I still find it hard to explain how they didn’t realise the fact that they didn’t get a perpetual, exclusive license. I guess someone will have their heads chopped pretty soon…

Can’t help but notice how he looks a bit bored? RIP MJ.

Thank you for youremail regarding services on the Jubilee line.Having lookedat our records, I cannot find a copy of the final response sent to you and for this reason I am resending the data requested.

Question 1

I have attached a spreadsheet indicated as Question 1 to this email - this provides details of all planned track closures.

You also asked for details of work planned and work actually completed. As you may know the maintenance work on the Jubilee line is managed by TubeLines as a private company they are not required to provide information under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. Unless the information is held on behalf of London Underground in this case they hold information on work completed and work to be completed for their own purposes in terms of managing the contract with us which has a completion date of the end of this year.

Question 2 & 3

I have attached a spreadsheet indicated as Question 2 to this email - this provides details of unplanned suspensions over 15 minutes (we do not record delays below 15 minutes.

For point 2vi where you asked for details of ticket refunds based on these on unplanned suspensions. The customer charter scheme is not based on incident that caused the customer’s delay and for this reason - we do not hold the data to answer this question.

Points iv, v and question 3

We are currently in the midst of an upgrade on the Jubilee line, which will bring many benefits to the line. The improvements include a new state-of-the-art signalling system, renewed track and upgraded trains. Once completed in December 2009, we will be able to increase capacity by a much needed 33%, which will boost the frequency of services enabling us eventually to run a train every 2 minutes – as well as improving the overall reliability of the line.

I appreciate the disruption weekend works cause and we do carry out as much work as we can during the limited time we have available in overnight engineering hours. However, the massive scale of the work means that Tube Lines, the contractors responsible for undertaking the work, do need longer, uninterrupted periods in order to fully implement and test the upgrade and this is why we need to suspend parts of the line at weekends. Without these planned closures upgrading a line would take many years and we would not be able to deliver the benefits within the timeframe needed.

Whilst I appreciate the disruption these works cause, the work we are doing now will ensure we are able improve the service on the Jubilee line in the long term.

Question 4

Whilst we do have a policy or memos that I can send you regarding a policy of informing customers affected by unplanned delays and closures about their right to request refunds under customer charter. We do advertise this via our website and staff within the Customer Service Centre provide this information by phone, email and letter.

I do hope the above information is useful however if you still need further information please contact me on 0845 3309880.

Yours sincerely

I will seriously need to spend some time reading and re-reading this to comprehend it, but as I was asked by some visitors to quote the answer, I thought I would sooner rather than later, as I got it 3 days ago. Does it make sense? Not quite sure. Does it answer the essence of my questions? Again, not quite sure - I’ll just single out the fact that Tube Lines, as a private contractor, are not required to publish any data they hold under the FoI Act. Surprise - surprise!!

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said the Budget, expected to confirm a likely 3% fall in growth in 2009, would “lay bare” Labour’s economic failings.

But in an upbeat message on YouTube Chancellor Alistair Darling said the UK economy had “underlying strengths”.

Reminds me of that time when we were all like “but muuuuuum, he said that…”

I wonder, do they really have nothing better to do?

Twelve men have been arrested in the north west of England after Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism police officer sparked a security alert.

Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick said he “deeply regretted” revealing a secret document to photographers when he arrived for a briefing at No 10.

Mr Quick was apparently in such a rush to get out of his car, that he forgot to hide the ’secret’ documents out of the photographers’ view. What the heck do they have in their heads? You know, where their minds would normally be. One can’t help but wonder…

I ‘fink’? No, mate, you don’t ‘fink’, you THink! Or maybe you can’t ‘fink’, and that’s what your problem is. I bet you know you don’t THuck though!

Or, the ever present: “I should of done that”. What the hell do you mean you “should of done”?? Of done? Now, think about it for a moment: should… of… done? Should of? Of WHAT? Of WHOM? Of WHERE? What the heck?!?

Am I the only one who’s so annoyed by these?

Oh, well, thanks! A human mistake no doubt, but what was the guy thinking? Especially being her parliamentary aide - jeez!

Go download some free porn man, not over pay-per-view!

I really wonder what my boss would say if I claimed this over expenses… Ho hum…

Well, nothing seems to be helping the Jubilee line commuters (and those of a dozen other lines I’m sure, but I can only speak of my misery), who find themselves stranded every time the line is suspended because of the same f…ing signal failing all the time!

And here is where the Freedom of Information Act comes in: it allows anyone to request information from any public service (such as TfL) about anything that they might hold information on - and the best part is that they have to respond within 20 days. Well it’s time they did some homework, this is my request made today - I’ll keep you updated on any progress made:

Dear Sir or Madam,

for the past year we have been putting up with weekend closures of
the Jubilee line, with the promise of improvement to service.

On the morning of Friday the 20th of March, during rush hour, part
of the Jubilee line was suspended due to a signal failure at Canary
Wharf.

The weekend of 21-22 March part of the line was closed for
“improvement works”.

On Monday the 23rd of March, again during the morning rush hour,
the Jubilee line had severe delays due to a signal failure, again,
at Canary Wharf.

During both incidents there seemed to be a distinct lack of
communication and coordination between members of staff at the
stations and between controllers of the Jubilee Line and London
Buses controllers, resulting in hundreds of passengers being left
stranded at bus stops and tube stations in both directions, with no
means to continue their journeys, while buses were going back and
forth randomly altering their routes and just “dumping” passengers
en route with no explanation.

As your so called improvement works continue into this year, I
would like to request the following information, all in electronic
format please:

1) A spreadsheet with all planned track closures for the Jubilee
line for the past 365 days, detailing the following information:

i) Dates of closure.

ii) For each date, a summary of the work planned to be carried out
during the closure and (if not obvious) the reason(s) why this
would warrant suspension of service.

iii) For each date, a summary of the ACTUAL work completed on that
date.

iv) For each date, the above (point iii) expressed as an
approximate percentage of the worked planned for that date (as per
point ii) (i.e. percentage of work actually completed compared to
work planned).

2) A spreadsheet of unplanned suspensions of service on the Jubilee
line (complete or partial) or incidents involving severe delays,
for the past 365 days, detailing the following information:

i) Dates.

ii) Duration of each incident.

iii) Reason for incident.

iv) Person or company responsible for the incident occurring (e.g.
they could be responsible due to improper maintenance or operation
of a signal).

v) What actions were taken so that the incident would not re-occur.

vi) Number of passengers estimated to have been affected by each
incident.

vii) Number of passengers who applied for a ticket refund based on
your Customer Charter for each incident.

3) Additionally on point 2 above, for incidents that occurred
repeatedly (i.e. more than once in 5 days) please specify why these
occurred repeatedly (as the problem should have been fixed in a
reliable way in the first instance), who was responsible for this
(person or company) and what action was taken to ensure that they
would not occur again.

3) Any documents you hold with regards to how the improvement works
on the Jubilee line have actually affected (in a positive or
negative way) the reliability of the service provided. Please note
that I am not interested in the standard marketing documents that
you produce as big posters at stations or on your website, but
rather any unpublished documents based on actual and measured data
and not marketing promises.

4) Any documents outlining policies or memos to your members of
staff or any other relevant documents with regards to informing (or
not) customers affected by unplanned delays or closures about their
rights to request refunds under your Customer Charter.

Please consider this as a request under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000, to which you are therefore required by law to respond
within 20 days of receipt.

Yours faithfully

Tata Nano

Tata Nano - the world’s cheapest car

According to the BBC it costs just 100,000 rupees ($1,979 or £1,366) and will go on sale next month… across India only!

Maybe this is an oppurtunity big players like GM, BMW, Audi and the likes should start thinking about more seriously, with the credit crunch/credit crisis/credit call-it-whatever-you-want and everything else going on.

As if we didn’t have enough cars already… oh well, I would’t want to have to drive the Tata Nano on a motorway anyway…

In Brent’s words:

Every day I wake up to read about thousands of Americans being laid off of work. Unemployment is hitting new highs in America and yet I’m being forced to, once again, slow down HostGator’s growth due to the lack of qualified employees.

What’s wrong with the world? It so happens that the industry I work in seems to be facing the exact same problem: we can’t find good qualified managers and even if we do find one, they seem so reluctant to take the risk of moving companies, no matter what the rewards are.

I was thinking that the key word here is “risk”; how much risk are we prepared to take in order to get a better reward? Maybe people don’t feel comfortable getting into a new company when, in times of economic trouble, the last in is usually the first out?

But reading the replies to Brent’s post, I spotted something else, something that amazed me: quite a few people asking if Brent would consider them for employment. Simple as that! Job applications… in blog comments!

What’s happened to good old proper job applications, with an attached CV and cover letter? Are people nowadays so lazy that can’t be bothered to look for job openings and take some time to send in an appropriate application? Have we got so used to just whining about the credit crunch, the unemployment and the low salaries that we just can’t be bothered to look any further than just applying for any and all state benefits available?

I used to tell all my friends that to get your first job, you need to send as many applications as you can every day, and that you probably won’t hear back from anyone for at least a couple of months. And when I said “as many as you can” I did mean “as many as you can”… as many as 30 a day!

This has always worked for me. And it has even worked for my lazy friends, who were sending just 1 or 2 applications a day. A response always came back after a month or two, that always lead to an interview and most of the times to a job offer as well. But by that time, they were bored, disheartened and all nagging about the unemployment rates and how little one can do living on state benefits etc etc…

I know this might sound like I’m oversimplifying things and I don’t mean to say that times are not tough but hey… that’s how they’ve always been and that’s how they will always be. Credit crunch or not.