I wondered whether any stations were themselves Tubewhacks of other stations.  So I got to work.

Fortunately, the number of columns in Excel has increased recently—I needed 7,616 columns to complete my logic, along with a tidy 11.8Mb.  And below is a summary of the results.

There are 59 stations that have Tubewhacks, although their Tubewhacks come from only 22 unique stations.  Bank is the most common, being the Tubewhack of a whopping (not Wapping) nine stations. Each of Vauxhall and Woodford accounts for seven Tubewhacks.

Below is the full list—station on the left, Tubewhack on the right.

Barbican: Temple
Becontree: Vauxhall
Bermondsey: Vauxhall
Bond Street: Vauxhall
Boston Manor: Chigwell
Brent Cross: Vauxhall
Burnt Oak: Chigwell
Camden Town: Ruislip
Canary Wharf: Temple
Canning Town: Shepherd’s Bush
Charing Cross: Temple
Chorleywood: Bank
Colliers Wood: Bank
Dagenham Heathway: Ruislip
East Putney: Woodford
Eastcote: Kilburn
Edgware: Pimlico
Elephant & Castle: Woodford
Elm Park: St. John’s Wood
Farringdon: Temple
Fulham Broadway: Epping
Gants Hill: Woodford
Goldhawk Road: Upney
Green Park: Dollis Hill
Hainault: Woodford
Hampstead: Kilburn
Highgate: Woodford
Holloway Road: Epping
Ickenham: Woodford
Kew Gardens: Pimlico
Knightsbridge: Oval
Leyton: Chiswick Park
Limehouse: Bank
Liverpool Street: Bank
Mill Hill East: Woodford
Mornington Crescent: Vauxhall
Newbury Park: Dollis Hill
Perivale: St. John’s Wood
Piccadilly Circus: Kenton
Plaistow: Debden
Putney Bridge: Oval
Queensway: Pimlico
Richmond: St. Pauls
Rotherhithe: Bank
Royal Victoria: Debden
Shadwell: Brixton
Shoreditch: Bank
Southfields: Bank
St. James’s Park: Hillingdon
Tooting Bec: Vauxhall
Tower Hill: Bank
Upminster Bridge: Oval
Upton Park: Chigwell
Warren Street: Pimlico
West Brompton: Vauxhall
West Finchley: Moor Park
West Ham: Kilburn
West Hampstead: Kilburn
West Ruislip: Bank

Liverpool Street and Bank form the only pairing in the above list that are one stop away from one another.

There are too many IDs.

I registered my intention to do this by enrolling for the service a few weeks ago.  A few days later, a couple of pieces of post popped through my door from the Government Gateway folk.  In one, a User ID.  In the other, an activation code for the VAT service in one of those PIN-esque styles where you rip off the bit of paper to reveal the code.  The former: twelve numerics; the latter: twelve alphanumerics.

On sign-on, I had to give my password.  I have no idea when or where I generated this, so I had to answer a few questions about my last VAT submission before my re-issued password was revealed to me.  This was a twelve byte alphanumeric, all lowercase.  The first half appeared as part of the web page.  The second half was sent to me via email.  Secure yet annoying.

I then enrolled, I think, for the VAT service.  Before doing so, I had to answer a few questions, including:

• Memorable place
• Memorable date
• First school
• Last school

Now get this.  None of the above could contain any spaces (although they had minimum and maximum character limits).  (Eton wouldn’t be accepted, btw—too short.)  Now I will struggle to remember the memorable place, because I chose one that I think is poignant, but it’s one of many.  And similarly with dates.  There is more than one of great significance in my life.  The last two questions were straightforward, but the space embargo will doubtless prompt me to abbreviate in the future where I didn’t today, or else come up with some other whacky way of meeting the crazy rules while not providing the right value.  (What did the space do to us that was so bad?)

Finally, I got to do my VAT return, which itself was relatively painless, apart from the deeply hidden guidance about what to do for zero values.  (Offline, you write “NONE”.  Online, you type “0.00″.)

All in all, painful.  It shouldn’t be this hard.  Should it?

• The oldest person in the world has died
• Someone’s found a foodstuff that bears a resemblance to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

Are there any other stories that need to be added to the list?

However many people are on board that carriage, at least one more adult can squeeze on.  This step has been proven at every station on the northbound southern leg of the Northern Line for many a year.

The smallest adult weighs 4.5kg, and with the average human having a body density of around one gram per cubic centimetre, that equates to a lower bound of 0.0045 cubic metries occupied by a person.

Therefore the lower bound for the volume taken up by a Northern Line Tube carriage is 0.0045 cubic metres multiplied by the number of occupants.

Given that the number of occupants can always be increased by one, a Northern Line Tube carriage is infinitely large.

QED.

The key to happiness is striking a perfect balance between the three variables, and being in full control of them: ourselves vs. others; direct vs. indirect influence; and immediate vs. future fulfilment.

Our turnout totalled seven, joined as I was by, in order of appearance: Sean Garvin, Stefan Czerniawski, Paul Clarke, Simon Everest, Jenny Brown and Emma Mulqueeny.

The conversation was marginally geeky, which I enjoyed thoroughly, but mostly I loved putting faces to names/avatars and enriching my appreciation of the personas of Paul and Emma. And it was also lovely to add a follower and followee in the form of Jenny.

Paul is legendary in these circles and I warmed to him immediately. We’ve spoken previously on the phone (about musical note separation) but it was good to meet in the flesh and I already see ideas in the offing that bring the opportunity for us to collaborate in the future.

Although the meeting of some was blind, Twitter provided a great prior insight into the characters in attendance—their interests, wit and quirks—and this made the conversation all the more relevant and rewarding. I’m already looking forward to the next meet-up and progressing the ideas that were seeded this morning.

Thanks to all who made the effort, particularly Mr. Everest given his lack of awareness of that part of the day and for trying to get #danosirrahasalottoanswerfor to trend.

Pic here for those interested, courtesy of Paul Clarke.

In it, he drew up a chart on a whiteboard, asking whether should aim high or aim realistically.  I responded, taking something of a devil’s advocate stance, that in some instances you should aim realistically.  (Remember, this is a man worth nine, possibly ten digit dollars, excluding decimals.)

I gave my reasoning.  In some instances, if you believe too much in your own hype, then that rosy view view will cloud your perspective, and you may remortgage your house a few times to chase what amounts to a dud business idea.  In that instance, it would be much better to chase reality, and if you failed, you wouldn’t have lost quite so much.  He struggled to deal with the example, instead arguing that if you shot for the Moon, at least if you missed you’d end up in the stars.

The attitude I portrayed is in keeping with me as an individual.  I’m risk-averse, although I can have optimism in abundance when the mood strikes.  I tend not to shoot for the moon, which will always hold me back while at the same time keeping me steady.  I guess that’s just the way my cloth’s cut.  And a reason why my bank balance doesn’t have nine digits—with or without the decimals.

Yet it’s frightening how many people have emailed me recently asking for work in this very area—my business specialises in document editing—only for their covering emails to be littered with errors.  Admittedly, if I’d received the emails from people outside the field, people not looking for related work, I would have let the mistakes pass me by.  But their context has meant that I’ve either responded with some heartfelt, cotton wool-lined guidance, or responded with a pleasantry only to confine the email to the Never hire folder.  (Actually, the latter step is a given.)

Paragraphs have lacked closing periods, proofreader has been written as two words (yet as a single word within the same email), the Oxford comma has been used whimsically, appearing in some places but not in others, hyphens have appeared instead of em dashes, and quotation marks have been used in instances where one might not even expect someone to sign them in a bar with their hands.

Some (all?) of these points might sound pedantic.  And they are.  But then proofreading is all about pedantry, and if you can’t get your covering email right, what hope do I have that you’ll fare any better with a client’s document?

All too often, I will call a company to express my disappointment and displeasure at the service they’re offering, only to be reduced to a heap, rocking backwards and forwards in the corner of my living room, defeated by the interminable bureaucracy.

Below are some recent examples:

British Gas

I have an insurance contract with them (HomeCare) that covers my electrics, drainage, boiler and central heating.  I pay a handsome sum for the privilege.  I called on a Friday reporting blocked drains.  They deemed it a non-emergency so refused a weekend callout, but promised me an 8–10am slot on Monday morning.

No one arrived.  At 10.02am, I called asking their whereabouts.  I was told that no such slot should have been promised, but that someone would be with me before 6pm, and they would call giving one hour’s notice.  At 4.54pm, I called again asking their whereabouts, only to be told that they weren’t coming today.

I arranged for the problem to be sorted privately, and am awaiting their response on reimbursement of the invoice.

Lambeth Council

Last week, I arranged a bulk rubbish collection, of which I’m allowed four per year.  The guy arrived today and took away a rug and a bedside table, but couldn’t be arsed with the large carpet.  The operator couldn’t do anything about this because the ticket was still “live”.

A man with a van is coming tomorrow morning to take the carpet, costing me £50.

Virgin Media

In October, I signed up to an all-inclusive Virgin Media package for a monthly amount quoted to me over the phone.  After the service (including new set-top boxes) was installed, they started billing me 20% more than that agreed monthly amount.  On questioning, they apologised for quoting the wrong figure and told me that the correct figure was the higher amount.

I am still working out how this might be resolved.

Many of the people I speak to in these organisations are, in themselves, lovely.  They are polite, courteous and seem to want to help.  But the bureaucracy that surrounds them, through no fault of their own, prevents them from doing so.

You see, no single person is empowered.  Each department exists in isolation, calls passing between them but with no one having a holistic view of the customer experience, nor the power to manage that.  And often, as was the case today with Lambeth, the operators blame the process for their inability to resolve the issue.

Smaller companies carry more accountability, don’t blame their colleagues or sister departments and generally give a shit about the customer.  The above companies, as organisations in themselves, do not.  Even if some of the people therein do.