Just watching Richard Wilson’s Dispatches programme on the UK rail system – slightly depressing viewing! It just seems daft that private companies are profiting hugely from the UK taxpayer, while offering sub-standard services at eye-watering prices.

My simple solution is this:

Buying an expensive season ticket (or annual discount card such as the excellent Swiss demi tarif) would give you a shareholding in the company you buy it from. That way, if they racked up a big profit – for example, by not employing enough drivers or having overcrowded carriages, you’d get back a dividend for your trouble. Alternatively, if profits were diluted by offering a comfortable and reliable service, you’d see a smaller dividend but have a nicer travelling experience.

In effect, you’d see a tangible discount if things ran poorly, instead of paying up regardless. And if a significant pool of rail companies’ equity was owned by the travelling public, they might become more responsive to customer’s needs.

No doubt some kind of complex senior/junior shareholder arrangement would be needed. I’ll leave that to the corporate lawyers.

Just discovered this rather handy feature in Microsoft PowerPoint. Ever wanted to quickly turn  some outlined notes into a set of slides? This is the feature you need!

Especially useful for academics or anyone who outlines first, then needs to quickly generate a set of tidy-looking slides at the end. I think this is a godsend, because it avoids the pitfall of PowerPoint, where you get bogged down in styling or transitions, where you should be spending time on structuring your narrative well and breaking it down into manageable chunks. With the ‘import from outline’ tool, you can work away on your narrative in a format-neutral environment, then import and style it with the click of a button. Not only that, but you can use your ready-made outline as a handout – much more user-friendly than a slide notes view.