From London to Glasgow in five minutes

Enjoy a virtual journey from London to Glasgow in five minutes, from a time-lapse camera in the cab of a train.

Fascinating, though occasionally a bit dizzying.

"Hey, that's not how I meant you to vote when I proposed democratic elections!"

Recently, I read through the Wikipedia article on the Sark general election, 2008, referred to as "the first fully democratic election [...] after nearly 450 years of feudalism", after seeing it linked to from the "In the news" box on the front page.

The feeling I got was that two brothers with lots of money wanted to make things more to their liking, more modern and liberal—unfortunately, of the list of "approved 'progressive' candidates" that the two submitted, only "about five" were elected (there were 28 seats to fill in that election), and "[t]he overwhelming majority of candidates elected support the established 'feudal' system".

So, that looks as if the will of the majority of the people is something pretty close to the status quo; so far, so good.

But apparently, that doesn't suit the two brothers, and they're now taking their toys and going home: When it became apparent that only about five of the candidates on the Barclay brothers' approved list of candidates had been elected, the Barclays announced that they were shutting down their businesses on Sark — hotels, shops, estate agents and building firms — leaving about 100 people, a sixth of the population, out of work. Closures started almost immediately following the announcement. Diana Beaumont, wife of the feudal leader John Michael Beaumont, commented, "They [the Barclays] were the ones that started all this democracy business, now they don’t like it because they haven't won."

Nasty business, this democracy, if the sheeple won't vote the way they're supposed to.