London 2012 Workers stay at home to avoid the crush - Daily Telegraph
One MP said: “The economic effects of the Games — on public finances and GDP — could well be negative and I think this is something that people should turn their attention to after the Games.”
The Government has set a target for half of all London-based civil servants to either work from home, work from another office, change their working hours or alter their route to work during the games. An estimated 800 Ministry of Justice staff worked from home yesterday, while around 400 London-based Department for Work and Pensions staff relocated to offices outside London.
Thousands of staff at taxpayer-owned RBS are expected to work from home during the Olympics. A spokesman for the bank said: “Some of our staff have the option of working from home on the 'exceptionally busy’ days which have been highlighted to us by the Olympics organisers. Flexible working is already part of our culture within RBS, so this will not be particularly new for employees.”
Critics said staff should be at their desks “getting on with their jobs” so soon after the bank saw an IT meltdown leave customers unable to make payments.
Priti Patel, MP for Witham, said: “In light of everything that’s been going on with banking and RBS, I would have thought the only focus should be on getting on with doing their jobs in the office.”
Train companies said routes into central London from areas such as Brighton, Kent and the South West were quieter than usual yesterday.
As well as fewer workers travelling into London, almost two million residents of the capital are expected to leave the city during the Olympics.
According to Experian, a travel website, around 10 per cent fewer people visited London’s West End last Friday and Saturday compared with the same weekend last year.
Gang plots crime spree in Bristol and steals... a torch - Bristol Evening Post
A BUNGLING gang of Scousers who drove to Bristol for a crime blitz managed to steal just a torch and some cigarettes, a court heard.
The men stole a Vauxhall Vivaro van from Bolton on May 7 and also took a Ford Fiesta which had been parked in Portishead, Bristol Crown Court was told.
-
Bristol Crown Court
They then attempted to rob White Cot Stores in Portishead and Tinknell Country Store Ltd in Congresbury, but only snatched £3,000 worth of tobacco in the first raid and a torch in the second.
When police gave chase the gang drove up the wrong side of the M5, with police looking on as they drove alongside them on the right side.
The gang ejected bags of garden waste and "metallic objects" from the van before stopping and fleeing into woods, where they were rounded up by a police dog.
Five men pleaded guilty to two burglaries on May 9.
They were: Daniel Ryan, 24, of Prescot, Merseyside, who was driving the van, and Kirby men Kevin McCabe, 19, Anthony Keating, 24 and Kevin Burke, 25.
The fifth gang member was Jordon Lytollis, 18, of no fixed abode.
All pleaded guilty to taking the Ford Fiesta without authority on May 9.
Ryan pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking and driving the Vauxhall Vivaro dangerously on the A38, Portway and M5, and driving while disqualified on May 9.
Lytollis, McCabe, Keating and Burke pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking of the Vauxhall Vivaro, being carried as passengers.
The recorder Mr Michael Parroy QC sentenced teenagers Lytollis and McCabe to two years each in a young offenders' institution.
He jailed each of the older men for three and a half years.
He said: "To describe this as an utterly horrendous event is something of an under-statement. You tried to get away. Thankfully, you did not."
Ryan was banned from driving for ten years.
Julian Howells, prosecuting, said witnesses disturbed by an alarm saw the gang outside the first shop, from where they forced their way in and grabbed cigarettes.
CCTV captured the masked intruders before they drove off in the Fiesta, abandoning the car elsewhere in Portishead.
Half an hour later the gang managed to steal a torch from the second shop, having failed to snatch an angle grinder, and were seen once again as they drove off in the Vauxhall.
Mr Howells said police liaised with the force helicopter as they pursued the gang.
He told the court: "A stinger device was deployed but the van was able to avoid it. They went on towards Avonmouth, through a red light, and went on the wrong side of the dual carriageway, the wrong way round a roundabout and the wrong way up the M5."
The court heard at one stage the van collided with a police car and a hammer smashed the windscreen of another.
After some 20 miles police instigated a controlled stop of the van and cordoned off an area between the M5 and Cribbs Causeway before a dog tracked the gang down, Lytollis having to be zapped with a stun gun.
Charlotte Kenny, defending McCabe, Lytollis and Burke, said all three men had drug habits and conceded they had travelled south to commit crime.
Daniel Travers, defending Ryan and Keating, said Ryan's drug misuse had led him to offend. He said Keating was in a relationship with a dentist who was attempting to make him lead a decent, law-abiding life.
London 2012 Olympics 'empty seats' row: Q&A - Daily Telegraph
Why is there such public anger?
The sight of entire blocks of seating remaining empty during some of the most popular events has prompted a huge backlash from the public. Row of empty seats, usually in premium front-row positions have become a familiar Olympic fixture for more than a decade. Athletes who had been unable to get tickets for their families to watch them compete says it is “absurd” and “ridiculous” that whole blocks of seats remained empty at some venues. Fans have also been left angered that, despite spending hours upon hours trying to buy tickets to events, they have been left empty-handed yet they can see rows of empty seats. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been aware of the problem for more than a decade but successive presidents have failed to address the issue. 2012 officials had pledged to fill all the stadiums after a similar fiasco at the 2008 Beijing Olympics forced China to bus in spectators.
What is being done about it?
Troops and students have been given places at a number of Olympics venues as the controversy continued about empty seats. As public anger mounted, the organisers of London 2012 announced more tickets will be made available to the public on a daily basis. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog) has scrambled to find ways of filling empty seats including putting more tickets on sale at the end of every day.
How can I get tickets?
Locog has now started clawing back unsold and unused tickets to sell on to the British public, with 3,000 released on Sunday night and thousands more to go on sale each day as they become available. The tickets will be sold through the official London 2012 website, on a first come, first served basis. All 3,000 tickets released on Sunday were quickly snapped up. Locog has now started clawing back unsold and unused tickets to sell on to the British public, with 3,000 released on Sunday night and thousands more to go on sale each day as they become available. The tickets will be sold to British customers through the official London 2012 website, on a first come, first served basis. All 3,000 tickets released on Sunday were quickly snapped up.
How do I get tickets from inside the Park?
There are three way fans can try and get more tickets. There is a “Wimbledon-style” returns process available at venues or in the Olympic Park subject to demand with prices at £5 for adults and £1 for children. These tickets come up when people leave early and return their tickets
What events can I watch for free?
Free sporting events have proved the biggest success of the London Olympics so far, with around a million spectators turning out to watch the cycling road races and many more expected at forthcoming contests. No tickets have been needed to join the excited crowds who lined the roads between The Mall in central London and Box Hill in Surrey to cheer on Britain’s Mark Cavendish and Lizzie Armitstead in the men’s and women’s road races at the weekend. Over the coming fortnight, sports lovers will not have to pay a penny to soak up the atmosphere at the cycling time trial, where Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins will go for gold, the marathon or the triathlon. Other events that can be watched for free include the race walk through central London, the marathon swimming in the Serpentine in Hyde Park and the sailing in the seas off Weymouth and Portland in Dorset.
London wins early "gold" for slick rush hour - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - London's much criticised public transport system, the busiest in Europe, won early gold for easily carrying a million spectators through an unusually quiet early rush hour on the first full working day of the Olympics on Monday.
Travellers said buses and trains were working surprisingly smoothly with only a few hiccups, confounding dire forecasts of a transport meltdown in a city once notorious for slow trains, late buses and incoherent delay announcements.
London's transport bosses expect an extra 3 million journeys per day during the Games on top of the usual 12 million, an Olympian test for an underground train network whose infrastructure in parts dates back to 1863.
"I've noticed how easy it has been to travel. With the influx of one million people for the Games, it's made me wonder, where are they?" Paul Richardson, a 37-year-old photographer, told Reuters at London Bridge, which the authorities had warned commuters to avoid.
As the voice of London mayor Boris Johnson boomed through the station with a pre-recorded message warning of delays, rush hour regulars all praised the slickness of their commute.
"They've done a good job. The journey has been very straightforward and even the sun is shining," said Michael Taylor, a commuter at the station.
Even Prime Minister David Cameron left his official armoured Jaguar cars at home on Monday, taking the underground to check the travel situation with his own eyes.
Some travellers did say they would reserve judgment until they saw how the system coped with several days of Olympic rush hours, including the evening crunch.
The capital's higgledy-piggledy public transport system is often berated by Londoners and employers, who complain that the jumble of grimy buses and delayed trains damages London's reputation as one of the world's premier cities.
But commuters all across London reported that the cramped and sweaty crush that is the daily fare of London life had been replaced by near-empty trains and serene bus journeys.
FASTER THAN EXPECTED
"The trains were all excellent today, we had no trouble," said Hugo Brown from Ely in Cambridge, who travelled to the Olympics to support British table tennis player Paul Drinkhall.
"We had given ourselves extra time to get here and we've actually gotten here in less time than expected."
The fact that trains and buses appeared exceptionally quiet suggested that some travellers might be following different routes or dusting down their bicycles or walking boots, as authorities and the mayor have been urging for weeks. Some took vacations, worked from home or just took the day off.
Bike sheds in the City of London financial district were fuller than usual, and there were swarms of cyclists in luminous yellow tops at many junctions.
"It's nothing like they warned it would be, they said we'd have to queue 30 minutes just to get on the Tube but I ended up getting to work an hour early," said Letizia, an Italian living in London, at London Bridge station.
Chris Round, 23, from Boston, Massachusetts, took the Underground and Docklands Light Railway to watch the judo.
"It was real easy to get to," he said. We just got on the first train that came. It was kinda crowded but it wasn't bad."
Such were the fears of a meltdown that the bosses of the transport system set up a web page, www.GetAheadoftheGames.com, which warned Londoners to avoid busy stations.
"The traffic in London has not - touch wood - been badly affected by the Games, or certainly not as badly as some people were predicting," Mayor Johnson wrote in a column in the Daily Telegraph about why people should feel cheerful about the Games.
"The Tube has performed pretty well so far," he said. "Buses are running more or less to time."
Johnson said the authorities were frequently allowing drivers to use special Games lanes.
A spokeswoman for Transport for London said the transport system was working well for spectators and commuters alike, appearing unusually happy to be giving positive quotes instead of trying to explain the latest mishap.
(Additional reporting by Reuters staff in London; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Opel loses new design chief - Reuters UK
Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.
GM Dismisses Ad Chief Joel Ewanick, Opel/Vauxhall Designer Dave Lyon - Automobile
News rarely breaks on a Sunday afternoon, but General Motors announced late yesterday that both Joel Ewanick, its global marketing chief, along with designer Dave Lyon, are no longer employed with the company.
Ewanick, 52, startled many in the industry when he was named North American chief marketing officer in May 2010. Prior to the announcement, he had held a similar title at Nissan for all of six weeks, having been recruited from Hyundai where he spearheaded the company’s North American marketing efforts, and helped usher in the famed Hyundai Assurance program.
During his tenure at GM, Ewanick rattled many cages, including eschewing GM’s longtime ad agencies – including Campbell-Ewald – in favor of purchasing all its marketing from a single source. Ewanick also helped usher in Chevrolet’s latest brand mantra (“Chevy Runs Deep”), and controversially moved the company away from Facebook advertising – a move the Wall Street Journal claims irked many of his superiors.
GM, for its part, isn’t saying much on the matter. An official statement from the automaker notes only that Ewanick has “elected to resign effective immediately.” Ewanick turned to his Twitter account, saying “it has been a privilege & honor to work with the GM Team and to be a small part of Detroit’s turnaround. I wish everyone at GM all the best.” Alan Batey, GM’s vice president of U.S. sales and service, will assume Ewanick’s duties on an “interim basis” until a replacement can be found.
Lyon’s sudden change of employment is equally cryptic and surprising. Lyon, 43, was supposed to have assumed responsibility for Opel and Vauxhall design on August 1st. Mark Reuss, GM’s president of North American operations, told Automobile Editor-in-Chief Jean Jennings that he was dismissed on matters of “policy and integrity.”
Cardesignnews.com reports that Lyon was ushered out of the GM Design building in Warren, Michigan, by an HR chief on Thursday. No public statement on Lyon’s departure has been issued, but according to CDN, an email circulated to employees by Ed Welburn, GM’s Vice President of Design, simply read “Effective immediately, David Lyon is no longer an employee of General Motors.”
At this point, GM has no official replacement for Lyon at Opel/Vauxhall. CDN claims Mark Adams, the current head of Opel/Vauxhall design who was to transfer to Buick and Cadillac design as part of GM’s design leadership shake-up, will allegedly continue his duties on an interim basis until GM appoints a full-time leader for its European design studios.
Source: GM, Wall Street Journal, CarDesignNews.com
London passes Olympic travel test - Financial Times
Last updated: July 30, 2012 7:43 pm
Passenger killed as car plunges from bridge and lands upside down on the busy dual carriageway below - Daily Mail
|
A 26-year-old man has died after a car plummeted off a bridge and landed upside down on the busy dual carriageway below.
The horrific crash happened just after rush hour on Friday night with the man and a 25-year-old women left trapped inside the upturned blue Vauxhall Astra.
Firefighters managed to free the pair from the car on the A429 Swindon Road in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, soon after.
Horrific: A blue Vauxhall Astra plunged off a bridge to crash upside down on a busy road below
The man, who has not been named, was airlifted from the scene of the crash, which happened around 6.15pm, to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford but he died the next morning.
The female was taken by road ambulance to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital but later transferred to the Frenchay Hospital in Bristol where she is receiving treatment for fractures to her pelvis and spine.
Inspector Joseph Tierney, of Gloucestershire police, said: 'Unfortunately the 26-year-old man has passed away as a result of injuries sustained in the incident when a Vauxhall Astra left Beeches Road bridge and landed on the A429 dual carriageway.'
A 26-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman were left trapped inside the vehicle on the A429 dual carriageway in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
The pair were freed by firefighters and the 26-year-old was airlifted to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford but died the next day
All three emergency services attended the scene and the road remained closed until the early hours of Saturday morning.
A spokesman for Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service said: 'The vehicle had veered off a bridge crossing the A429, as a result the car was on its roof on the carriageway with two people trapped inside.
'Fortunately at this time rush hour had passed and the road was not very busy. Crews managed to extricate both the male and female casualties.'
Police are continuing their investigations into the cause of the crash.
Injured: The woman, 25, suffered fractures to her pelvis and spine but is recovering in hospital
Under examination: Gloucestershire Police are still investigating what caused the crash
London 2012: Decision yet to be made on Cancellara's time trial defence - The Guardian
The Olympic time-trial champion, Fabian Cancellara, still felt pain on a bruised shoulder caused by a crash in the men's road race while training for the defence of his title in London, the Swiss team said on Monday.
Unable to ride the day after Saturday's nasty fall, the Swiss four-times time-trial world champion has yet to make a final decision on whether he will compete in the 44km event on Wednesday.
"Fabian Cancellara trained today for the first time since his crash in Saturday's road race. After two hours of training on his time trial bike over 70 kilometres, the Swiss still feels pain in his right shoulder," Swiss Cycling said in a statement.
"Because of the pain he feels in the time-trial position, he will have to make changes to his positioning on the bike. Whether he takes part in the time trial will be announced on Wednesday [at]the latest."
Cancellara bruised his collarbone after hitting the safety barriers with about 15km to go in the 250km road race, raising fears about his fitness, but he said it was part of the sport.
"I'm a hard man. I've had a lot of things already this year," Cancellara, nicknamed "Spartacus" for his build and strength, told a news conference earlier on Monday.
Cancellara fractured his right collarbone in four places in April when he fell in the Tour of Flanders and said the pin which doctors put in it after that crash had ultimately saved his Olympic hopes following his latest tumble.
"I had the same feeling as Flanders. I was waiting for all the tests and the doctor said 'It's lucky you had a pin in'. I think that saved me from not breaking my collarbone.
"It feels almost broken. I feel a bit better with every hour that is passing. The pain was still there most of yesterday. But I think I'm in good hands. I have a good crew around me.
"I'm optimistic. I have to think positive otherwise I could have flown home already yesterday ... The treatment is important but the most important thing is the head."
Access all areas: Vauxhall’s open door policy - Belfast Telegraph
Convenience counts for a lot when choosing a family vehicle – a factor that’s making Vauxhall’s Meriva a winner in its class.
The key is the clever touch of rear-hinged back doors that swing in the opposite direction to normal, at an angle of almost 80 degrees – providing dramatically enhanced access for rear seat passengers. It’s clever and unique, except that is on the ridiculously expensive and very rare Maybach, which costs more than 30 times as much.
There are further benefits when transporting children as the larger door opening and free space around the B-pillar mean parents can lift children towards the rear-mounted, second-stage child seats without having to contort themselves around the door. The Meriva’s high roofline helps too.
A lot of thought has also gone into interior design. Vauxhall’s FlexiRail system provides owners with a variety of modular storage and comfort solutions, swallowing up variety of everyday items, from handbags and magazines to MP3 players, CDs and colouring books.
The latest Merida’s count of cubbyholes and storage bins, with such features as a 1.5-=litre bottle-holder in each of the front doors, make it one of the most practical offerings in the small MPV class that it defined when its first version launched, back in 2003.
Rear seat comfort has also been enhanced, now offering the biggest range of adjustment in class.
New for this latest model is a panoramic sunroof that comes as standard on SE versions.
Engine choices are between three 160-valve 1.4 petrol units of from 75 to 140 PS output and four diesel variants, including a 1.7-litre CDTI. Two versions are available with six-speed automatic gearboxes.
The 1.3-litre Meriva Exclusiv CDTi ecoFLEX I drove has fuel-saving stop-start technology making for a highly economical 68.9 sec combined cycle fuel consumption figure yet still offering a 104-mph top speed potential.
The 19,845 base price of the test car was swollen to a still competitive 21,700 by the addition of such extra cost options as 17-inch five spoke alloys, a sat-nav system, electrically heated front seats and steering wheel and a sliding centre storage module between the two front seats – the parking brake now being operated by a space-saving electric switch rather than a lever.
Now with a longer wheelbase, the latest Meriva lifts itself out of the small MPV sector to become a five-seat compact MPV ready to do sales battle against such rivals as the Citron C4 Picasso, Renault Scenic and Ford C-Max.
In six years. UK buyers have turned the keys of more than 112,000 Merivas. Given its entry into a wider market sector, Vauxhall are convinced they can expand substantially on such success.
If the male is the passenger, then the woman is the driver??
- Alvin, Shetland, 30/7/2012 14:48
Report abuse