Support the flying pickets

There's a British Airways staff strike starting tomorrow, after weeks of legal shenanigans on behalf of the airline, which is determined to turn their workforce into a bitter, resentful bunch of underpaid minions - like Ryanair etc.

Shamefully, BA's Irish chairman, Walsh, is a former union official.

The workers aren't being greedy: they've offered to take a substantial pay cut and reduced terms of service while BA have resorted to underhand legal action, but BA's plan is actually to replace the workforce with a new, cut-price airline.

When I'm in charge, there won't be airlines. There may be some aircraft for emergencies, but everyone else can use highspeed rail on their own continents, and the space elevator and orbital link for long distance travel.

A solution to our excess consumption

In conversation with Neal, I had a brainwave not unconnected to watching Logan's Run recently. Give everyone a carbon ration at birth. When they've used their ration, it's execution time. After all, polluting kills people, at home and abroad. If you shorten somebody else's life, you should have yours shortened. We could all have a little electronic card with a countdown which cuts years off every time you fill up your SUV (I hate that term: what sport is it?) or take a flight. No trading allowed. This scheme will be retrospective, so all the wankers with Audi SUVs driving round Wolverhampton should report to the football stadium for 'processing' tomorrow morning.

The mode of execution (the 'quietus') would be asphyxiation by Range Rover exhaust pipe. It seems just and appropriate.

A lot of poorer countries won't be affected but the West will be depopulated - and therefore cleaner and emptier for occupation by said poorer cousins. Some people might opt to live a short and fun-packed life, and that would be fine. I'm very boring, so I'd be happy with a long, carbon-poor life.

Your comments?