The Mayor Calls in the Supersewer
I know it’s election time and there are votes to be won, but I’m pleased that Boris has called in Thames Water proposal for a super sewer under the Thames. As I said in a previous post.
Although I should say, that as someone who has spent a lot of time around project management and managers, I will say that what gets built in the end, will be quite unlike what was originally proposed. That’s what good project management is about. It makes a project better, cheaper and less disruptive.
Let’s hope the engineers prove me right. Unfortunately, some of the alternatives, like stopping householders from creating hard-staandings in their front garden, are sometimes more unpopular than the super sewer.
The New Deptford Station
To me Deptford is summed up by a picture of Peter the Great working in the Royal Dockyard at Deptford, that was in one of the school history texts I read.
I’d never knowingly been until today, when I went to look at the new Deptford station, which is just a few months away from being finished.
To my untrained eye, they have done a good job in creating a station with full step-free access, using ideas and components that could also be used in other places, where new or rebuilt stations are desperately needed.
I particularly liked the treatment of the brickwork in the tunnel under the tracks.
Made In Stevenage and Congleton
The Times today has an article about how a large proportion of the satellites we need are made in Stevenage.
Our space presence may be small in media terms, but in the bits that matter like jobs, money and technology it’s rather large.
The paper also has an article about how a company called Senior is doing rather well, by selling high-tech bits and pieces to Boeing, Airbus and Rolls-Royce.
So don’t write-off the manufacturing sector of the economy. Find out the truth!
Angels of Mersey
I missed Angels of Mersey about the work of chaplains in Liverpool and caught up with the first episode last night on the iPlayer.
It showed the University in Freshers Week and in some respects it hasn’t changed much since I went to my Freshers Week in 1965.
We often talk about bad building in the 1960s, but Liverpool University seems to have avoided some of the worst examples.
The Waitrose Obstacle Race
Last night I decided to do a bigger shop at Waitrose. My local one at Upper Street is a bit small and doesn’t stock half the things I need. So I decided to go to the shop in the old Jones Brothers store on the Holloway Road.
Unfortunately, it is a two bus trip and I had to change from the 277 to a 271 at Highbury and Islington to complete the journey. The 271 is one of those routes that desperately needs some new buses, as like last night, some of them are a bit tired, like the Plaxton President I was on, to say the least.
But I got there about 19:30 and then spent a frustrating half-an-hour getting what I needed. The only bread was thick-sliced, there was no gluten-free beer, I couldn’t find the smoked salmon, but there were two packets of the breakfast cereal I like. I’ve had more successful trips.
Coming back, it was another 271 followed by a 277. I would have preferred a 393 for the first leg, as it means less walking at the change. But the bus decided to charge straight past the stop on the Holloway Road.
Pep Gardiola Would be Mad to go to Chelsea
Pep Guardiola is possibly stepping down at Barcelona to take a rest from football according to reports, like this this one in the Guardian.
Whatever he does in the future, he would be mad to go to Chelsea. But he probably knows that, so they would pay an enormous price to get him. Especially, as they’d probably fire him in a few months.
The Anonymous Widower 