The benefit of foreign TV

Travelling in the Netherlands and Scandinavia it's amazing just how good everyone's second language (English) is. It's hard to find someone who doesn't speak English. One off the reasons is that for films and other TV programmes which originate in English, they are not dubbed into a local language -- so everyone gets practice daily understanding English. For countries like Germany which dub foreign programmes into their local language this is a shame as generations will grow up missing the opportunity to understand another language as well as the Scandinavians and Dutch do!

UK driving on right hand side of road

The Romans drove on the left, as does the UK and Japan, but 72% of the world drives on the right side of the road, with Sweden switching to the right in the 60s. Should the UK follow suit and allow us to import our cars from Europe? See wikipedia for the origins, but being right-handed suits having your right hand potentially free because you are driving on the left side of the road. Generally boats all drive on the right side of shipping lanes. Also planes on a collision course towards each other each turn left to avoid a collision.

Like eating with Knife and Fork, those right-handed take Knife, the more complex of the two to operate in their right hand. How does this compare for driving? Having driven on both the left and right I always find myself crusing with my right hand on the steering wheel, which shows that steering is best suited to to being right-hand drive like the UK is currently. The gears are very easy to operate on a stick or automatic in either hand I find.

Time for the UK to switch to be the same as the rest of the EU?

Time to prohibit chewing gum?

As chewing gum will always get dropped and stuck on pavements by a minority, is it time to prohibit chewing gum sales in the UK/EU? Singapore banned it back in 1992, the ban remains to this day (although medicinal gum is allowed). I wouldn't miss it, and it would not be "nanny state" ban. In fact, dog dirt is just as much a problem, if only the culture would change, and owners would tidy up after their pooches!

European travel adapters

Isn't it frustrating countries still use different sockets. The US/Japan ones are rather flimsy and have a trailing earth wire to connect sometimes. The UK ones are great, with a longer earth pin which "unlocks" the live+neutral pin holes in the socket. The Swiss ones are inconveniently slightly differently spaced round pins compared to France and Germany. The UK shaver 2-pin adapters are also slightly larger round pins which wont fit into standard French sockets!

My "European" travel adapter doesn't fit in Swiss sockets, I need to buy a separate 3 pin adapter for while I am there!

Why don't countries support a multi-compatible socket for the moment? Then in the future just standardise on the safer UK design of plug/socket.

When will Microsoft open up their OS to customisation?

One way Microsoft could improve their strategy is to offer users and PC sellers choices in the way the OS is setup, what components are installed and what browser, Wordprocesor is setup as default etc. Even more useful things like what UI is default and the ability to run a different desktop such as Gnome or KDE. It would give Microsoft another chance to compete with the flexibility that a GNU+Linux PC seller has. The EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes may even force them to open up their OS to vendor customisation when they loose the Opera case..? It would save them market in the short-term.. so let's hope they don't read this!

Things come in waves

The EU is currently continuing it's expansion east, doubling in size. I do wonder how long it will last, and if we will see an equal and opposite swing the other way just like CCCP and Yugoslavia did.

In 30-50 years time will we see a disentanglement effort and eventual peaceful breakup and separation?

I for one think the EU is something quite different from past efforts to integrate states. How things will fair after China and India change the world-trade map will be interesting to see, fingers crossed the EU lasts ;)