Is Gordon gonsky?

Will Britain get a new Prime Minister? That's certainly the talk of London this bank holiday weekend. Gordon Brown's year old administration has fallen on hard times. His Labour Party lost big in the recent elections which included a Tory victory in the London mayorial race.

Then this week, the Tories took a conservative seat in a by-election. The seat had been held by Labour for decades prior to this week.

So, the tom toms are out and it's Gordon's head that may be on the line. I'm, however, more in agreement with the lead editorial in today's Financial Times, which urges Brown to hang in there and fix what's wrong. Labour doesn't have to call an election until the spring of 2010, so there is time to fix the mess and hopefully for the economy to recover.

A year ago, Brown was flying so high Labour was considering calling an election last autumn. Now, the party's poll numbers are the lowest they've been since Margaret Thatcher called No. 10 her home.

Personally, I think Gordon remains the PM until he has to call an election.

Ah, Provence

Just returned from a week in lovely Provence -- our first visit. We stayed with another couple in a three-unit house just east of Avignon near Carpentras. I just uploaded our photos to Smugmug, my preferred method for storing and sharing photos online.  If you've not tried it, I highly recommend. It stores your whole photo at full resolution and not just a portion. It also creates a URL for all of your albums (galleries), making it very easy to share them without sending your friends one of those obnoxious invites.

We had a car, so we spent all of our time driving around the countryside visiting the little villages and taking in the local culture. We did some wineries, but only a few. Our favourite was Domaine de Mourchon at Sugeret. We had an excellent tasting there and ate out lunch under a grape arbor in the front of the tasting room while being entertained by the vineyard dog Rudy (see photos). 

I was impressed by the quality of the wine and how inexpensive it was. We drank a lot of wine during the week and most of it was priced under 10 Euros. We discovered Provence roses. My previous brushed with rose wine hasn't been good. Because it's relatively high in sugar, it tends to give me a headache. The fine Provence roses were different and we loved them.

It's not hard to see why France is the largest wine producing region in the world, more than twice the production of the US. Everywhere we drove, the ground was covered with vines. There are 14 varietals they are allowed to grow in Provence, but most of the wine is grenache and shiraz. We did have some excellent viogniers, though. 

One of the fun things we did was got to St. Remy to watch the annual (every may 12) running of the sheep when the sheep are moved from the low land to the mountains. It's quite a festival day in St. Remy and brings out many locals. We also had a delightful day in Roussillon, a quaint little village in the ocra hills east of Avignon. 

It was a very restful week. We cooked most of our meals, buying our meat in local butcher shops or the hyper marche in Carpentras. We definitely felt the impact of the strong Euro, but the price of the local wine helped temper that. 

Breaking news

Boris Johnson, the recently elected mayor of London today issued his first new order since taking office at the first of the week. He is banning open alcohol containers and alcohol consumption on public transportation.

I was somewhat shocked when I came here and learned that it was fine to have a nip (or more) on the train. This has never been a problem for me (I don't mean it quite that way). I've never had any trouble with anyone abusing alcohol on the tube. However, one Saturday morning I did run into a couple of very loud and annoying East Europeans downing cans of beer on the tube.

I found it a bit like Las Vegas where you can drink just about anywhere. This really seems to make sense. Johnson, a Tory, is starting to put his more conservative stamp on London by issuing the ban on drinking from June 1.

What have we here?

When I stepped outside the office today to pick up a sandwich for lunch (at my favourite sandwich shop -- EAT) there was an electric car parked in front of the building. Now, I know what that post with the blue lights on top is for. It's where the car is plugged in.

This may be the first electric car I've ever seen. Small and orange, it's called the Mega City and has a price tag of £10,498, including batteries. It has a range of 40 miles and a top speed of 40mph, which would make it fine as a London commuter. You don't have to pay the dreaded congestion tax (£8 per day) or the road tax (vehicle registration tax), either, so it's even practical to drive into town. It even includes free parking in Westminster or the City. According to Nice's website, all this will save you £7,000 a year.

We've gotten on here for nearly two eyars without a car and we don't intend to get one now, but this is very tempting. I could even drive to work! I've been teasing L about what kind of car she's going to get when we return to the States. I may have to point her to the Mega City.

Americans "shocked" into smaller cars

As most of you who have followed my ramblings know, I no longer own a car and haven't for almost two years. But, eventually we will return to the US where a car (more likely two) will be a necessity. Unfortunately public transport where I live is not what it is in London.

We've been giving this a lot of thought and are being influenced for several issues: the rocketing price of gasoline, the building environmental crisis, the power of the oil-producing nations and the kinds of cars we see people driving here.

Friends of ours just bought a Prius, but this was after they bought an Audi A4 only a few months earlier. Now, this had to be a money losing proposition since they traded the Audi in on the Prius. But, it also demonstrates the mindset that is taking hold in the US as the price of gas zeroes in on the $4 mark (here, it's closer to $10 per gallon). The dealer where the bought the Prius is no longer taking SUVs as trade ins. They had 41 Priuses on April 1 and sold the last one yesterday.

This is exactly what Americans need -- to be shocked into taking drastic steps to counter what is undoubtedly a looming crisis with potentially dire consequences for all of us. It's long puzzled me why more people don't opt for hybrids or at least high mileage small cars. We may finally be at that point. And, I say, hooray for the high price of oil is what will drive us out of our lethargy and put US consumers back in the drivers seat.

An article in toay's New York Times comments on the rising sales of small cars in April:

“It’s easily the most dramatic segment shift I have witnessed in the market in my 31 years here,” said George Pipas, chief sales analyst for the Ford Motor Company.

If the vast majority of Americans opted for small, fuel efficient or hybrid vehicles, we could solve the oil crisis overnight. And, the result would be a dramatic decline in the price of gasoline. It's all about supply and demand.

So, what about my next car? Well, my wife wants a small SUV like the Ford Escape hybrid. I'm pretty sure mine will be a Prius. And our current conversation is about just buying two Priuses. Time will tell, but I would predict that in two more years, the US will have dramatically refitted its auto fleet to smaller cars and this will have started having an effect in the price of oil. We may even be seeing the high water mark now. In a way I hope not because more shock treatment is needed. This is not just a consumer issue. It's a defense issue as well.