Have You Ever Wanted to Own a Tube Station?
If the answer is yes! You can!
The Blog Based Small Business
This blog is absolutely standard WordPress. all I pay for is a small amount of extra storage and the use of VideoPress to put my videos in the blog. I think I pay about thirty dollars a year.
This blog is in effect a complete web site, with a contact form, searching and all the things you’d expect from a professional website. It also doesn’t have adverts or other things that will annoy my readers.
It differs in one way to a professional website, in that updating it just needs a small amount of form filling in a web browser. The difficulty is about the same as sending an e-mail.
So could you run a small business on a blog such as this?
I’ll use the example of a lady who does small repairs and alterations to clothes and household furnishings. There used to be and probably still is, someone like that in Cambridge market a couple of days a week and C got her to shorten and alter clothes for her. I was taught to do all this by my mother, but don’t think I could manage it now, with my hands.
Such a business could work well off the back of a blog. Say she repaired an expensive evening dress for someone in Dulwich, she might post a picture of the repair, with a brief description in the blog.
As Google knows everything immediately from WordPress, someone searching for evening dress mending, Dulwich, may well find the blog.
Gradually, as the blog expands you’ll get more hits and from the statistics, you can find out how your visitors got there.
So the blog does your market research in addition to getting your customers.
There’s Only One F in Shefki
The news this morning is that one-time Ipswich favourite, Shefki Kuqi, has joined Newcastle until the end of the season.
The Supreme Court on More4
There was a good documentary on the UK Supreme Court on More4 earlier in the week.
For those who missed it, it’s here.
And there is a review on the program in the Telegraph.
Prisoners and Votes
This is a difficult one as I said earlier and I suspect that when the Commons vote tonight, they’ll make the worst of a bad job.
The general population and the tabloids and especially those of the vengeful tendency are all for a total ban, but perhaps what we need is a radical approach.
After all the number of people in jail, is probably more than have the right to vote in many constiuencies. So why not have another parliamentary constituency and they can vote for who they want? You might put restrictions on those who could stand, so such as the Yorkshire Ripper couldn’t. And obviously anybody serving a current sentence would find it difficult. But then no-one could argue that we weren’t giving prisoners representation and voting rights.
It is not for me to call lawyers greedy, but if we don’t give prisoners some rights in this area, my learned friends will have a lot of work to do, dealing with compensation claims against the government. And then if the prisoners should win compensation, their victims would then have some assets to fight over!
So voting not to give prisoners the vote could be a beanfeast for lawyers.
West Ham Appear to Have Got the Use of the Olympic Stadium
But the arguments will continue, as I indicated here. I said this in an e-mail to BBC Breakfast.
I’ve watched football in Moscow and it didn’t work there.
But as we have some of the best architects in the world and engineering and methods are getting better all the time, I’m sure that we can come up with a well-executed British compromise, of which we can all be proud.
Every difficulty should be looked upon as an opportunity, not a defeat.
Islington to the M25 By Public Transport
I had to go back to Suffolk to pick some bits and pieces up and thought that the easiest way to do this was to get to Cockfosters Station, which is just a few minutes from Junction 24 on the M25.
So I took the 141 bus to Manor House taking a few pictures and a video on the way, where I got the Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters.
The journey from the Balls Pond Road took just 35 minutes and that included a delay of two minutes at Arnos Grove station, where they changed drivers. I could even have got a bus to the M25 from Cockfosters.
As I was running early, I did make a detour at Southgate Station to take a few pictures.
The station has been sympathetically restored and still contains many of the Art Deco features. It is still very much as it was, when I used to use it to go to Minchenden Grammar School in the early 1950s and late 1960s.
I also seem to remember reading somewhere, that the ticket barriers can be removed, so that the station can be used for period film and TV productions. Parts of the film, The End of the Affair were shot in the station.
I just think that Southgate Station sums up everything that was so good about the designs of London Transport before the Second World War. It was designed as a bus/tube interchange and still fulfils that function, with style and panache.
Southgate Station was one of the buildings created by the archtect, Charles Holden. If he had been of any other nationality, than British, he would be one of the most famous architects in the world. But he was a modest man, who twice declined a knighthood. On the other hand, his buildings speak eloquently of the quality and beauty of his work.
The Castle Climbing Centre
I passed this iconic building, which is now the Castle Climbing Centre, on a 141 bus. It used to be a water pumping station and I took a video as I passed.
In the next month or so, I must go and look inside. And perhaps have a climb, as that must be good for my balance.
An Unusual Pub Name
It’s called the Nobody Inn and it’s just off Newington Green.
The Nobody Inn
What it’s like, I have no idea. But I thought the name was clever.
The North and East London Lines at Mildmay Park
This picture was taken from the top of a 141 bus and shows the North and East London Lines running parallel to each other.
North and East London Lines at Mildmay Park
The North London Line is on the right or north side and has overhead electrification, as it also takes frieght traffic between the East of London and the West Coast Main Line. The East London Line to the left has to use third rail to be compatible with the electric lines south of the river and because there is not enough clearance in the Thames Tunnel for the lines to be overhead.
There used to be a Mildmay Park station, at about the point, where the road bridge can be seen in the picture. But it was removed because it was too close to the other station at Canonbury. At some point, there will probably be some reorganisation here, as you have buses coming up Essex and Southgate Roads, that don’t interface with the Overground.
The Anonymous Widower 