the policemen) and drove home afterwards (including the policemen).

There is no condoning such behaviour except to say that it was nearly 30 years ago when attitudes were different. Unlike today when you know that it is simply wrong to drink and drive, in those days the main concern, particularly among the older generation, was the chance of being caught.

One of the journalists who ran the town's freelance agency went so far as to argue that he drove better on a few beers. I have heard this argument before but I had never seen it explained until I read this.

How posh hotels describe theft

Lisbon: sunny, warm, blue skies. The first time I came here must have been nearly 25 years ago with my old friend Denis Kilcommons who wanted to research a location for one of his thrillers.

Not much has changed in the interim: the faded sandy facades with their green shutters and red tiled roofs, yellow funicular cars, the tiny cobbles laid mosaic-style in the streets, the seafood smells, mixed with a faint odour from the drains in the old quarter - everything is as it should be.

I like Lisbon. It's friendly and civilized, nowhere near as smart as Madrid but all the more relaxed because of that. It's quiet too at this time of year - not many spies about.

I don't recall how Denis used the research in his book. In fact I don't remember much about our weekend apart from strolling around the narrow streets and drinking in the cafes. But I do remember we had a hire car and drove out to Sintra and the Pena National Palace decorated in the romantic style. The archtiect had gone overboard in his use of shells, magpies and swans.

I'm staying at the Meridien, another one of those hotels that charges rip-off rates for internet access in your hotel room.

There's a card with the dressing gown in my room. It says:

"This bathrobe has enjoyed considerable success among our guests, to the extent that some particularly enthusiastic customers have become 'collectors of Le Meridien bathrobes.' While we recognise that this initiative helps spread the reputation of our establishment we nevertheless urge our most fervent supporters to make an effort to separate themselves from this admittedly endearing garment when they leave. (Alternatively, a bathrobe may be obtained in exchange for a few dollars)."

I wonder if Keith Moon ever stayed here.