Another Planet Rock news item – Rush is to get The Ronnie James Dio Lifetime Achievement Award in April.
As Neil Peart said:
Our ‘lifetimes’ are not over yet, and we dearly hope our ‘achievements’ are not either, so I suppose you could say that to us this is the ‘So Far, So Good’ award.
Great to hear that.
It looks like the long-awaited new album from Rush – Clockwork Angels – will be released in May. According to Planet Rock, Amazon and HMV Japan have set the release date for 23 May 2012.
In actual fact, I have pre-ordered my copy from Amazon and the date is set to 29 May. It may have moved back a bit, as pre-order items often do.
I heard Darren Redick mention a few days ago on air that a new single from the album could be released as early as next week, so I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears open for that.
On top of this, Rush appear in Billboard Magazine’s list of the top 40 earners for 2011, earning nearly $6m – slightly behind Foo Fighters.
Update: The new single – called Headlong Flight – has been played to journalists and executives. Actual release is still unclear, but it could be anytime from 19th April onwards. It is due to be aired on select stations this Wednesday (April 11th), according to CX-1, and I would imagine that Planet Rock will be one such station in the UK.
An interesting American story about special needs and learner drivers. It says that young drivers with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) are between two and four times more likely to have a crash than those without the condition – which makes them more likely to crash than an adult who is legally drunk.
Researchers say that many teenagers with attention or other learning problems can become good drivers, but not easily or quickly, and that some will be better off not driving till they are older — or not at all.
It makes you wonder why they are allowed to drive at all, doesn’t it, with comments like that? And I don’t just mean American learners.
I agree with the article that inattention is an absolute major problem for this group. I’m teaching several at the moment, and the other day one of them kept looking down at the gearstick when changing up or down (something that had just cropped up on this particular lesson – he hadn’t done it before). I’d addressed it as far as I could at that point – driving at 50mph on a winding rural road – but then he did it again just as he was going into a bend. I had to bark “Dave! Mind the kerb”, to which he replied “I see what you mean” (referring to my earlier explanation of why it was important to stay alert).
The thing is, we would have hit the kerb and gone into a ditch – possibly rolling – if I hadn’t intervened. He admitted the same himself.
Imagine that (if he was a full licence holder) and did this on his own, or with friends in the car: 18 years old, rural road, on a bend, roll the car off the road, no other vehicle involved.
Does that script sound familiar? My blood runs cold at what might happen to people who can pass the test, but over whom inattention hangs as a Sword of Damocles!
American statistics suggest that ADHD affects at least 3-5% of the young population, though some studies suggest much higher figures. ADHD is apparently on the increase, and the American Society of Pediatrics says 12% of children are affected.
As that original quote suggests, those with ADHD can learn to handle it with time – sometimes. But as juveniles it is not easy to overcome.
It makes you wonder if the problem with young drivers having such a high accident rate might be something more to do with ADHD than it is to do with the instruction they received, or just their “inexperience” – as is usually trotted out. Perhaps those things exacerbate the problem, but what matters is the underlying cause and not just the easy targets.
This is interesting – an Android app which turns your smartphone into a device which tells you how far away from the car in front you are. It’s also supposed to be able to tell you when you deviate from lanes.
I’m going to have a play with it when I get the chance.
This article is a review, but the Android Market reviews differ somewhat, giving it higher and lower ratings. On average, though, higher.
What the app does is use your phone’s camera and GPS sensors to relate to road position and proximity to the vehicle in front. It can also take snapshots if you want it to. It has a range of other features which are covered in the article.
It’s called iOnRoad. Search for it in the Android Market.
This is an old, old story and all references to ‘DSA’ should be read as ‘DVSA’. Also, being almost ten years old, it is not likely to be numerically accurate any more.
When you look around the “instructorsphere” (new word), one thing that strikes you is how everything is always DSA’s fault. Too many instructors? Blame DSA. Instructors charging stupid low prices? Blame DSA. Pupil fails their test? Blame DSA. And so it continues.
One topic that keeps cropping up is test cheats and bogus instructors – particularly when the alleged culprit is of, shall we say, non-UK origin. But instructors are definitely not discriminatory in any way – we know that because they always say so before they launch in with both Doc Martens.
Another freedom of information (FOI) request reveals that DSA has spent “at least” £4.3m over 18 months on private detectives using covert surveillance techniques to catch impersonators and “other cheats”.
Of course, this distilled version will be enough to have certain people snapping the ropes in anger as they hoist their English flags up their garden flagpoles of a morning because of the amount of money involved. However, they will conveniently ignore the fact that there were around 5,000 notifications of suspected criminal behaviour in the same period.
That works out at around £860 per investigation. Which is absolute peanuts.
Overall, there were 511 arrests (so 10% of investigations came up trumps), leading to 141 convictions (2.8%) and 163 police cautions (3.3%). Not every accusation is either true or can be proven, but 60% of those arrested were nailed. If DSA had pursued cases it wasn’t likely to win, the spend would have been much, much higher and the success rate much, much lower.
According to the article, DSA said it will continue to spend in the region of £270,000 a month to try to catch cheats. At one of my test centres alone, there would be not far off 1,000 tests conducted each month, and if the rate of cheating is even as low as 0.1%, that would work out to one investigation (at around £860, remember). There are over 320 test centres in the UK mainland, which would add up to around £275,000 per month.
So, bingo! The numbers add up.
Yes, yes, we all know that some areas are worse than others, but since we aren’t seers (well, some ADIs think they are) we – and DSA – have to play the odds.
The bottom line is that £4.3m isn’t that much when you consider the scale of both the operation and the problem.
Well done Elizabeth, who passed first time with just 4 driver faults today.
Compared to last year, I haven’t had that many tests this year so far – but today’s pass brings it to 8 passes out of 12 tests, so not bad going when you consider that three of them were the same person (passed third time). Five were first time passes.
Elizabeth was nervous as hell. But then again, most of them are, so nothing to worry about there. And she even had one moron do the old “I’ve got priority turning right” trick at a junction.
Well, two of my local garages got fuel in again today – and there were queues at them all day. Fortunately, they weren’t as large as yesterday – although it WAS bad around midday-mid-afternoon.
I finally went in one of them tonight after my last lesson, and when the queues 
had almost gone. I thought I’d be in and out reasonably quickly, but when I got to the pay desk there was a stupid bitch with a credit card that the attendant was having to phone up someone about. Judging from his rolled eyes and repeated attempts, he couldn’t get through. In the end, we all heard clearly that she’d bought just over £12 of fuel! What was the bloody point?
When I got outside, they were queuing up the road again because no one else had been able to pay quickly and drive away.
Nice one, Victoria Mott. A nominee for the Darwin Awards 2012.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports that panic buying by people like Ms Mott is hitting small businesses hard. People are cancelling holidays and such like. It’s not surprising – yesterday I was seriously worried that I would have to cancel lessons, even though I had half a tank left.
Half a tank lasts me a day if I’m busy. The same amount would keep idiots like Ms Mott and her kind going for a bloody week.
I heard this on the radio a few minutes ago and it hasn’t filtered through properly into the news channels yet. Also on Sky News. More stories coming in from Yorkshire, and the BBC. Keep an eye on these as they will expand the story when more information comes in.
A woman in York has suffered 40% burns as the petrol she was transferring into different containers in her kitchen burst into flames.
This is entirely the fault of the “government’s” advice to panic buy.
Contrary to what it said, it did NOT withdraw the advice. It diluted it in an attempt to protect the moron who said it. The fact is, it WAS said. In just the same way that someone in court who says they “didn’t mean” to do something is still guilty of it, the “government” is guilty of advising people to panic buy.
Incoming stories suggest the woman had the gas cooker alight while she was doing it!
Cameron is totally out of touch with reality (and the electorate) if he thinks people aren’t this stupid. They are. And they are simply following the advice of HIS government.
It made me laugh listening to news yesterday. Plenty of talk about garage forecourts “running low” or seeing “increased sales”. What planet does the BBC live on, where the entire surface of the earth appears to consist only of London and the Home Counties, and nowhere else.
In Nottingham, Asda at West Bridgford had a queue outside as I drove past on a lesson at around mid-afternoon. A glance in showed the garage was shut. There was a BBC van with big satellite dish on top parked in the pub next door, so it’s not like they didn’t know.
Around the same time, Bunny service station was closed with “No Fuel” signs outside.
All day, the Esso service Station in Ruddington had had long queues outside. By evening it was empty – and there isn’t a delivery scheduled until tonight at the earliest, so I’m told.
The garage on Meadow Lane only had diesel left.
This morning, I noticed the Crusader garage had “no fuel” signs up.
I’ve noticed that 90% of the panic buyers are old people and women with kids – those with nothing else to do all day. I’m sure their adventures in the queues are the sole topic around the dinner table or outside the school gates that day. All of them will happily back up into main roads, on to roundabouts, or anywhere else they fancy, without the slightest consideration for the obstruction they are causing. Let’s be honest, who but old people and women with kids could think as one-dimensionally as that?
Fuel should be rationed. And the ANPR system ought to be able to recognise regular customers and kick out those parasites who travel around.
And the police should get off their arses and do what the forces have been doing in other counties – moving people on who block roads.
I was really worried last night. With only about half a tank of fuel, I would only have had enough to get me through today (probably) and then I’d be screwed. Fortunately, on a lesson last night I took a pupil into a garage and we managed to fill up there – it was good experience, of course. but I prefer to do this when I think they’re ready, and not because I have to.
I use a tank of fuel every two days, and that’s only fits into my week if I have unrestricted access to fuel when I get low. Because of panic buying, I dare not stick to my schedule – I cannot, otherwise I’d simply end up out of gas. I’ve just got to bite the bullet and top up when I can – and keep my fingers crossed that even that is enough.
Panic buyers haven’t made me use more fuel, but they’ve forced me to have to fill up every day instead of every other day. I will be out of work if I don’t.
Panic buyers are imbeciles. Anyone reading this who has panic bought fuel when they don’t need it is an imbecile. Anyone thinking of panic buying is an imbecile.
After that idiot Francis Maude told everyone to go out an panic buy fuel today – and after his so-called boss made matters worse by implying that people should only panic buy sensibly – that’s exactly what they were doing tonight (minus the “sensible” part).
There were huge queues at the garages.
They weren’t putting much in, either. A stupid bitch in a white BMW X6 attempted to barge her way in front of me (and failed), and then spent literally less than 30 seconds putting diesel in the damned thing after she’d pushed in front of someone else. She must have spent less than a tenner!
If they can’t afford to run the damned things properly they shouldn’t have them. As I often tell my pupils, not all of the jackasses who have these big cars actually own them. They technically belong to the finance company.