Plans have been announced to convert the A303, between the M3 and A338 (near Andover) into a motorway and introduce toll charges, like the M6 in Staffordshire. The new road could be operating as early as Spring 2007.
It is expected that the toll for a family car will be £2 during the day (£1 at night) with higher charges for commercial vehicles, coaches and lorries. Lower charges would apply for the Andover M303 junctions. The plans have been submitted to the Department of Transport by the French company, Loof-Evain. A decision is expected within weeks.
Rikki’s old one about TNUK merging with the National Bicycle Enthusiasts was good too…sadly lost in the bowels of our old server now, else I’d be digging it out as blackmail material against those of you who fell for it…
Chip ‘n’ SING, the new way to beat card fraud
By Alexi Harpor
TODAY it is “chip and PIN”. Soon it will be “chip and sing”. Britain’s banks are developing a system of credit card security that uses the voice’s tonal range. Rather than needing to recall a PIN, you will need to remember a line of a song.
Fraud has fallen since chip and PIN became compulsory, but customers struggle to remember their numbers. Ellis Bastan, chief technical spokesman of the British Banking Federation, said: “High street transactions have been suffering, so we have been looking at alternative methods of identity verification. Optical scans are too fallible, and standard voice recognition too easy to mimic electronically. But no two people sing the same way.”
Tills and cash dispensers are to have microphones. However, Mr Bastan adds, “if people struggle to recall a PIN, there is every chance they will also forget which song they are meant to sing. You might get some poor old dear belting out My Way in her local Co-op, when she is supposed to be doing The Hallelujah Chorus. That wouldn’t do at all. There has to be one universal song, for everybody.”
The search for one continues. Technicians developed the system using Parry’s Jerusalem, but dropped it to mollify Scottish and Welsh nationalists.
The new technology will be equally secure over the telephone or, where computers are fitted with a microphone, over the internet.
The Lyrical Input Elocution System looks set to be commonplace by April 1, 2009.
Blair paints No 10 front door socialist red
by ANDREW LEVY, Daily Mail 08:56am 1st April 2006
Along with the Houses of Parliament, it is the bestknown symbol of Britain’s political heritage.
But now - in a move seen by critics as unhinged - the famous shiny black front door of 10 Downing Street has been seen for the last time.
In an incredible break with some 250 years of tradition, it has been painted red - a colour normally associated with the Labour Party.
Political insiders said the paint job had been ordered by the Prime Minister, apparently feeling well and truly at home nine years after claiming the keys to Number 10. But one of his own MPs warned: “There are some things you can’t put a good spin on and this clearly politicises one of the most powerful images in British democracy.” The MP, who asked not to be identified, added: “Voters will not like it.”
The move - which had not been previously announced - left onlookers open-mouthed yesterday. They watched as workmen carried the door along Downing Street before heaving it into place and attaching it. A cleaning lady then added the finishing touches by giving it a quick polish.
American tourist Earl Myers said: “I can’t believe Mr Blair has changed one of England’s most famous landmarks. George Bush would never paint the door of the White House a different colour, even with the Stars and Stripes.”
There are actually two doors, which are swopped over every year for a touch-up. It was unclear yesterday-whether the replacement had also been changed - or if red and black will alternate.
While Number 10’s role as the home of the Prime Minister has waxed and waned in the years since George II gave it to Sir Robert Walpole in the 1730s, the door’s colour has always remained the same - black - apart from 1908 to 1916, when PM Herbert Asquith had it painted dark green.
April Fewell, a design consultant, said: “It’s a significant declaration of personal ownership by Tony Blair. But it sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the street.”
There was one in one of the Scottish papers suggesting that the roof on the Scottish Parliament building was to be replaced with a sliding roof, Millennium Stadium style, so Scottish MP’s could get round the smoking ban in enclosed spaces.
