Isn't technology wonderful?

I am writing my new blog sitting in Costa Coffee in Eastleigh, enjoying wireless internet courtesy of them. Normally I'm in the office on a Sunday catching up on paperwork, but the office is too cold (the heating controls are in the next door office, which is currently unoccupied and we don't have a key). So I've come here instead and it's brilliant.

I still can't get my head round the concept of wireless internet. I can deal with conventional electricity - I have a firm belief that all electric wires and cables contain long rows of tiny little people who pass lumps of electrical charge very quickly along the line (a kind of human chain), until eventually it ends up in the device you are trying to power. I always worry about unplugging things in case the electricity falls out (or even worse, some of the tiny people might plunge six inches to their certain death), but so far my fears on this point seem to have proved unfounded.

But how does wireless work? The only way I can picture it is to imagine that the last tiny person in the line that goes from the telephone socket to the hub, has a very good throw, and simply has to hurl the little chunks of internet across the void to a waiting tiny person in my computer.

This would explain why the internet signal gets weaker as you get further from the hub, because obviously they can only throw so far and some chunks of internet will fall short!

Anyway, freaking me out to a whole new level is the fact that we can now offer you the chance to buy your bus ticket on your mobile phone, and simply show your phone to the driver when you board the bus! From registering at mymobiletickets.com, you can buy your ticket, pay for it, download it to your phone and use it to travel on the bus, without any physical money ever changing hands, or any paper being produced or printed out.

On a related issue, we pioneered the use of QR Codes on a small number of our bus stop timetables a year or two back. Fairly clunky at the time and far too big, but nevertheless effective, they are now making a comeback on the mobile tickets and hopefully will soon reappear on our roadside timetables (we are working on this). If you don't know what a QR Code is, look it up (this blog encourages readers to think for themselves!).

Indeed, I was delighted to see one in Tesco Express last night inviting you to download content promoting a particular brand of razor blade. I think QR Codes are one of the next big things, and when you start to see them all around you over the next few years, remember you read about them here first!

It's all a far cry from my first ever job in the bus industry, rekeying endless serial numbers from Setright waybills into a pirate copy of a Lotus 123 spreadsheet on a green screen Apricot PC, while sitting underneath a shelf weighed down with box files containing reams of fanfold printer paper (offering little information of any use), that would occasionally collapse under the weight and rain down on my head! Ah, the memories...