Jubilee spirit

On three separate days in the last two weeks I had trouble getting about because of breakdowns on the Jubilee line.  Irritating though that may be one cannot help but smile and be infected by the good humour of the train drivers and station attendants despite the circumstances. 

One of the station attendants at Canary Wharf is a most cheerful person to meet in the mornings.  His announcements are half sing-song and always sound welcoming.  On a dreary morning, faced with a long day at work, one perks up on hearing the voice of a person who sounded like he was enjoying his job and was trying to bring some fun into people's day.  I can't help but smile when I hear him and don't think I will ever be tired of hearing him.

The driver of the delayed train today was funny too.  He tried to give us as many updates as possible to help us plan our journeys but was getting frustrated with the controller who wasn't answering his queries or picking up his calls.  I was glad that he shared this with us by making little comments and keeping it light.  For once I got the impression that we were in this together; we were stuck on the same train.  So although it took over twice the amount of time to get home, I wasn't as irritated as I could have been.

Thank you to the staff on the Jubilee line. 

Va va voom

It was a sunny day out driving in Essex to visit loved ones.  Traffic was smooth and the grass was green wherever we went.  Lots of people were out driving to deliver Easter eggs to family and friends, I suppose.  On one of the small roads we saw a group of 10 to 15 Vespas in various cheerful pastel colours.  Reminded me of my Dad and his club of 50cc's all those years ago.  Such fun!

Summer cycle madness

London is having a beautifully sunny Easter weekend.  Today temperatures reached 26 C, and although the sky was not quite cloudless it was beautifully blue and bright.  The roads were relatively quiet and seemed to have been claimed by cyclists on the 'Boris' bikes.  It is good to see so many people taking to them and using them to explore the city.

Four sides to a square

I initiated my Summer fitness plan today- to battle the three months of relative inactivity till the indoor volleyball season restarts- by cycling to work as much as possible.  I had tested the route at the weekend and knew I could handle the distance and could do it within an hour.  So I set off this morning confident that I knew what I was doing.  Once again, by Victoria Embankment, I felt myself squeezed towards the pavement by a coach.  This time it was so ridiculously close that I felt like hitting the coach with my hands to illustrate my disapproval.  Considering these guys are supposed to be professional drivers there does seem to be an awful lot of spatial misjudgements over this stretch of road.  Do not overtake if you do not have enough space; if in doubt, don't do it.  Simple.

However, I soon had cause to be annoyed at a fellow cyclist.  My route through the south-west side of St. James' Park was closed this morning. A policewoman was putting up barriers to stop people from entering just as I arrived at the entry point .  I stopped by her to ask how far down the park the closure extended  to figure out whether it was worth getting off to walk the closed bit, or go through Trafalgar Square instead.  She was obligingly telling me the best route round the closure when a cyclist, probably puzzled by the closure and intent on asking her for information as well, failed to brake and ran into the back of my bike.  I had been stopped quite a while and was dressed in bright pink clothing; she was in a fluorescent jacket.  We were both hard to miss and we were far off the road with moving traffic; he can't have been paying that much attention to stuff around him.

On the way home I kept seeing cyclists jump red lights, even those on the dedicated cycle highways which are for bikes.  The lights are designed to help cyclists navigate busy crossings safely and are there for good reason.  A lady went ahead while I and another cyclist were stopped at one of these lights and then found she had to stop at the junction anyway because the cars had right of way.  She was then in no position to see the traffic lights; we were and moved off fairly quickly when they turned green, overtaking her and leaving her behind still wondering if it was safe to move on.  I couldn't help smirking as I passed her.

Pedestrians were not blameless either.  The number of people who played chicken at light controlled crossings was astounding.  First prize goes to the couple who tangoed back and forth on one of the exits of the Trafalgar Square roundabout while the red man was on, unable to decide whether they should retreat back to the pavement even when two bikes and a row of cars were braking hard to avoid them.

I made mistakes too.  I sometimes found it hard to signal and was more dependent on my riding position to signal intent because I did sometimes find it hard to keep control of my bike: there are quite a lot of obstacles on the road and its not always easy to manage to time the signal and yet move the bike away from things on the road.  In particular there seems to be tonnes of potholes and broken glass on the streets of London.  One can forward plan a route but not really plan around these niggles.  The roads need to be fixed if cycling is to be a viable mode of transport around London.

Read this on the Beeb's website.  Ring any bells?

Close encounters of the third kind

The weather's been glorious in London over the past few days and yesterday I took my bike out for a spin.  I needed to get to work for a few minutes and I thought it would be nicer to cycle than to be stuck in a queue of traffic in the car; public transport was inconvenient this weekend because of closures for track improvement work.  It was about an hour on the bike to work and an hour back, with a couple of hours of meandering about parks and having tea plus the brief moments at work; all in all a pleasant way to spend a sunny Saturday.

Cycling in the city was mostly uneventful but the coaches along the Victoria Embankment, heading west, did present some problems.  Even as  a driver I have often disliked the fact that they are parked up yet taking up half a lane.  Its a busy road and having half a lane taken up by parked vehicles doesn't help.  It means that any car that is on the left hand lane will eventually have to venture right to get around them, with the other cars in the other lanes trying to readjust their positions so that everybody will fit on one and a half lanes.  At some point it will become difficult to figure out how many lanes people intend to form, especially when cars jam up further up at the right turn leading to Trafalgar Square and people start trying to get around them by venturing left.  Now imagine if you were a cyclist amongst all this.  

The other thing is that the coach drivers get far too close to cyclists on this stretch of road.  I was behind another cyclist when a coach passed me from behind.  I felt at the time that it was too close to me and when I saw him pass the bike in front it was obvious that the cyclist would have been able to touch the coach with his arm out bent 90 degrees at his elbow.  That is far too close, the coach should have kept back if there was not enough space to overtake but it was particularly irritating that there was an empty lane on the right of the coach.  This total disrespect for cyclists while in the control of a large vehicle- bullying behaviour- is unacceptable.    

Cyclists in the city have started wearing helmet cameras to fillm aggressive behaviour from other road users.  I think I might get one too.

Water world

Now and then a piece of news, out of the many that I read on the way to work, catches my eye and I find myself so drawn to the story that I am reading round the subject way after that piece of news has turned cold.  Last week one such bit of news kept me up a few nights.  It was an announcement that a captive killer whale called Tilikum, who had killed his trainer during a performance at Sea World in Florida about a year ago, was performing again.  You can read the piece here.  I had read the news about the death of the trainer when the incident occurred and the fact that Tilikum was to be spared despite calls for it to be euthanised.  I also remember the petitions for it to be released back to the wild following the incident.  I did not know that he had been left out of the performance rosta since then, and found it alarming to read reports of how Tilikum had been left, allegedly, in solitary confinement for most of this time.  There were also discrepancies in the reports surrounding the circumstances of the death of Tilikum's trainer, Dawn Brancheau.

From what I could gather Tilikum dragged her into the water and she drowned.  There were reports that she had suffered severe injuries inflicted by him.  It was also mentioned that he had previously been associated with two other deaths, one of which was of a trainer that had fallen into the water and then attacked by Tilikum and two other orcas.  Trainers were not allowed to get into the water with Tilikum  for safety reasons as a result of the deaths before Ms. Brancheau's.  Some reports described Tilikum's behaviour as 'play' that had gone horribly wrong.  He had had a good performance session with Ms Brancheau just before he attacked her and the two had been sharing a friendly moment, nose to nose when he dragged her into the water by grabbing her hair.  I think any effort to psychoanalyse Tilikum's behaviour is of no use; the fact is that he caused the death of Ms. Brancheau and procedures for interactions around him need to be controlled so as to prevent this from happening again.  Tilikum is performing again; this was said to be good for him as the activity and interaction with humans and other orcas would benefit him, which seems a fair consideration.  Orcas are intelligent, sociable animals; Tilikum is being held captive and from an animal welfare viewpoint his keepers should provide him with opportunities to lead as comfortable and fulfilling a life as possible.  The question is whether this is really possible in captivity? The other question is could he ever be released to live free, or partially free, again?

I am not an orca expert and can only reflect on what I have read.  Orcas in the wild live in matriarchal family units called pods.  There is a strong bond between members within the pod and also a hierarchical structure.  Pods are said to have their own culture and their own dialect and it was reported that orcas from different pods and geographical locations would have problems communicating with each other and integrating into one social group.  Thus, it was proposed that orcas captured from different parts of the world being forced into each other's company may cause stress and lead to displays of violence towards each other.  There have been reports of captive orcas raking each other in the pool, with one such incident leading to the death of an orca when she charged into the pool wall, rather than her intended victim, and mortally injured herself.  It is not clear to me whether such incidents occur in the wild.  It was reported that the conflicts may have arisen due to hierarchy quarrels and it is not beyond imagination that such quarrels would occur in the wild as well.  However, it is reasonable to expect that quarrels may be more frequent when a pod is being created artificially where there are no cultural or familial links between the animals.

The capture of orcas has been made more difficult and aquariums are making efforts to establish a breeding programme to circumvent this.  Essentially this would mean establishing a population of orcas in captivity that have never been in the wild.  This domestication programme, allegedly,  also circumvents some of the ethical issues surrounding the capture of orcas.  However, breeding orcas in captivity has not been that successful and the average life expectancy of orcas, either captured or born in captivity, is much lower than in the wild.  This leads to concerns as to the living conditions that are provided  Additionally it is impossible to provide the space that orcas are used to in the wild.  In the case of Tilikum, one of the other reasons why trainers are disallowed in the water is his sheer size.  Campaigners for his release state that the pools he is kept in are far too small for him.  Orcas are broadly divided into transients, residents and offshores with each having different feeding habits and territorial range.  These types are often placed into pods with no regard for their differences.  They do not interbreed  in the wild but hybrid orcas  are bred in captivity.  There has also been issues with mothers not knowing how best to care for their young because of the lack of examples of what maternal care entails.   

The argument for keeping orcas in aquariums is that the few that are presented to delight and entertain humans make us feel interested in their well-being and so we make more effort to safe-guard the ones in the wild; holding a small number of orcas in captivity is for the greater good.  Personally I find the argument a bit light on weight.  I care deeply about the well-being of animals in general, most of which I will probably only see on TV, and am quite happy with that.  I do understand that zoos and aquariums  do a lot in terms of conservation and I laud the people who work in them with that purpose in mind.  However, we need to do things appropriately rather than just make do.  The real problem is our mismanagement of our use of the world and if we don't care about it enough to change our ways, and need coaxing to perform our duties through the incarceration  of animals that fare badly in captivity, maybe we deserve to be extinct along with everything else we render extinct.