And another thing…

MY ATTENTION has been drawn to this rather ingenious idea for using valuable car parking space in busy city centres.

It’s the brainchild of Brazilian designer Baita Bueno. Who knows – is this how we’ll be parking in the not-so-distant future? It would certainly force you to tidy up your CDs before you parked, I suppose. And I wonder if high-sided vehicles (my people carrier and 4×4s, for example) would incur an extra charge?

EVEN though I’m a Mac user, I thought this article by the excelent, perpetually angry Charlie Brooker (instructing Mac users to go away and die, essentially) was brilliant.

More importantly, he drew my attention to what must surely be the worst video ever posted to YouTube in the past 3000 years. It features four actors – carefully chosen for their racial and age profile – pretending that they’re actual real people preparing for a Windows 7 party. No, neither did I, but apparently they’re happening, or at least being encouraged to happen by that Bond villain-in-waiting, Bill Gates.

I dare you to watch this without throwing up. But if you do throw up, make sure you’re using a Windows PC.

UPDATE on Tuesday at 10.20 am: Nope, I’m sorry – I tried watching it again and couldn’t even get to the two-minute point before I had to switch it off in embarrassment. Please, someone tell me this is a Microsoft wind-up. PLEASE!

AS RAIL minister, I felt it important to build constructive relations with my counterpart in the Scottish government, the transport minister, Stewart Stevenson.

We agreed on a number of issues, particularly on the importance of a long-term commitment to a north-south high speed rail line. Neither of us wished to turn the issue into a political football, and neither of us ever did.

But if The Sunday Times is to be believed, the SNP – at Westminster, anyway – have turned their backs on “conventional” high-speed rail in favour of magnetic levitation technology (Maglev). But before the likes of SNP Tactical Voting get too excited, they should take a step back.

First of all, it is very unlikely that Angus MacNeil, the SNP MP for Na h-Eileanan an lar, speaks for the SNP’s transport minister, who has not, as far as I know, shown any enthusiasm for this particular technology. Secondly, all Angus has done is sign an Early Day Motion. Whoopee. And thirdly, despite SNP Tactical Voting claiming that MacNeil has worked out a deal with a future Tory government, it seems that this is based on the fact that the proposal is backed by “the Conservative policy group”, which, as far as I can tell is not the same thing as the Shadow Cabinet or the party itself.

We are more likely than not to get new high-speed railway lines in future. But it will not be based on Maglev technology.

For a start, high-speed lines can accommodate conventional trains if necessary, including freight, Maglev cannot. High-speed lines will feed directly into existing railway stations. Maglev won’t because new, bespoke stations will be required to accommodate the new tracks (although to be fair, one study has shown that you could extend Maglev lines into Haymarket in Edinburgh, but not a few hundred yards further into Waverley).

What of the safety concerns? When a Maglev train collided with another train in Germany two years ago, the passengers couldn’t evacuate the train by stepping down on to the side of the tracks – they had to be airlifted by helicopter because Maglev tracks are suspended in the air on concrete stilts.

If the Scottish government wish to pursue high-speed rail links connecting Scotland with the rest of the country, then as a unionist, I will offer every support. But if they choose to support expensive and impractical technologies such as Maglev, they will have shown that they are not serious about high-speed rail.

Maglev: never gonna happen...

I’VE POSTED before about my love of all things Apple.

Now it looks like other parliamentarians who share my enthusiasm might be about to make a breakthrough in persuading the parliamentary authorities to relax their grip on all things Windows and start to consider the alternatives.

The estimable Derek Wyatt MP, a fellow Mac-lover, has organised a meeting next month when we will have the opportunity to put our case to the Parliamentary Information and Communications Directorate (PICT). Apparently, at least one MP already has a deal whereby he has kitted out his office with Apple Macs and can use them to access all his parliamentary email and the intranet, something Derek and I understood not to be possible (or at least not acceptable to those in charge).

If we’re successful in making our case, it could have major ramifications: I know of a number of colleagues (including at least one minister) who have already invested in Macs and were resigned to not having the technical support and access to some information that comes as standard with the inferior standard-issue House of Commons PCs. There are plenty of others who would jump ship if it were made easier for them and their staff to do so.

I certainly would prefer to shift the whole of Team Harris onto Macs, despite the superficial objection of one memer of staff who compared choosing a Mac over a PC to driving an automatic rather than a manual. Not a bad analogy, actually (I do, as it happens, drive an automatic).

But if the meeting goes as we hope, he will have to get used to having an iMac in front of him in the future.