The Ultimate Gluten-Free Product
This morning, I bought a new gluten-free product from Marks and Spencer.
It may only be a humble seeded brown roll, but I think they have pitched it right for the market.
I ate one for lunch with one of their smoked salmon parcels.
I have tasted other gluten-free rolls that were slightly better, but none came anywhere near the 50 pence, I paid at The Angel.
I suspect, I’ll regularly use one for my lunch with an appropriate filling.
I called it the ultimate gluten-free product, as it is precisely targeted at the market.
- I would expect, that the taste is acceptable to most people; coeliacs or not!
- It is in a sealed packet with a Use-By Date of the 1st of September, which is four days from today.
- You don’t have the waste of a loaf, which gets thrown away half eaten after a few days.
- It would be ideal to buy, if you’re going to a party, in case the host doesn’t have a clue about gluten-free bread.
- It would also be ideal, if you’re hosting the party and know that perhaps two out of twenty are gluten-free.
- You could even pack a couple in hand-baggage, if you’re going abroad for a weekend and aren’t sure of the hotel.
- I’ve stayed in a couple of excellent B&Bs, who would have found this product very useful.
At just fifty pence a time, you could even feed them to the birds or make breadcrumbs , if some are left over.
I’m certain at that price, M&S won’t make much direct money out of the product.
But if it takes off, how many will the product attract to the gluten-free section, who will then buy other products?
Slow Trains Outside The South-East
This article on the Times and Star website is entitled Mind the snores! Snail’s-pace trains four times slower outside South East.
This is said.
Trains connecting Britain’s major towns and cities are up to four times slower outside the South East, according to new research.
Press Association analysis of the quickest possible trains on 19 routes found that services from London travel at average speeds of 65-93mph, compared with just 20-60mph elsewhere.
The slowest route featured in the study was Liverpool Central to Chester, which takes 41 minutes to make the 14-mile journey (as the crow flies) at 20mph.
The example that they give between Liverpool Central and Chester stations, is one that I can use to illustrate the problem.
- Currently, services on this route are run by nearly forty-year-old Class 508 trains, that are only capable of 75 mph.
- The speed limit on the Wirral Line is just 70 mph, so the well-maintained elderly trains can’t even stretch their legs properly.
- The route has thirteen stops.
The timing is dreadful, if you consider that Merseyrail has exclusive use of the line.
The new Stadler Flirt trains are promised to save nine minutes between Southport and Hunts Cross stations, because they are better designed for passenger entrance and exit with faster speed and better braking and acceleration.
Applying this saving to the Liverpool Central to Chester route would reduce the time from 41 minutes to 35 minutes.
If these Swiss trains can get a roll on, I do wonder if they could do the round trip in under an hour, which would mean Merseyrail could run a four trains per hour (tph) service with just four trains. The slower Class 508 trains need six trains.
This logic can apply to a lot of rail lines in the UK.
Conclusion
The reasons for slow trains can be summed up as follows.
- Trains are timetabled for the slowest trains that work the route.
- A lot of routes, including quite a few in the South-East are timetabled for elderly scrapyard specials.
- Line speeds can often be improved by five or ten mph.
- Modern trains like Merseyrail’s new Flirts are designed to minimise the time it takes to stop at a station. This is referred to as the dwell time.
- Platforms and trains don’t always match up well.
- Level crossings can be a nuisance on some lines like the York to Scarborough Line, which has 89 of the little darlings in forty-two miles.
Trains can be speeded up by doing the following.
- Improving platforms, track and signalling to the highest possible standard and safe line speed.
- Choose trains that can make use of the good infrastructure.
- Consign scrapyard specials like Pacers and Class 508 trains to a well-deserved but long-overdue retirement.
- Make sure that train entry and exit for wheelchair users, persons of reduced mobility, buggy pushers and wheeled-case draggers is level.
- Have well-trained staff and excellent information on the platform.
This is the London Overground’s philosophy and it looks like Merseyrail are applying it.
Courtesy On London Buses
Today, a 30 bus was at the stop that takes me on my way in the morning. Especially, if like today, I was tryibg to get to the Angel I say trying, as Thanes Water are having a big construction party as they try to sort out the water mains on Upper Street. Normally, I have three routes that I can take. But due to the works, only the 30 is a sensible option, as the others go via Silicon Roundabout.
Courtesy 1 – The driver was about to leave as I approached, but he saw me coming and waited.
Courtesy 2 – The bus was pretty full with the only one empty seat for persons of restricted mobility. So I had one of those non-arguments with a pregnant lady about who would not have the seat. On seeing a vacant seat towards the back of the bus, I walked past and she eventually sat down. You see these after you situations a lot. The funniest, I saw was when an elderly Orthodox Jew and a black lady about twenty, delayed a bus whilst they decided who got on first. So charming!
Courtesy 3 – The seat I went for had a lady’s bag on it, but she quickly removed it, when she saw I was coming for the seat.
Courtesy 4 – At Highbury Grove a guy pushing a lady in a wheelchair needed to get on! As the ramp descended a guy who’d parked his baby in a buggy in the space made a quick exit, to allow the wheelchair to be parked.
Courtesy 5 – At the next stop, a lady with a buggy and two other children, needed to get on, but after other passengers told her the wheelchair space was occupied, she moved on.
London buses are generally friendly places and people often talk to each other.
I’ve actually never seen an argument over the wheelchair space in London.
I do wonder if this courtesy is helped, by London’s bus design, which always has a separate entrance and exit. The exit doubles as the wheelchair entrance.
The Anonymous Widower 