Monday
Like many people, I received hundreds of messages last month from companies who had been forced to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and were begging me to allow them to carry on sending me emails I didn’t want. Unusually for me – I tend to delete spam without opening it – I did make a point of answering every one as it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reclaim my inbox. It was a lot of hard work as I had to read the small print carefully. Some organisations asked me to tick a box if I wanted to carry on receiving emails whereas others insisted I formally ask to unsubscribe from their newsletters. AKA adverts. A few just wouldn’t take no for an answer. Having replied that I would somehow get by without receiving another message from them, I would immediately get a further email saying how sorry they were to see me go, was I really sure I knew what I was doing and they were giving me a final chance for them to stay in touch. The deadline for GDPR came and went and I looked forward to my new spam-free life. Only it hasn’t happened. My inbox is still getting clogged up with emails from people I thought had promised to leave me alone. Ryanair send me three emails a day offering me flights to places I don’t want to visit. Please stop.
Tuesday
There was a time when airport expansion in the south-east was considered so toxic that successive governments made a point of never coming to a decision about it. Those days are long gone. With Theresa May stuck in a Brexit limbo with a white paper she doesn’t know how to fill and a time-limited backstop that has no time limit, and her government under the cosh with trains in both the north and south not going anywhere, planes are a welcome distraction. So the transport minister, Chris Grayling, was sent to the Commons to say the government was going to give the go-ahead to a third runway at Heathrow. It proved to be an instructive session. MPs whose constituencies were close to Heathrow were vehemently opposed to the development, saying the air and noise pollution would be intolerable. Those with constituencies near Gatwick and the Thames estuary were thrilled to have dodged a bullet and couldn’t wait for the government to start building as soon as possible in case it got cold feet. And those with constituencies nowhere near London were all eager to make sure their local airports would get direct flights to Heathrow. Almost no one mentioned the national interest.
Wednesday
No longer will you have the excuse of having no spare change when passing a busker. Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, has launched a scheme – Busk in London – that will provide street performers with card readers to collect money off audiences via contactless payment. Something about this just doesn’t feel right to me. The deal with buskers was always that, if you liked what you were hearing, you’d bung a few coins into their hat while they carried on playing. Short and sweet, with minimal eye contact. Now the whole process has been made far more formal. And very unBritish. Buskers will have to stop mid-performance to ask how much you are willing to pay, so they can key the right amount into the card machine. Then they will have to ask you to wait around while your payment is authorised, only to ask you to pay with a different card when it is declined. Only once the transaction is complete do you get to hear the rest of the song. Who says romance is dead?
Thursday
Normally with a week to go until the start of a World Cup, the back pages are full of stories about “our wonderful boys” and how this could be the year when England win the trophy for a second time. This year the hype appears to have been dampened down. Partly because the World Cup is taking place in Russia and no one – the teams, the fans and media – appears that enthusiastic about the prospect, but also because a degree of realism has finally set in. There is a good reason England are ranked 12th in the world by Fifa. It’s because there are at least 11 other teams that you can reasonably expect to beat England on any given day: not to mention any number of other teams who could beat an off-form England on any other day. Though 12th is respectable enough, it does mean England are predicted to be knocked out in the first round of the knock-out stages. Which is usually just about what they manage, only for them to be unfairly vilified in the media for being hopeless. This time let’s give them credit where credit’s due and celebrate if England make it out of the group stages. For what it’s worth, my own World Cup preparations are ahead of schedule, as I just need another 34 stickers to complete my Panini album. Game on.
Friday
I’m not the world’s most enthusiastic flier. So I’m rather cheered to discover that, according to Emirates, the future of air travel is planes with no windows. This suits me just fine because I’m near enough OK in a plane as long as I have an aisle seat and can pretend to myself that I’m not 36,000ft up. My problems always start when I get a bit cocky, look out the window and realise that the blob of ice I can see far in the distance down below is Greenland. That’s when I get a bit panicky and have to repeat affirmations like, “It’s OK, John, you’re probably not going to die this time” in order to stabilise myself. What’s even better about windowless planes is that they use less fuel than ordinary planes, so my neurosis dovetails nicely with the environmental agenda. My anxiety really is helping the planet. The new planes will require a different mindset though. Emirates is planning to replace the windows with virtual screens that would allow passengers to look out at a world of their choice. So I will have to relocate to the window seat to make sure the screen is kept switched off.
Digested week: Failing Grayling
