Before Overground – Clapton
Another Station For Those Not In The First Flush Of Youth – Rating 2/10
Clapton station is another with access problems for the disabled, buggy-pushers and the elderly.
Unfortunately, the station also seems to have a touch of the Japanese Knotweed, although this could be one of the few stations in the Lea Valley Lines, where simple gardens could make the station much more pleasant.
I’ve been trying to imagine this station in a few months after a deep clean and a good painting, London Overground double orange handrails, some better standard seating and some tidy foliage at the far end of the platforms.
It will be much better than it is now.
Before Overground – Hackney Downs
Could Be A Great Station With Imagination – Rating 3/10
Hackney Downs station is rather a dump at present, as the pictures show.
But because it is four platform station with rooms all over the place, it could with imagination be turned into the Crystal Palace station of the North.
The pictures show how the bridge over Dalston Lane has been restored, so at least a good start has been made. As the station has a lot of ironwork, I wonder if a Leadenhall Market solution could be applied. Instead of using expensive painters for all the ironwork, the City of London laid down the scheme and paid art students to do it. Hackney Downs obviously isn’t as grand, but if some of the ironwork in the station and others on the Lea Valley Line were to be properly painted, it might liven up a series of otherwise drab stations.
I also think that the large island platform, may be a suitable place to put a nice bronze sculpture that is deemed to be too valuable to display, as it might get nicked.
The station is a bit like one of those large rambling Victorian houses with umpteen rooms, that are advertised with tremendous potential.
We’re Back To The West Lothian Question
A good leader always picks the issue, place and time for their battles to ensure that he or she wins in the end. Planning should be meticulous and hopefully it all works out as they want it.
Compare Margaret Thatcher and her government and military’s response to the invasion of the Falklands by Argentina with other campaigns fought in Iraq and Afghanistan recently. The Falklands was a smaller conflict, but very little was left to chance, although it could be thought of as a close run thing.
Other British Prime Ministers and influential politicians have brought contentious legislation through to law, by making sure they plan and win every battle. Take Cameron’s law on same-sex marriage as a recent example. But then there are many others.
So when Alex Salmond proposed a vote on Scottish independence, I thought if he got it right, he could win.
His mistake was that he didn’t plan and get decent concessions on tax and spending, before he even called for the poll. That way, if Devo max had been successful and acceptable to all parties, after a few years, Scotland would probably have had an agreed separation, in much the same way Slovakia separated from the Czech Republic.
But he pig-headedly called the referendum as early as he could.
And he lost. So we’ve now been kicked back to the West Lothian Question, but with more variables than it ever had before. Tam Dalyell must be laughing from his grave.
It has been suggested this morning that large cities have more powers, something that I agree with.
But Scotland now has the Glasgow Problem, as surely what is good for London, Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle must be good enough for the one of the largest cities outside London in the UK.
Alex Salmond, who in a overly-passionate campaign led us to this mess, should resign!
Does London Need Devo Max?
In the Standard today, Labour politician, Margaret Hodge is asking this question and says that London needs it.
She says this about housing.
The capital’s population will be twice Scotland’s by 2030. Yet we already desperately lack the homes and infrastructure we need to meet the needs of 8.5 million Londoners. Our housing crisis dwarfs that of other parts of the country. Some 800,000 new homes are needed by 2020. Yet in the year to May, only 16,800 were built. Despite London’s great successes, we are becoming ever more grotesquely unequal. Inner London is increasingly only accessible to the very rich.
I would agree with some of what she says and go further to say that all cities and conurbations should have more powers.
The trouble is that it would change the political map of the UK for ever and think of all those bench warmers in Westminster, who would be out of a job.
But I do think that competition between cities would create jobs and better places to live. Some provincial cities need a real kicking to bring them into the twentieth century.
It would also be very good for London, if when they wanted to build something like Crossrail 2, they didn’t have to go cap-in-hand to the Government and compete with other necessary projects elsewhere.
If say London financed Crossrail 2 from its own resources and population, would anybody outside the capital have a right to complain? I don’t think so!
Could London’s Passenger Counting Technology Look For Non-Payers?
I took another trip on a crowded 141 bus today and it had the passenger counting technology on board.
Passengers were fascinated and obviously some were using it to determine whether to go upstairs.
It struck me that as those entering the bus have to touch-in, by correlating this with spaces, it might be possible to determine how many passengers hadn’t touched-in.
It wouldn’t actually identify them individually, but by simple arithmetic it could probably identify routes with the highest levels of non-payers.
So if a particular area on route XX showed a high-level of non-payers, that is obviously where you send your inspectors.
Why Are Polling Stations Called Polling Places In Scotland?
As I watch the BBC News, I have noticed that polling stations, seem to be called polling places in Scotland.
It’s just like with what you call bus stands!
A Robust View On Homeopathy In The Times
Professor Michael Baum is an amazing doctor and surgeon, who I have had the pleasure of meeting.
In The Times today, he has a letter published about accreditation of homoeopaths to the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA).
He writes this memorable sentence.
From now on they will be able to check if their homoeopathic doctor is a fully trained quack or simply someone masquerading as a quack.
I do not believe in anything that can’t be scientifically proven by rigorous methods. The three at the top of my list are religion, homoeopathy and many of the zanier and animal-unfriendly aspects of Chinese medicine.
Have The New Car Tax Rules Killed The Congestion Charge/Parking Fiddle?
Some years ago, I was selling an old Ford Escort Estate that was definitely a runner with virtually a year’s car tax and MOT, on eBay.
I only wanted a few hundred and I thought I had a deal.
When the lady who’d bought it and I talked over the phone, she said that she’d give me cash and deal with all the handover paperwork to save me the hassle. I said no to the latter and she then said, that I could forget the sale.
So I then looked at her purchase history on eBay and found that she’d bought about twenty or so clean cars like the Escort. All seemed to have a reasonably long tax and MOT and cost just a few hundred pounds.
I e-mailed the DVLA, as I thought the whole thing stank. They informed me, that the car would be sold to someone, who needed to get around London without paying the congestion charge. All of the fines and charges would obviously go to the previous owner.
They asked if I could forward all of the details to them.
I never heard any more from the lady, but the DVLA informed me a couple of years later, that they had mounted a successful prosecution.
Having looked at the new car tax rules, I think that the days of this type of scam are dead.
Before Overground – London Fields
A Station With an Excellent Bakery/Cafe – Rating 3/10
London Fields station is another station on the Lea Valley Lines with no decent access.
As I arrived a Japanese lady was struggling down the stairs with her three-year-old, a buggy and a scooter.
The reason she was coming was to visit the E5 bakehouse and cafe. It was so full, that I couldn’t get my intended cup of tea.
As you can see from the pictures, Network Rail have done a superb job in creating a series of small workshops in the railway arches.
It’s just a pity, that the access at the station wasn’t fixed at the same time.
As the station has only had a frequent service since 2005. was this one of those stations that British Rail hoped would quietly die?
Before Overground – Stoke Newington
A Dreadful Station To Avoid – Rating 2/10
Stoke Newington station was built when people weren’t disabled, pushed buggies or grew elderly and it shows.
In my view it’s one of those stations, that with a creative surface makeover, lifts and perhaps a light-controlled crossing to access buses going north, could be turned into one of the better stations on the line. The station forecourt has what looks to be a decent cafe, so selective development around the station could probably improve matters.
The Anonymous Widower 