East London To Yeovil By The Long Way
Yeovil is a long way from London and when I saw the fixture list, I felt it was a game that would be impossible to see.
So when I found out that Thomas Heatherwick had designed a café at Littlehampton, a town I’d never visited, I thought perhaps I could go there on the way and have a decent lunch.
So I booked a ticket to Littlehampton from Clapham Junction and then another from Littlehampton to Yeovil, with changes at Fratton and Salisbury.
I started just after ten and took a Class 378 London Overground train to Clapham Junction.
I just missed a Littlehampton train at Clapham Junction, so I had a cup of hot chocolate on the bridge at Knot Pretzels.
The train I did get to Littlehampton was direct, but it did take an hour and thirty five minutes in a comfortable Class 377. I did walk to the beach at Littlehampton see the café and have lunch.
I just caught my train out of Littlehampton at 15:23, which was the first leg of my journey along the South Coast to Yeovil to Fratton. The train was an elderly but well-refurbished Class 313.
From Fratton it was a First Great Western Class 158, which was going all the way from Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff.
The final leg was a South West Trains Class 159 from Salisbury to Yeovil Junction. I arrived on time at 18:40.
I think this journey shows up our trains in a reasonable light. The journey times are slow not because of slow trains, but because of the frequent stops and complicated route. The journey took three hours seventeen minutes from Littlehampton to Yeovil, but there was only thirty-three minutes wasted in connections.
Although some trains date from the 1980s, there wasn’t anything as bad as the dreaded Pacers that inhabit the North. The services were pretty well-used and except for the short leg from Littlehampton to Fratton, there was a catering trolley on all trains.
Would I do this journey again? I might, but I doubt I’ll ever need to do it. My next trip to the South Coast involves a trip to Brighton, which will be a lot quicker.
I had hoped to take a few pictures, but my camera died at Littlehampton.
Wigan Do It Again!
Last year I asked if there was a God, when Wigan beat Manchester City in the FA Cup Final.
Has she just told everybody, she’s a Wigan supporter, as they’ve done it again?
I suppose Manchester City will have to buy a few more players, as this lot don’t realise that money is everything!
Walking To The Riverside Stadium
My purpose in going to Middlesbrough was to see Ipswich play Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium. On a pleasant day, it is one of the better walks from a station to the stadium, as there are things to look at.
I even popped into the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, where I went over their current exhibition called Art and Optimism in 1950s Britain. It was interesting, but it was an exhibition, that would have been excellent to visit with someone of my own age, as a lot of the things shown, would bring back memories for those like me, who can remember the 1950s. I can’t actually remember the Festival of Britain, but I have seen photographs of myself, there in my Cumfifolda pushchair, with my grandmother.
I was a bit disappointed to see that some of Middlesbrough’s liths had been vandalised, as had the statue outside the court. There’s a report here on the latter, but the other damage looked like thieves were after the metal.
The Manchester United Lamp
I’ve just bought a Manchester United Lamp
It looks good in the middle of the table!
Joke courtesy of Fighting Table on Radio 5!
Mick Gives A Lesson In Motivation
This report of an interview on BBC Suffolk of Mick McCarthy is a classic and shows how to motivate your remaining strikers, so that one steps into the big shoes of David McGoldrick. Here’s an extract.
“All the ones that think they should be playing every week – Paul Taylor, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, Frank Nouble – opportunity knocks for one of them,” McCarthy told BBC Radio Suffolk.
I would assume that gentle tactics like this didn’t appeal to Roy Keane.
Sometimes It Pays To Have A Clearout
The Times was moving its picture archive and found some previously unseen pictures of Roger Bannister running the first four-minute mile on the 6th May, 1954.
One picture shows Christopher Brasher, Roger Bannister and Christopher Chataway in line during the race. It could become an iconic picture!
Do I Feel Sorry For President Putin?
You spent all this money on bringing the Winter Olympic Games to Sochi, so you can laud it over the world and especially when your beloved Russia, win the gold medal in your favourite sport; ice hockey.
But then your team gets knocked out in the quarter finals by the Finns.
I think we should all remember that the Russians don’t have a good record against the Finns in the winter.
I used to play real tennis with a Finn. He was very proud of the part his father had played in halting the Russians. He still had the white cotton ski suit his father had worn, stuffed with straw for warmth. This sentence from the Wikipedia article describes the Finnish resistance.
The Finns used effective guerrilla tactics, taking special advantage of superior skiing skills and snow-white layered clothing and executing many surprise ambushes and raids. By the end of December, the Soviets decided to retreat and transfer resources to more critical fronts.
I suspect there was a lot of celebration in Finland after the ice hockey victory.
David Attenborough Commentates On Curling
This video from the BBC is priceless.
Why I’m Pleased Manchester City Lost
There’s an old saying about cheats never proper.
Read this article in Wikipedia about the UEFA Financial FairPlay Rules and especially this section which relates to Manchester City.
Until books are fully opened by all of these teams and probably published on the Internet, I will not give them an iota of my support or sympathy.
The Anonymous Widower 