We Will Not Overlook The Tragedy Which Is Currently Unfolding In Qatar
The title of this post is taken from a quote in this report on the BBC website. Here’s the first two paragraphs.
Representatives of a global players’ union will seek talks with Qatar’s football authorities over claims of the abuse of players’ rights.
French-Algerian player Zahir Belounis is in dispute with Al-Jaish over unpaid wages and cannot leave the country.
After reading reports like this, I do wonder why FIFA voted to have the World Cup in Qatar.
I’m An Attack Shopper
I don’t mess about shopping and especially where groceries are concerned.
Take this morning, which as I’m going to football at Ipswich this afternoon, was very much a small weekly shop for my staples and supper tonight.
My local Waitrose in Islington opens at 08:00 on a Saturday, with the Sainsburys next door opening an hour early. Because too, of the dreadful news from Australia, I decided to go as early as possible and left my house at 07:40. I didn’t buy much as the picture shows.
The Spoils Of My Attack
I did have to go to both stores, as Waitrose don’t sell my favourite Genius bread.
I don’t know when we started doing our shopping early on a Saturday morning, but this behaviour of a direct and early Saturday morning raid on the shops, was very much part of our married life.
The one difference, is that I use a list and C rarely did.
I tend to behave in the same way with IKEA. I needed some small pieces yesterday, so as I had nothing to do yesterday afternoon, except read the Internet or the Standard, I went to their store in Edmonton, reading the paper on the way.
Some might find this very much obsessive behaviour, but I do like to maximise the use of my time.
On the trip to football today, I’ll be reading the paper again and doing some difficult Sudokus.
Samvo – A Betting Cafe
I’ve seen this type of outlet in Scandinavia, but I hadn’t realised we had them in the UK.
Samvo – A Betting Cafe
They could be an interesting addition to the High Street if they serve good coffee and snacks, as they’ll obviously have toilets. I do sometimes have the odd bet and it should be a much better environment, than the average betting shop, which tends to be where a lot of the local unfortunates gather to loss their hard-earned money. This extract from this page on thee Internet, explainsSamvo‘s philosophy.
“They’re Betting Cafés,” he explains. “We wanted to create something different on the high street, a little more high class; a stylish refit with sofas, somewhere comfortable. The whole café style is more relaxed and it’s very important for us to build a nice atmosphere for the customers to enjoy. We also like the technological aspect so we make sure we’ve got HD TVs as standard and Racing Post touchscreens.
I think we’ll see more of this concept!
Irish Correctness!
I saw this newspaper on a bus this morning, as I came home from shopping and having lunch at Canary Wharf.
Irish Correctness!
If you can’t read it, by the side of the headline of Keano 3 Latvia 0, someone has written + Martin in green ink.
Thieves Target Sochi 2014
I found this story in the Moscow Times after being pointed to the thefts by the headline in The Times of Thieves Try To Scrap Winter Olympics. here’s the first paragraph of the story.
With less than three months left until the Winter Olympic Games, city authorities in Sochi are embroiled in a battle with an unexpected vice: the theft of manhole covers by metal scavengers.
Some 800 manhole covers were stolen in the last couple of weeks, most of them sold as scrap metal to any one of 20 recycling companies, city officials said.
I suppose President Putin is blaming gay thieves.
A Very Good Football Trip
As I said here, my trip to Blackpool, yesterday, started well at Kings Cross.
As I had a few minutes before the Glasgow train to Preston, I had time to visit the Virgin First Class lounge at Euston. I think some companies charge extra for the lounge if you’re on a cheap ticket or close it altogether at weekends, but Virgin don’t seem to penny pinch like that at Euston.
The train was on time to Preston, but it did look very much like rain.
Approaching Preston
As I had booked to Blackpool North station, which is a walk of three kilometres to the ground, I asked if I could use my ticket to Blackpool South station, which is only about eight hundred metres. I was informed that there would be no problem by someone from Northern Rail! I certainly hadn’t found a Jobsworth.
The guy on the train gave the same story and I arrived at the station to walk to Bloomfield Road.
Walking To Bloomfield Road
I made it in plenty of time, walking in the sun, although the weather was threatening.
It really started to rain, just as I got under cover in my seat.
The match was a topsy-turvy affair, with Ipswich winning with the odd goal in five, scored in stoppage time. Ipswich were one-nil down at half-time, so unusually for a manager, Mick McCarthy threw caution to the wind and played with four forwards across the field.
He got the result all the Ipswich fans wanted and you do wonder, if he hasn’t found the best way to use the talent he has available.
I must admit, I did look at the two Blackpool goals last night on the BBC and I can’t help feeling that if Cresswell and Smith had been playing, one or both of these goals might not have been scored.
In the end the Ipswich fans all went about their journeys home happy with the result, so the two Blackpool goals didn’t matter.
As it connects better to the London trains, I decided to do the long walk to Blackpool North station. However, I didn’t have to walk all the way, as I found a 14 bus, that went near the station. There was the usual silly ticketing palaver, you get with a bus pass outside London and I do wonder if bus companies have shares in those that produce ticket paper.
I got a crowded train to Preston fairly easily, but it arrived there, just as a Euston train was departing. A Virgin employee told me, I had an hour to wait, but as I had an Off-Peak ticket I could take any train. I then realised, it would be nice to eat something, so as a Manchester Piccadilly train was alongside, a gluten-free supper in Carluccio’s at Piccadilly station beckoned. I could then take one of the more numerous trains to London. The Virgin also told me, that the Manchester to London trains weren’t busy, as City and United weren’t playing.
Where had all the Jobsworths gone?
I had my supper in Carluccio’s at a fast pace and made the 19:35 train with ease. I had intended to upgrade to First, but as I got four seats and a table to myself in Stearage, I didn’t bother. In fact the fifteen pound upgrade, I didn’t buy, virtually paid for my meal in Carluccio’s.
As I’d arrived in Piccadilly virtually dead on seven, I’d ordered, waited for and eaten my meal in about half-an-hour, whilst checking the news and the football results on the excellent wi-fi. So with luck, I’d be able to go straight home from Euston and catch the start of Match of the Day.
I did! It had been a very good trip.
In a few years time, going from London to Blackpool will be a lot easier, as they are electrifying the line from Preston, as part of the major electrification between Manchester, Liverpool and Preston. It has also been stated that this will mean a tour-hourly service of faster electric trains to and from London. But as I’ll still have the problem of getting a decent gluten-free meal on the way down, but as it will be a greatly improved service from Blackpool to Manchester Piccadilly, I can still go via Manchester and have a decent meal, whilst changing trains.
In fact, if like I did, you have a ticket from Blackpool North to London, you will have several stations, where you can change onto a fast train to London, if you just missed a direct train and didn’t want to wait two hours. You could change at Preston, Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool or even Wigan North Western.
I can’t help but feel, that this long-awaited electrification is going to make a lot of difference to the whole of the triangle based on Manchester, Liverpool and Blackpool.
It should have been done years ago!
Off To Blackpool Today
I’m going for the day to see my football team; Ipswich Town play there.
I’m dreading part of it. Breakfast at Carluccio’s in St. Pancras will be it’s usual good standard and the Virgin trains to Preston will probably be excellent, but the local train to Blackpool will be it’s usual crap self. Then it will be a walk in pouring rain to the ground, as only locals can fathom how to use, the town’s Third World bus system. But that is probably an insult to places like Goa, where I explored the area on the buses with a titled blonde widow. I think she was rather disappointed, in that she didn’t get her bottom pinched. But then the people of the sub-continent, are generally very polite and courteous.
At least though, the rain will wash the pavements of Blackpool of the vomit, that they seem to be paved with.
The football will probably be terrible because of the rain.
It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.
Kippers And A Kestrel At The Olympic Park
I went for a walk along the Greenway, that crosses the Olympic Park this morning.
I ended up at the ViewTube, where I had some delicious kippers and scrambled egg on Genius toast for lunch!
The shots labelled Landscapng are of the area west of the Greenway, which was the athletics warm-up area.
Could We Create A Second Entrance To The Overground At Highbury And Islington Station?
Highbury and Islington station is not one of my favourites.
It has only two escalators to get to the deep-level platforms for the Victoria line and the Northern City line. At least we have now got two fully working examples, but a much needed third escalator can’t be fitted in the empty position, as there is not enough circulation space at the bottom.
It’s all because it was a typical 1960s Jerry-built station like several on the Victoria line.
One of the problems is that although since the Overground was opened at Highbury and Islington, there is more space on the concourse, at certain times, like an evening match at The Emirates, every passageway and the space in front of the station, gets seriously overloaded.
Although the Overground was built to a price, they did save money by using good design, rather than just leaving something out, as they did on the Victoria line.
For this reason, although they could have reinstated the Eastern Curve at Dalston Junction, to enable trains to go directly between Stratford and the East London line, they chose not to, but instead made Canonbury station, into a good, easy and efficient interchange. Especially, if you were coming from Stratford and going south to or through Dalston Junction! I regularly if I’m coming home from Stratford, change at Canonbury to a southbound train and go to the first stop; Dalston Junction, from where I take one of the numerous buses home. It sounds complicated, but if I have a heavy parcel, there is only one set of steps, which can be bypassed by a lift.
To facilitate train changing at Highbury and Islington station, they also built a second footbridge over the tracks, at the western end of the platforms. This footbridge is also designed to serve an emergency exit from the station.
This footbridge and its associated emergency exit, opens on to the road alongside the station;Highbury Station Road. So could this exit be expanded into a full entrance and exit to the station? I took a walk around the station to see it all from the outside.
The residential developments around the north side of the station, probably wouldn’t take too kindly, to large numbers of people and especially football fans passing down their road. But it is only a short walk up Highbury Station Road on the south side to the wide expanses of Liverpool Road, which is in fact, an area poorly served by buses.
So a second entrance is probably feasible and it might give benefits to those, who live in the area to the west of the station. As Liverpool Road leads to the Emirates Stadium, a second entrance might help with congestion on the Holloway Road on match days.
Admittedly, a second entrance here would really only serve the Overground, but bear in mind that over the next couple of years, the capacity of trains on that set of lines, will be increased by twenty-five percent. This will put more pressure on Highbury and Islington station, which is a terminus of the Overground and the main northern interchange to the Underground.
I suspect too, that more football supporters will be using the Overground to get to the stadium. Remember that football fans have different travel patterns to say commuters and usually have a window of an hour or so before the match, when they can turn up. So they’ll see the extra capacity on the Overground and perhaps take a few minutes longer to get to the stadium in comfort, rather than crammed into an Underground train.
A second entrance would have certainly helped on Saturday, with all the chaos in the Balls Pond Road. If of course, the Overground had been running.
Chaos In The Balls Pond Road
The roadworks that caused all the problems with the buses, last week are still ongoing. There are no open bus stops and just one narrow lane for the traffic.
One Narrow Lane In The Balls Pond Road
When I left home this lunchtime, I walked to the next stop, where there was an angry crowd and even angrier drivers trying to get onto the Balls Pond Road.
The diversion on Dove Road was congested and totally inadequate, especially as they were running extra buses as the Overground was closed, so putting a large number of extra passengers on the buses. When I returned later in the afternoon, the problems were made worse, by everybody trying to get to the Emirates to see Arsenal at home to Liverpool.
If they’d wanted to organise chaos, they’d created it, in the best way possible.
I was talking to a bus driver and he blamed Boris, which was a bit unfair.
As my background is project planning and management, I believe this chaos was all down to no co-ordination between the parties involved. The Arsenal match has been in the calendar for months, so surely to do the necessary resurfacing work, on a match day was a bad decision. It was probably costly too, as it meant that all of the chaos, meant that not as much progress as had been hoped was made.
Surely too, the Overground should have been kept open, whilst the road was effectively closed, as this closure imposes extra strains on the road network.
The only good thing about the roadworks, was that I could cross Southgate Road with ease.
A Closed Southgate Road
But crossing the Balls Pond Road is difficult for pedestrains, as there are no lights and we’ve been left to our own devices and wits.
No-one seems to have any idea, how long this chaos will go on. Although this notice mentions that Phase 5 ends on the first of December.
I can’t help feeling, that traffic problems in the area would be helped on match days, if the Northern City line was open between Finsbury Park and Moorgate. Perhaps, when Thameslink is fully established this line will get some long-needed improvement.
The Anonymous Widower 