i shut down a charities mailing list.
Many organisations use email services such as mailchimp or constantcontact.
This may be good to get round many email restrictions by hosts for the emailer but is often bad news for the emailee.
Here is the scenario that meant i single handed managed to get a national charity email list shut down.
Clocktower western road signal disaster
Here is some of the reasoning behind the lastest mess up with the central corridor
1. Dyke road/Churchill square,
clock tower junctions. In spring/summer 2015, this junction had a major
sequencing change. Please provide
Q2 - all correspondence regarding this change,
Badly behaved dog OWNERS in restaurants
I met up with school friend for lunch just outside Farnham, she suggested a pub that was dog friendly as i had furry doorstop with me.
on entering the doors, (no anti dog signs) the dog (firmly on a short lead) looked left and a woman sitting next to the door said "that dogs was after my dinner" actually her plate contained something akin to a Brussels spout leaf.
My friend asked if dogs were allowed, " yes over there in the corner bar or there but not on the carpeted areas"
the only area that wasn't occupied was one corner (round table flanked by small side tables where a couple were sitting. as we approached the woman sitting at the round table said (or declared!) "but we got 3 dogs here!"
London road has greatly improved! - not quite
The London Road Action Team https://londonroadlat.wordpress.com/ and "visitlondonroad" @visitlondonroad are continually ( and often rightly) campaigning for improvements to the London Road area. BUT, there are several things they seem to have turned a blind eye to.
when can a bike use a bus lane in Brighton
Keep left unless you are in portslade.
Technically it is illegal to pass a keep left sign on the right.
Portslade level crossing is one of the busiest crossings around. Its timed so that the trains pass within a few minutes of each other but for time saving of the lines, they keep the gates lowered until both trains have passed. this can cause a delay of several minutes for traffic.
unless your these people of course.
how badly can you describe a pub meal?
We would have had better value going to motorway service station. The really [ sarcasm ] clued in [/ sarcsm ]barman seemed lost when he took food orders, when i asked what the chefs pie was, he went to check and came back and said "there isnt one"
The menu board had the usual pub items on it, 2 of us had chosen the roast of the day (beef). On the board there was also beef chillies <?> and what was written as bacon and cheese burger, beef or chicken with chips and onion rings
so one of us chose the beef, i said quite specificically, "a plain chicken burger, and do the chips come salted"
"yes"
Car parking anpr and data protections
One of the car parks in worthing has recently changed to ANPR recognition and charging. They also apparently allow for a major lapse in personal security or some other data protection failure.
When you come to pay, you enter 3 digits of your car registration. not really a roblem but the system then shows a selection of images with rough matches. In these images it is possible to identify the driver.
This can lead to people "randomly " selecting a car and then identify the driver from the image.
Note this is the inly car park i know where you go in the right and come out the left. aka the wrong side of the road.
More...
Bus spotters - the pain
There is a certain breed of bus lovers, the anoraks, different to the geek variety.
Anoraks are the traditional people who sit on the kerb with a little book of numbers, sandwhiches and a thermos flask. Brighton has a regular company of these people. Now, do not get me wrong, i do not mind people attending bus rallies and taking pictures (except where they ask you to turn the bus aroaund to get the better picture), i do mind the people who step out in front of you or distract you to get the money shot.
we have several techniques for the photographers.
You can slightly move the bus to the side to avaoid a pigeon or something.
You can forget that you have placed your hi-viz on the dashboard.
Wave at the photographer, or you can make it very clear you are taking their picture. on one day this week was a very rare occasion where there were 4 standing together and one standing the other side of the fountains,
University of Sussex - cant add up
A recent FOI request asked for some details on the state of the roads at sussex university. mainly, how legal are the road signs, who is responsible for them and what enforcement is carried out (specifically in the bus/cycles only lane areas).
The answer originally came back that the roads even though on private property were subject to the Road Traffic Act. Road signs were legal specification and were the responsibility of the Estate services to maintain (or not ). The final part of the question produced the most shocking revelation and mistake.
There had been numerous fines issued for [parking] offenders.
The original question asked
In areas marked as restricted, eg Bus & cycles only, cycles only, no entry, what is the enforcement level.
Response
3) Enforcement of all traffic and parking regulations comes under the control of the University security team.
In areas where enforcement takes place, how many breaches of rules have resulted in fines or similar.
Response
4) For the period 1 January 2013 - 31 December 2013 1048 penalty notices were issued.
This was obviously unbelievable so it was clarified, in item 4)
= please do not count pay and display parking fines as these werenot requested, but only count the areas requested, eg Bus & cycles only, cycles only, no entry,
Their response.
4) Having taken on board your clarification 'please do not count pay and display parking fines ..[and] only count the areas requested, eg Bus & cycles only, cycles only, no entry', the response is that there has been no enforcement that ended in a Fixed penalty fine being issued for any of the areas that are indicated.
Look closely, they have added a word to the FOI question, (tut tut) and despite them stating the Security team are responsible, NO "fines" or enforcement has been handed out.
Therefore to all you Tesco, Asda, pizza (majority uninsured) and taxi drivers don't worry about parking in a BUS LANE as defined within the road traffic act. Just remember that any accidents that happen on campus property must be reported to security (who will no doubt then enforce the RTA).
Summary
Sussex University,
1. you are missing a great revenue stream.
2. Your security team are not fulfilling their role by NOT enforcing your own rules (fining bus lane drivers/preventing uninsured vehicles to enter your property)
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sef/services/transport/ordinances-and-regulations/traffic (2.3 - if a pizza driver doesn't have insurance for delivering pizza then the entire insurance is invalid!)
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sef/services/transport/ordinances-and-regulations/motor-vehicle-parking