I really don't care that MPs have claimed for TVs or furniture for their second homes (although these items obviously now belong to the state and should be returned by MPs leaving the house), or that they've received payments for general living costs incurred as part of their employment (anyone working away from home would expect their employer to cover reasonable costs). News of moats and duck ponds is more worrying, although this also represents a failure of the rules themselves and of the office charged with enforcing the rules (I think few accountants in private companies would pay an expense claim for gardening).
 
Changing you designated primary residence to avoid paying Capital Gains Tax, however, as several Cabinet Ministers are alleged to have done, is a far more serious breach of trust and these investigations are clearly better handled by the Police than by an internal House of Commons team. Gordon Brown's response to allegations of criminal fraud, particularly when evidence appears to support those allegations, must be to initiate a criminal enquiry and to suspend the MPs involved. Will he?
 
One more thing. If MPs really want to be improve their image, they should simply adopt the expenses rules that parliament forces upon everyone else. Abolish the current system of allowances and instead adopt the rules laid down by Inland Revenue and other agencies. Anything less will be seen by a cynical public as an attempt to continue the current system by a new name and will further degrade trust in our battered political system. It's time for real change.

Train etiquette is fairly well developed in the UK, where long familiarity and an ingrained respect for personal privacy combine to deliver a boringly predictable travel experience. Most of the time, anyway.
 
So what do you do when people start to push the envelope a little, by shouting into their mobile phones, for example, or playing loud music through tinny headphones? Nothing of course; you look the other way and ignore them, trusting that someone else will remonstrate with them sooner or later (this happens only when the Guard appears, and not often even then). This works tolerably well in no situations at all, but at least it allows you to complete your journey without the embarrassment of having to talk to an un-introduced stranger.
 
There are two situations where this approach really doesn't work. The first is when your neighbour insists on intruding into your personal space, by falling asleep on your shoulder, maybe, or by stretching their newspaper in front of you.
 
The other is smell, where, for example, a fellow passenger insists on eating something obnoxiously chemical without seeming to care about the discomfort caused to his fellows. I'm not against eating on trains in general (I've often done it myself, especially late at night when dinner is but a distant memory) but sometimes it seems that the forcible ejection of another passenger via the window of a still- moving train is not a wholly unjustified act.

The BBC advise (link) that the Palm Pre will be launched on 6th June in the US, two days before the start of Apple's WWDC where the new iPhone models are expected to be announced. Next month should be interesting.

Last night I left my laptop in the office with the tech guys so that it's numerous annoying idiosyncracies might be tempered, possibly by the repeated application of a large axe to the keyboard. Not having to carry it on the train has allowed me to leave my bag at home and I'm surprised to find that this has actually made quite a difference - walking without the extra few kilos can't really be much easier, but it certainly feels a lot easier, and my step us lighter.
 
But what about the guilt? Ought I not to be working on the train, or at least doing something constructive? Well, yes, probably, but I console myself with the knowledge that I would be working if the tools provided were fit for purpose, as they normally are (I ignore the nagging doubt that I may accidentally have done something to my laptop to cause it's current state of sub-optimal performance).
 
Anyway, it should all be sorted out today so tomorrow I'll be back amongst the em-bagged, carrying my work with me and disrupting the sleep of my fellow passengers with my keyboard rattling. Can't wait.

The seats on SWT's rolling stock are minimally comfortable; if you sit up straight and face forward they're not too bad but if you try anything else, like sleeping, they punish you with back or neck pains. As a result, I've largely given up trying to sleep on the way home but, just occasionally, it's unavoidable and I find myself slumping, twisting and dozing.
 
Most plane seats are worse, of course, and even more cramped. There's no easy answer (although travelling while drunk has something going for it) so I just grin and bear it and it does, after all, make it easier to work on the way home. A pillow might help, I suppose, but I don't really fancy carrying one around with me so, regrettably, the only option is to suffer and complain. Sorry.

A while ago I posted (http://myryama.posterous.com/using-twitter-for-work) my musings on the use of Twitter in the workplace and whether or not it might be a useful communication tool. My original post raised more questions than answers but I've been investigating and can now update you on my findings. 

Shortly after my last post I tried to create a second Twitter account and immediately ran into a problem with email addresses; Twitter will only allow you to associate an email address with one account which conflicted with my desire to have all my notifications to drop into one Inbox. Luckily I have several Google email accounts (don't ask why) that are aggregated into one Inbox, so the problem was quickly overcome.
 
Twitter has a privacy option which, in most situations, renders the service pretty much useless since it hides your posts, but it does allow invitation-only communication - exactly what you want for a semi-confidential channel. Have a look at http://twitter.com/myryamawork to see what I mean, and compare to my normal account at http://twitter.com/myryama.
 
Why "MyryamaWork" instead of a name that includes, for example, my employer's company name? For the same reason that I opened the account with a personal email address; if this service is useful I want to take it with me if I change jobs.
 
Is it useful? I'm not sure. TweetDeck seems to have facility for only one account (although it's a very early Beta product and multiple account access is such an obvious feature that it's bound to get it sooner or later) so, for the timebeing, I'm using two FireFox plugins (BeTwittered and TwitterGadget), one for each account. This works tolerably well but isn't a very elegant solutions and I'll dump it as soon as I come up with something better.
 
That hasn't really answered the question of usefulness and, at this stage, I'm inclined to say that the tools aren't quite there yet. If TweetDeck, or a similar desktop application, handled multiple accounts then the service might usefully communicate updates to interested parties but, as it is, you're restricted to either personal or work accounts. Is that a problem? Maybe not, but it depends how you want to use the service.
 
My plan at the moment is to keep posting to the MyryamaWork account and to see how it goes, but without publicising my activity to my workmates. This rather defeats the object of the exercise but until I'm happy that all the tools are in place I don't think there's really much alternative. More updates to follow.

I stumbled across an entertaining dictionary of Mountain Bike Slang the other day: http://world.std.com/~Jimf/biking/slang.html

There are loads of great entries, but my favourite is:

JRA n. acronym for "Just Riding Along," a phrase universally uttered by people bringing both halves of their frame and the remains of their fork in for warrantee replacement.

Actually, I'm not sure "think" is the right word. Play this clip (from an interview on the BBC) and you'll see what I mean. 

I tried, with a friend from work, to attend a lecture given by Dr Ben Goldacre (www.badscience.net) in London earlier this year but fortune conspired against us and we were unable to gain entry (it was very popular). I have tried a couple of times to find alternative dates or events but without success.
 
Then, in one of BG's Tweets, I noticed a link to a venue I might be just able to reach in Brighton: www.bom-banes.co.uk/musicdates.html. Unfortunately, the gig is this evening and there's no practical way to get there that doesn't involve considerable expense or inconvenience so it looks like I'm back to the drawing board. All help gratefully received.

I find myself again annoyed by the appalling phone/data connection quality on my daily train journey. In the middle of mountainous Wales or the wilds of Dartmoor one might expect 3G connections to be a little flakey but in civilised Surrey, where remote means being more than 3 miles from a branch of Waitrose, it ought to be possible to deliver a fast reliable data service.
 
End of minor rant.