The Rocket Man
The Los Angeles Olympics of 1984 may have had the Rocket Man, but we also had one on Friday.
Usain Bolt seemed to be enjoying himself.
Vegan And Vegetarian Food, But No Gluten Free
The food was worse than at the Olympics.
Vegan And Vegetarian Food, But No Gluten Free
There was nothing that was gluten-free, like the excellent Indian food, I got last year and all I bought was water.
Just like Wembley!
But then I’d made sure, I’d had a good meal at lunchtime.
Arriving At The Olympic Stadium
I arrived at the Sainsburys Anniversary Games about six on Friday evening.
The grounds are still being remodelled to create the new Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Hopefully, when they finish, we’ll avoid having to enter the park from the east through Eastfield and can come in off the Greenway from the west.
I bet you don’t and you’ll always be routed through the shopping centre.
Is This The Way To Develop Railways?
It has been announced today that the government has fully approved the Croxley Rail Link. This report on the BBC gives full details. Here’s their summary.
An extension to the London Underground’s Metropolitan Line to serve the centre of Watford has been given the final go-ahead.
The government gave the £118m Croxley Rail Link the all-clear through the Transport and Works Act Order.
The line will be extended to Watford Junction via Watford High Street and two new stations will open, including one near the town’s football ground.
This seems to be a scheme that has a lot of merits.
Personally, it will mean that when I go to see Ipswich play football in Watford, I will avoid the long walk across the town. I think that because of this ease of access, Watford FC will be one of the bigger beneficiaries, as ease-of-access always brings in more visitors to any venue.
This fairly small scheme will have all sorts of benefits. This paragraph is lifted from Wikipedia.
When the Croxley Rail Link is built, direct services into Watford Junction from Amersham would also be possible, thus linking the commercial centre of Watford to the new developments in Aylesbury, as well as providing the Chilterns with transport connections, via the Junction, to the North and other destinations.
I’ve always thought that Watford should be more of an interchange when going north to take the pressure off Euston.
i think we can honestly say that the £118 million that this development will cost, will return an awful lot more in benefits.
But then we’ve got a bit more clever with some of the schemes we’ve started recently.
The Hitchin flyover will take a few minutes off the times for trains on the East Coast Main Line for £47 million. It will be fully open in a few weeks.
Improvements to the Felixstowe branch line and its junction with the main line north of Ipswich, aren’t the biggest of developments, but they will take significant numbers of trucks off the road.
If you go to the Network Rail web site, you’ll find lots of these smaller projects.
I think we should complete all of these before we decide on the detailed route of HS2.
My Sunday Lunch
This picture may say I seem to be on the breadline.
My Sunday Lunch
However, I’m just returning to one of the traditions that C and I adhered to in the early years of our marriage. We tended to get up late, feed the kids, read the Sunday papers and then have bacon and egg and probably some extras like tomatoes, beans and perhaps mushrooms.
Why and when we gave it up, I do not know!
I only did it this time, as I wanted something simple to do, whilst listening to the Australians losing the cricket.
To The Hive To See Ipswich Town
Barnet have a new ground called The Hive and I went there yesterday to see Ipswich play.
As new grounds go, it is a good attempt to create a 6,000 or so capacity stadium.
Note Edgar Davids playing for Barnet and Titus Bramble for Ipswich.
Distance Runners Just Do Not Do This!
The statement above is in a report in today’s Times about Mo Farah’s breaking of the UK and European records for 1,500 metres in Monaco last night. The BBC report is here.
I have tickets for the athletics in the Olympic stadium on Friday and Saturday, where Mo should be making an appearance, before going to the World Championships in Moscow.
I’m looking forward to what should be a really great night.
The Dangers Of Eating Pies
As a coeliac, I don’t eat pies unless they have a potato topping, rather than a pastry one. But this story, should be a warning to us all.
Aystralia seems to be going rather soft these days, what with the rugby and now the cricket.
The BBC’s Gloomy Reporting
Despite the good news of the near £10 billion boost the Olympics gave the UK, BBC London is leading with two negative stories.
In one they are saying local business in London are moaning about loss of business because of the games.
And in the other, we have the residents of Surrey complaining that they have more road closures this weekend because of another cycling event. I suppose that it does make it difficult to drive the 4×4. I did hear once that you need a degree in moaning to live in Surrey.
Of course for balance the BBC is also reporting that too much of the Olympic benefit came to London.
In some ways the best legacy from the Olympics in this weather, are the new air-conditioned Class 378 trains on the London Overground and the S Stock on the sub-surface lines of the London Underground. It can also be said, that the place which has benefited most from these trains, is Derby, where they were built or are still being built in the case of the S Stock. It can also be argued that these trains would have been ordered anyway. The value of the orders is approaching two billion pounds.
Cissé’s Stand On Wonga
Papiss Cissé is adamant he won’t wear a Wonga-branded shirt, as reported here in the Guardian.
I support his stand.
I would like to see a law, where all loan companies from the banks, through peer-to-peer lenders to the legal loan sharks, have to publish the amount of money they lend in various parts of the country.
That way we could see if shirt sponsorship was a good idea for lenders.
The Anonymous Widower 