Hs2

‘Sadly, the world is filled with apathy,’ said my friend, as we looked at our sad little list of conscripts to the cause of fighting left-wing lunacy in our local neighbourhood. He’s right. But I can’t help feeling, as I enter another year of what will surely turn out to be non-stop trouble, that a bit of apathy would do me good. My problem is I suffer from the reverse of apathy. I’m too bothered by everything. I can’t stop objecting. I need to sit back and learn how not to give a damn. The apathetic masses must have much lower blood pressure than me. And a lot more friends. When I look back on 2015 it was one tiresome principled stand after another. I took a stand against house-building on the green belt. I took a stand against HS2.

Despite my opposition to High Speed 2, I am quite a big fan of HS1, the line which runs from St Pancras to Ebbsfleet, Ashford and on to other towns in north and east Kent. I also think HS3 — a proposed line linking the cities of t’Northern Powerhouse — is a good idea. Why the inconsistency? Well, I believe HS1 and HS3 are significant innovations whereas HS2, though it costs far more and covers a much greater distance, is not. In fact I would argue, counterintuitively, that HS2’s greater length is precisely what makes high-speed rail less necessary: the cost of the longer journey means that most people do not make it very often.

Oh dear. Sarah Montague is not having a good day. The Today presenter managed to make not one, not two, but three gaffes while hosting today's Radio 4 show. 1. Things got off to a bad start when Montague began her interview with Simon Kirby, the Chief Executive of High Speed Two, on the Chancellor of the Exchequer's trip to China for investment for the rail network. Alas, Montague appeared not to have managed to get her head around the purpose of the trip; repeatedly grilling Kirby on whether the project is doomed if the Chinese don’t give up to £12bn to help finance it. He had to explain several times that China are actually being asked to bid for £12bn of contracts: SM: Could it be done without Chinese money?

The appallingly bad photograph below was taken on my mobile phone about 15 years ago. It shows the menu layout from the Lisbon restaurant Chapito. I have never seen any other restaurant adopt such an ingenious format. You are given five set menus to choose from (white, yellow, orange, red and green) with a suggested wine for each. But you are perfectly free to substitute any dish from any other menu, or omit a course if you want. It is a brilliant example of what is sometimes called ‘choice architecture’. This format makes it easier to choose what to eat. But it also helps you make a better choice.

Heathrow. The whole British story is there. Reading up around that debacle last week, I came across the eye-watering — and I think true — claim that, over the course of the second world war, Britain built 444 airfields. Four hundred and forty four. Although not all in the United Kingdom, probably. Some will have been in far-off lands, where Johnny Foreigner could be bought off in exchange for a pretty goat, or just shouted at, at gunpoint, until he went away. Hundreds, though, will have been here, on British soil — where it has now taken us over half an actual century to not quite build a new runway at Heathrow. 444. This is what we use to be able to do. So also trains.

The ‘I’m Voting For Chuka’ posters in my rich neighbours’ front windows pushed me over the edge. There is nothing so likely to galvanise one’s inner Tory than the sight of the biggest, poshest houses in the neighbourhood displaying left-wing conceitedness. ‘Of course they’re voting Labour, they’re the only ones who can afford to,’ said the builder (boy)friend, who had popped round to my house for supper. I know, I know. It’s confusing. But we are always going to be on-off, so everyone is going to just have to deal with it. And he is a beacon of common sense at election time, I can tell you.

The countryside is all very well so long as you know you can leave it. Funnily enough, exactly the same can be said for the town. I realise I have spent the entire year trying to decide whether to sell up and move from London to the wilds of Surrey. Or stay put in Balham. I’ve spent more evenings on Zoopla than can possibly be healthy. And now I think about it, I guess the reason I have struggled so hard to make a choice is that town and country are dependent on each other to produce their own special magic. I cannot enjoy the country unless I know I can leave the mud, muck and gossip behind and escape to London. And I cannot enjoy London unless I know I can run away from the liberal lefties, abusive cyclists and endless box junctions to find solace in the mud.

George Osborne proposed an attractive idea this week: that spending on state benefits should be diverted into new infrastructure in the North. His conceit was that while welfare spending produces no economic return, spending public money on new high-speed railways and the like will inevitably boost the economy. We can’t fault the former assertion: that paying people to be idle is a drain on the public purse. But we take issue with the notion that infrastructure will always serve to boost the economy.