I took this photo on the train into work one morning. Someone was drinking Coca Cola, presumably for breakfast. However, drinking Coca Cola at any time of day is bad enough, not only for its horrendous chemical properties (have you seen how shiny it makes your loo bowl??) but also for the company’s most unethical practices, syphoning off irrigation water in India for one and also reports of the company using Indians and others as ‘guinea pigs’ to test human tolerance for pesticide chemicals.
But that’s just a sad indictment of the world in which we live, where big corporations can run rough-shod over everything and everyone and most of us follow salivating for more. On another train journey into work, I was browsing through the normally painful Metro free ‘news’paper and to my chagrin fell upon a little newsbite with the strapline ‘Asda trademarks the word ‘chav’. It referred to Asda (owned by the Devil himself, Walmart), wanting to trademark the word ‘Chav’ and ‘Chav Sweets’ for a new line of sweets they are marketing. There are three months to object to the Trademark Registry. I say let Asda have it. We can then call the fake Burberry-wearing, expletive-saturated, hoop-earring dangling, tangoed, nylon-covered embarrassments we share the human race with such things as I’ve just mentioned. Oh, and coke-swilling. Probably also the ones who’d buy a Fosters for breakfast on the train too. And I’ve seen that also. ‘Any refreshments…?’
I like weeds, they are stories of nature’s success. We seem to want to cultivate the weaklings and destroy the strong successful ones! A challange I guess.
[...] The daily experiences of those who used services on the First Great Western network in and outside London clearly demonstrate general levels of disappointment at the service provided. It is not possible to measure this ‘accurately’. It is much easier to get worked up about a delay or cancellation than an entire journey that runs on time, makes connections and is on a train with ample capacity for people and luggage, that is clean, not too hot and stuffy and with seats, aisles and windows that are clean and in a good state of repair (and perhaps even with a buffet cart that doesn’t aim to sell you Stella or Coke for breakfast). [...]