AND AN UBER THING

Uber’s loss of its London licence is important because it signals new courage on the part of authorities in the UK to say “enough” to innovative businesses like Uber, Airbnb and the rest. Uber’s servile approach to London Mayor Sadiq Khan is a sign this company realises, at last, that it’s not above the law. My guess is they’ll kiss, make up and Uber will get a licence renewal. The outrage of Guy Hands, government Minister for London and of ½ million Londoners who’ve signed a petition supporting its return suggests that Uber is more than a cab company. It’s a flag bearer for the new world of innovation.

But Uber is a dodgy concept with a disgraced ex CEO, virtually no assets, no investment in its drivers, a global valuation which shrunk last week to under $50 billion and which paid just £400k in UK tax last year on a turnover in excess of £115million. It has a shocking history of ignoring regulations and is banned in countries like Denmark and Italy and in parts of Australia, Canada and America.

But what I hadn’t realised was that in a recent piece of research on transport-providers its reputation had recently dropped to just above Southern Rail. Uber has become the Jimmy Savile of transport; untouchable because it appeals to so many people yet recognised by an equally large number as being on the wrong sign of ethics. I can hear the cry “one million customers in London can’t be wrong” which has a whiff of “Jim’ll Fix It is too popular to criticise”.

I can also sense the schadenfreude slant to the story. Many of us like to see the self-important and successful brought down. Looking at a different market the recent demise of Bell Pottinger was profoundly appealing to many in the PR industry. Is Uber another Bell Pottinger? Is Uber a Coriolanus of a brand? Is Uber a sign of the frailty of the techno-innovators? Are we in for a round of “I-told-you-so’s”?

Maybe instead we should take a long hard look at our transport infrastructure with Uber being forced to revise its way of working. And what happens to those 40,000 Uber drivers? It seems an awful lot of drivers (mathematically there’s one driver per 25 customers). And they aren’t Uber drivers as such. There’s no contract, no employment rights. No they are just freelancers who happen to drive under the Uber umbrella. If everyone worked the Uber way we’d be in a big mess.

But Uber is very cheap. It doesn’t seem to worry those petitioners asking for their Uber back that it may be very cheap for a very good reason.

In the end of course there’ll be a pragmatic solution.

Like that suggested by a story I read about a man acquitted in court of a bank robbery charge. As he left the dock he asked the Judge:

“Does that mean I can keep the money?”

LOOKING BACK TO CRAPPINESS

Enjoy the past with care.

On a late night comedy programme on Radio 4 - that sounds oxymoronic - someone said:

“I admire your pluck despite your apparent incompetence” to which the ‘incompetent’ replied

“I’m not incompetent I just split some water on my trousers when I was washing my hands”

Old fashioned comedy. They don’t tell them like that anymore. The past was such fun wasn’t it?

David Baddiel, writer and TV presenter, told the story of sharing a flat with Frank Skinner whose favourite meal was pie sandwich and whose room was so untidy the cleaner refused to go into it let alone attempt to clean it. Fun in the past? It was full of clothes waiting to go to the launderette, unwashed crockery and indescribable brands of food.

Angel Delight, Smash, Sunny Delight….delightful.

Yet there’s apparently been a gastro-retro-revival recently. Is this because of Brexit and a visceral yearning for a fantasy past when Britain was really great ….wasn’t it? Or is it a feeling of where we are right now, poised for doom, and simply wanting to hang on - what a football manager once wonderfully described as being on the “crest of a slump.”

According to the Times last week dishes on the up in this retro-boom are Prawn Cocktail, Spam Fritters, Coronation Chicken, Black Forest Gateau and Trifle.

Drinks à la mode include Negroni, Lambrusco, Babycham, BlueNun and Black Tower.

I imagine the glitterati having hilarious dinner parties in fits of laughter over tripe, Mateus Rosé and haggis …

“Haggis. What’s haggis made of Nigel?”

“Scrotum, Deirdre, as I recall.”
This is a blip surely, just a moment of eccentric masochism. Are we really going to return to the world of Richmond Sausages, of wine boxes and zabaglione? Well as regards wine boxes apparently so. It’s the good stuff now in those boxes (seriously reviewed by wine critics), they don’t clink in the recycling and the remark “jusht anuvver glass hic” doesn’t involve noisily and clumsily opening a second bottle to reproving looks.

This is 2017 but a lot of us are still behaving like teenagers.

What we keep on learning is that fashion recycles itself. Steam trains are fun, dodgems in an age of virtual reality still cut it and miniskirts disappear and then return. Sunday lunch with all that “trimmings” malarkey seems like a kind of gastronomic Capstan Full Strength, hopelessly out of date in a clean-food world, yet it retains its allure. Not for the food itself but for the ceremony and the conviviality of the event.

It’s the bottle of claret and uproarious conversation which is so wonderful. That bloated feeling which roast potatoes and rare beef leaves (with me at any rate) is a price well worth paying for the joy of companionship.

In a techno-world of computer games like FIFA 17, Vanquish and Firestorm how refreshing that Snap, Monopoly and lunch still have a place in people’s lives.

So drink that Negroni, nibble that pork crackling and relax.

WHAT SORT OF WORLD DO WE REALLY WANT?

Aren’t we currently like sheep sleepwalking uncomplainingly into an apocalyptic abattoir? It wasn’t just Brexit, Syria and North Korea that made me ask this. It was a two part BBC2 documentary programme called “The Secrets of Silicon Valley.”

In it Alan Kay, a onetime famous American Computer Scientist, was quoted:

“To predict the future we shall have to invent it”

But who are “we”? Not me for sure. On the basis of these documentaries by Jamie Bartlett the “we” are a pretty nasty bunch of people. I’m not sure that I want to have lunch with any of them,  nor have them meet my nearest and dearest. The world they want in the name of their presumed, unstoppable progress is dystopian. Yet when they’re challenged they just get angry. The angriest of those interviewed was Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator, described by Fast Company as “the world’s most powerful start-up incubator”.

Companies they’ve favoured with support and investment include Dropbox, Airbnb and Reddit. But as I listened to Sam talking to Jamie Harding, British tech writer and journalist, my skin froze. Even to question the consequences of the tech revolution led to being called a “progress denier” and opponent of what ordinary people want. Apparently we all want to be extracted from our work and paid a basic wage for doing nothing because, if you leave it to Sam, there’ll be no work, as we know it, for anyone to do.

Have I been tough on poor Sam? Line him up with the others on my list of “wrong ‘uns”. The late Steve Jobs (founder of Apple), Travis Kalanick (founder of Uber), Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook), Steve Bezos (founder of Amazon), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (founders of Google) and a Policy Head of Airbnb Chris Lehane (below) who gloried by the title “the Master of Disaster” when he worked for Bill Clinton.

These are self-styled “masters of the universe”, above the law (in their own minds and increasingly in ours). They claim to be different from the big, bad, old oil, pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies and the banks. They claim they are intent on making this world better and fairer. But the Guardian, although impressed by the TV documentary, asks this question:

“Are these “idealists” good guys who are challenging the old order or are they really tax-minimising corporations that threaten our future?”

How about the latter?

Google are facing a €2.4 billion EU fine for abusing their dominance as search engine owners giving illegal advantage to their own comparison-shopping service. All the US tech giants and others like Starbucks are alleged to owe a potential further €70 billion in extra-tax in the EU. In their own backyard, Santa Clara County, there’s a $60 billion rates tax-dispute with the tech giants.

Well I’m not sure that I want this modern Mafia inventing our future and shaping our world. We can do better than that.

In the end just being clever with algorithms isn’t enough.

IT'S A HEALTH ATTACK!

Last week there was an alleged sonar- health-attack on US Diplomats in Havana which left them deaf.  Its media exposure was in keeping with what’s become an increasing trend. Health scares are full of the ingredients of any good story - apparent “factual” statistics, human interest and gory drama.

Matt Dawson, ex-England Rugby captain, caught Lyme disease from a tick bite in a London Park. The effects were so severe he had to have heart surgery. Doctors initially missed out on diagnosing a disease which is more widespread than many think. So if you go down to the woods today where deer have been and get close to the ferns you may be attacked by a tick. If you develop a rash that looks like a target or if you feel tired, fevered and with a headache check it out. You could develop joint aches, swellings or, like Matt, worse.

Health attacks are easy to empathise with. Just writing this has made me feel a little unwell. But they also leave me confused.

Recent stories which endorse or contradict previously accepted wisdom include dismissal of the need to eat your five-a-day portions of fruit and vegetables … recent medical research says three is plenty.

Have you been to the dentist recently? Are your gums bleeding? If so you are 70% more likely to get dementia. (That was a Times front page scare recently.) Do you take statins?  Good news less likelihood of a stroke; bad news you may get crippling joint pains. According to Dame Sally Davies our Chief Medical Officer we should drink tea and cut out wine because of its clear link to cancer. Fact: if you are teetotal you have a one in ten chance of getting cancer but if you drink a bottle of wine a day that increases to one in seven. Cheers.

White bread and sugar are now the killers worse even than ISIS. Coffee is great. Fat is good. Pile on the butter and live a happier life. Not sleeping well? Maybe it’s because you’re stressed and worried about your health. The news I have will make your sleeplessness worse.

If you can’t sleep it may mean you’re about to have a stroke, heart attack or some dreadful disease.
Or not … I suspect that people who suffer such medical problems may well have had sleeping problems but that there’ll be many who can’t sleep and are fine. All fish swim but not everything that swims is a fish.

But there’s one medical issue that one in fifteen of us suffer from and are going to get these symptoms lashing them in the next months - Seasonal Affective Disorder. Symptoms include feelings of hopelessness, withdrawal from society, appetite problems and a lack of energy. It’s now being taken seriously and you can get help.

Like bright lighting, blazing fires, hot soup and robust stews, being cosy.  Enjoy winter. Don’t let it make your life a misery. Don’t be sad.