Riding the East London Line
On Wednesday, I rode the East London Line for the first time. Not that I went far, as I didn’t have too much time, but I did get in two quick trips. One was up and back from Whitechapel to Hoxton stations and the other was through the Brunel Tunnel to Canada Water.
It looks good and the trains seem to be well-designed and ride well. Some may argue that there is a lack of seats, but then as I rode around the trains weren’t busy. They will certainly be in the rush hour and then they’ll need all the space you can get. Remember that some stations like Canada Water can only take four car trains.
Note the pictures of Hoxton Station. There are no escalators but lifts. This is probably a good idea, as it gives full step-free access for those who need it and saves cost over having both escalators and lifts.
What surprised me was the enthusiasm of some of the local people I met on the line. They all seemed very pleased with what had been achieved.
Prudence does Stupidity
We’ve all come out of disastrous meetings and thought about saying something derogatory about the person or persons we have just met. But we all know you might give a colleague a knowing look, that can’t be overseen, but you never say anything that might be overheard.
So when Gordon Brown accuses Gillan Duffy of being a bigot, he was being stupid. Not for saying what he said, but for saying it when he did. After all, he had been miked up by the media, so to forget that he was, perhaps showed that he is not the sharpest knife in the NuLabor box.
Well! Perhaps he might be, judging by the daft policies they keep trying to implement.
Bigot is perhaps a strong word to call Gillian Duffy, but then she may be typical of many who resent the number of East Europeans who have come to the UK in recent years.
But has it ever been thus?
I am descended from Jews on my father’s side and Huguenots on my mother’s. We absorbed a very large six figure number of Poles after the Second World War and countless immigrants from the Commonwealth since.
Some come, some go home, some settle and some move on.
Remember too, that some of the largest inflow in recent years to the UK have been from countries like France and Spain.
Do we complain about them?
The Anonymous Widower 