London Underground strike

In my book Managing Transport Operations I show that most passengers do not want to be using transport. The question usually asked by transport providers is what are we trying to sell. Obviously the answer is a cabin, a seat or some space for freight. The proper question to ask is what does the consumer wish to buy. What in reality is the consumer of transport wanting from transport? If the transport consumer could find some way to instantly transfer from one place to another  they would avail themselves of that opportunity. To cut a complex argument short, it is the arrival which the consumer is buying. They want to be at the destination so that they can carry out their wishes.
This argument puts the consumer at the centre of the transport process. The journey has to be accomplished safely so that the passenger or goods arrive undamaged. It has to be accomplished to the time advertised.
Back to Transport for London. Many passengers need reassurance to complete their journey. They do not want to be presented with an array of machines to buy a ticket. To help them negotiate the process, they need ticket office and helpful staff. It strikes me that in the present dispute, the needs of the consumer have been lost in the shouting by both side. One problem is that the great majority of passengers using the underground are daily travellers. Not all. I can think of numerous times when I have stood in the station in another large city in some other country than the UK and found it almost impossible to purchase a ticket. Transport for London should think deeply about their attitude to passengers. It looks on the surface as though they are slipping back into the production idea of transport provision where the needs of the operator are placed before the needs of the consumer.

MANAGING TRANSPORT OPERATIONS by Edmund J Gubbins.
Published by Kogan Page
Available from Amazon.

The Prisoner of Parison changes.

The third book in my fantasy series The Rombuli Saga titled The Prisoner of Parison is over 700 pages long. Niot only is this a long read but the cost is rather high.
I am planning to split this into two novels of about 350 words each. There is a natural division at about halfway through. It is at the point where Edward Eastland and his friends sneak into the Citidal in Parison and manage to rescue Tulka, the leader of the Covenent. It ends naturally when Edward, his sister Morag and Vibrus the dragon enter Tulka's mind and rid him of the control constraints put there by the Black Elves. I am planning to keep the title of this book as The Prisoner of Parison, book 3 of The Rombuli Saga.
Book 4 will be called The Governor of the Rombuli and will then chart the war between the Empire and the black elves.
That is the plan.

Great Train robbery

I was sitting in bed drinking a mug of tea when I heard that Ronald Biggs had died. They played a recording of him speaking about the great train robbery and his life. He showed no sense of being a bad person or doing illegal things. It is alleged that he started his criminal career by looting the houses of bomb victims in London during the WW2. During the great train robbery the driver was beaten up and never worked again. Biggs could see nothing wrong in whatever he did.
This made me think about the way in which many people hide any feelings of doing bad things by some justification. Many people never feel that any of their actions are illegal or morally wrong. This can even apply to leaders of countries and businesses. We only have to look at the way in which Stalin thought he was helping the Russian people. I suspect the North Korean leadership feel the same. Then there are bankers. They show no signs of thinking that they were wrong in the excesses that caused the great crash. Most do not seem to have learnt any lessons from their past actions by the way they are acting at present.
All of this reminded me that I have written about this in a novel called An Ordinary Life. It is about the way people ignore their consciences and justify their actions as good. In the novel, Tom is an academic. He makes love to his students, allows his brother to invest his money in dubious schemes even though they both support left wing causes and gives advice to the Mr Big criminal on setting up legitimate business. All this comes to a head when Tom first has to sanction one of his staff for not only making love to a student but enhancing her marks for an exam. Then his friend is shot and Tom has to decide if he will help  in the revenge of the criminal gang.
An Ordinary Life published as a paperback with www.createspace.com Available for purchase from Amazon.
It is also available for download as an ebook from kindle and for all electronic readers from www.smashwords.com

My smashwords titles

I have published Brotherly Love, Running after Maria,The Teacher of the Rombuli, The Return of the Exiles, The Prisoner of Parison and Tales from the Sea on www.smashwords.com

These titles can be downloaded for reading to your PC, to iMac, macbook, iPad, iPod,iPhone, to Kindle, Sony Reader, Nook and Kobo.

A Legacy from Mary

My thriller A Legacy from Mary is in the proof reading stage. It will be out in paperback in a few weeks. 

Ken Flood was an academic and events in the wider world did not effect his life. Then his friends Joshua and Mary were killed. The only connection was a country called Mengambi, Joshua was a Mengambian and Maria untook short courses in the country. Suddenly Ken was caught up in the game of power excersised in Mengambi when he agreed to take Mary’s place teaching on the short courses in Mengambi. What he wanted to find out was if there was more to his friends deaths than reported. Can he survive the pressure from his employer in Mengambi and the request by his brother to gather information.

It will be available in paperback from Amazon or www.createspace.com in addition to being available as an ebook for download from Amazon through Kindle.

Fines for using bus lanes.

I get very angry when motorists complain bitterly about getting fined for using bus lanes. They bleat that the local authorities are making money out of them. In many ways it turning the spot light onto the greedy local authorities,  an easy target. What they forget is that using bus lanes to drive round traffic congestion is illegal. They it is who are breaking the law. They are so arrogant in their belief that the motorist is above the law when it comes to using the roads that they cannot see that they re wrong. If they do not want the authorities to make money from illegal use of bus lanes all they have to do is not use bus lanes!

Parking restrictions

A girl lies bleeding t the side of the road outside a school. Paramedics struggle to save her life. A car is slewed across the road. Cars parked in the no stopping zone outside the school gates. The girl rushes to see her friends but cannot see along the road. Parked cars all because parents defy the restrictions. It is too far or to wet to make them walk 40 metres.
An electric scooter lies mangled in the road. The elderly lady being placed in an ambulance. A van is parked on the pavement even though there are double yellow lines designating no parking. The elderly lady has had to go into the road to avoid the illegally parked van
A fire engine rushing to attend a fire cannot get through the traffic. It is congested because two cars have parked on double yellow lines so that their drivers can get money from a cash machine at a bank. Paramedics struggle to save the life of the man in the ambulance.
Parking restrictions are in place to make roads and all their users safer. They are not designed as cash generators for local authorities. If car drivers do not want the local councils to make any money from parking fines there is a simple answer. Do not park where parking is not allowed or over stay the proper time.
I think that linked to this is the problem of people being over weight. When I was on holiday there were many men and women grossly over weight. All the these fat people had hired cars and did not walk very far. That is the link to what I wrote above about car drivers parking illegally so that they do not have to walk anywhere. The minister for Local Government should lose weight and resign for suggesting that parking restrictions should be lifted.