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Continue reading →: The past. Very much present.
All across the Cotswolds, if you stop for just a few minutes on hilltops, you can find strips of broken concrete, grass growing in the jumbled cracks. Red brick buildings with peeling, grey render and steel framed, glassless windows. Today, they’re derelict, but these World War II RAF bases were…
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Continue reading →: ‘As easy to understand as a legal contract’ – OCC’s Lowlands Movement and Place Plan consultationWhen I’m not writing about watches and time, I run a business that specialises in helping organisations communicate with their customers. It’s an area I’ve worked in for more than 25 years. Outside some technical or legal writing, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a set of documents so difficult…
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Continue reading →: Objection – West Oxfordshire Lowlands Movement and Place Plan
1. Why this strategy is not viable 2. The Plan contradicts itself The plan acknowledges, repeatedly, that this is a predominantly rural area with high car dependency: Having established all of that, the plan sets a target to remove 1 in 4 car trips by 2030 and 1 in 3…
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Continue reading →: What OCC’s ‘Lowlands Movement and Place plan’ really means
Overview The West Oxfordshire Lowlands Movement and Place Plan (MAP Plan) is Oxfordshire County Council’s strategy document for transport and travel in the area covering Witney, Carterton, Burford, Eynsham and surrounding villages – a predominantly rural district of approximately 87,000 people, expected to grow to around 136,000 by 2043. It…
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Continue reading →: Getting emotional about speed limitsWe may not like to admit it, but we’re run by our limbic brains. That’s the part that looks after keeping us alive by deploying the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ reaction. Something startles or scares you – your limbic brain fires in fractions of a second to keep you out…
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Continue reading →: Stop wasting my timeYou’ll probably live until you’re, near as dammit, 80. 80 birthdays. 80 Christmases, 80 summer holidays. That’s 29,200 days. Not long, is it? And, apart from hoping for decent genetics, laying off the pies and going for the odd run, there’s not a lot you can do to significantly extend…
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Continue reading →: How easy to read was Oxfordshire County Council’s Central Oxford Transport Plan (COTP)?Local authorities are increasingly consulting residents on implementing policy that significantly affects their lives. Oxfordshire County Council alone has 31 open traffic consultations at the time of writing. Even a single consultation takes effort to read, understand and reply to, so each needs to be easy to understand for residents.…
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Continue reading →: Are lower blanket limits the answer for Witney?Speed and speed limits are always controversial. They get a massive emotional response; stand by the side of the road and almost everyone feels angry about ‘those bloody speeding drivers’. Likewise, over the last few years 20mph limits have become an ideological rallying point for some groups – an article…
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Continue reading →: Dumb thinking or intelligent speed limiters?Intelligent Speed Adaptation – not so intelligent and not so adaptable Who’s the best person to control your throttle pedal? You, the person behind the wheel, checking for hazards and moderating your speed according to constantly changing road conditions or your local councillor who’s worried about getting re-elected and under…
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Continue reading →: When a sign tells you more than it’s designed to
In the 1950s, psychologist Eric Berne wrote a paper on Transactional Analysis (TA). In it he talked about how people function and express their personality through their behaviour. TA also works as a tool to analyse the way people – and organisations – communicate. In essence, people can communicate as…
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Continue reading →: TAGging along – the TAG Heuer F1 series
Maybe it’s because I originally bought one of these in 1997 with a bonus from work, but I’ve had a bit of a soft spot for them since. And, as they’re a very long way from Patek money, why not start collecting them? The TAG Heuer F1 series was part…
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Thanks for dropping in. There’s all sorts of stuff here, from reviews of watches to thoughts on driving and riding. And you’re welcome whether you agree with any of it or not.
MMC Musings 