Tweeting My Way South
On the two trips to south London, I used my trusty Nokia 6310i to send messages to Twitter.
In both trips I got a story going; the first about how I’d borrowed the landlord’s dog from the pub next door for protection and in the second about travelling with an attack cat, who got rather agitated in Catford.
Today, I’ll be tweeting my way north, as I’m off to Coventry to see Ipswich Town play.
If you want to follow me, my Twitter ID is VagueShot.
New Year in the South
Last night, I went to a New Year’s party in South London. Because of the various transport options and the fact that I can’t drive, I decided to take two buses; a 21 to Lewisham and then a 75 onwards towards Croydon. If it hadn’t been New Year, but say a Sunday lunch, I’d have taken the East London Line and walked to and from the stations at both ends. But in a way, I wanted to prove that someone who has had a stroke can cope with the same problems everybody else has to deal with.
So how did I cope?
The outward run was pretty easy, as I’d done most of the journey on the 21 before. I had thought of taking the East London Line, but I wanted to be sure of the interchange for the return. I did have to wait about fifteen minutes for the 75 at Lewisham and the wait would have been improved if the bus stop had had a proper display announcing the arrival of the buses. I also got off at the wrong stop and had to walk back, but that was my mistake.
Coming home was slightly more difficult and this was mainly due to having to take the N47 to London Bridge from Lewisham rather than my intended 21. But as there was no information of any sort at Lewisham, I felt that keeping going was a better option than waiting. From London Bridge, northbound buses were thin on the ground and everything was rather crowded, so in the end I got a 43 to just past the Angel and walked home. It wasn’t the best option, but I quite like walking cities at night and always have. The trip didn’t appear to be too dangerous, with the biggest obvious danger seeming to come from police cars rushing up and down everywhere and some fairly frightening characters on the bus. But no-one bothered me in the least way at all.
So would I do the trip again on a New Year’s Eve? A lot depends if I get invited to a party again.
But I wouldn’t chose to stay as late again and would probably prefer a train or tube back most of the way.
On the other hand, why miss a good party!
So thanks to all who entertained me last night.
Out-of-Country Parking Fines
There is a story today that says that councils are losing a lot of money because of the non-payment of parking fines by foreign drivers. Although, the story is a UK one, I suspect it’s a problem all across Europe.
This problem used to exist in the United States, but there it wasn’t out-of-country, but out-of-state parking fines that were the problem. They also had data-protection problems in that citizens wouldn’t trust Texas to say look up vehicles in New York.
In the end, a company came up with a solution that was acceptable to all parties.
They bought the tickets at a discount from the individual states, collated them and then sent them to their collection department in the state where the vehicle was registered. Obviously, they picked the juicy ones first, but the business model worked so well and profitably, that Lockheed felt it was worth buying the company.
Such a system would work well on an EU wide basis, with perhaps Switzerland added. But then the Swiss don’t get parking fines do they?
Walking a Lady Back to the Bus
Mary, an old friend for about thirty-five years came to see me today and we got some more of the boxes unpacked and few pictures up on the walls. As someone, who has earned her living from preparing food professionally several times in her life, she also tried to help me fathom out the cooker. In the end we baked some haddock, with onions and tomatoes. And it was very delicious too! Or at least we both thought so! But then I’d cooked it and she’d worked the oven.
She had to get back to her car to get home, so about seven-thirty I walked her back to get the bus back to the Central Line. Mary is about two years younger than me, so as we walked along, I asked when was the last time, she’d been properly walked back to get the bus home. She thought it was perhaps when she was about 19. After we’d said good-bye, I reflected on when was the last time I walked a lsdy to the bus. I may be wrong, but I can’t remember it since about 1966, when I walked a girlfriend to get her bus back to Aigburth in Liverpool. In all the time C and I were together we either went home together or drove in a car. I may have walked the odd lady to a tube or train, after a business meeting or because we were working together, but to a bus, never!
It was all so relaxing and very pleasant really!
The Wife Market
When I say that there used to be a wife-market in Smithfield, I’m generally not believed. But here’s the proof.
Smithfield Market
If you look at the enlarged picture you’ll see the details of the wife-market.
A Gluten-Free Lunch in Beautiful Surroundings
I had perhaps intended to have lunch in Carluccio’s in Smithfield, but on the way I walked behind St. Paul’s to take a photograph of the Temple Bar.
Temple Bar
Instead of passing through, as I intended, I spotted a sign saying restaurant and pointing to the crypt of the cathedral.
So I explored and found a restaurant with a full coeliac, not just gluten-free menu. It was more than I needed, so I approached the adjoining cafe and asked if the soup was gluten-free. The waitress said she was a coeliac too and said she’d check and also get me some gluten-free bread if I would like some. In the end I had some excellent parsnip soup and one of Fentiman‘s exotic soft drinks for about eight pounds.
So now, I can add a hole-filler to my walking routes around London.
A Simple Transport Planner
I need to get some household goods and the place I would drive to would be a B & Q. But I can’t drive and although I have a nice, friendly DIY store round the corner, it doesn’t have what I need.
My nearest B & Q is some way away at Lea Bridge Road, but I want to explore London and what better place to go than Peckham. I chose this location as it is about the fourth nearest and I thought one of the buses that stops very near me goes right past.
Normally, I check the best bus route on Transport for London’s Journey Planner, but it is a bit overblown and tedious to say the least. However on the B & Q site I was pointed to a web site called the Transport Direct Door-to-Door Planner. I just entered two post-codes and it gave me a direct route, using the bus I wanted.
This site though is seriously good. I have a friend in Edinburgh, so I typed in both our post codes and to see what the site recommended. It was totally feasible and even gave me details on how I could find the bus at Edinburgh, which is quite difficult, if you are not a resident of the city.
I also saw what it said about going to Coventry to see Ipswich on New Year’s Day. It made one mistake in that it missed the special bus from Coventry Bus Station to the Ricoh Arena. I’ll forgive it that though, as with a lot of these journeys all you want is a general route, which you can modify to suit what you are doing. For instance, today, on the way back from B & Q, I’ll break the journey at Old Street, so that I can go to Waitrose in the Barbican.
Who needs a car?
ASLEF Put Their Marker Down for the Olympics
The various rail runions have never got on well and have always tried to see that they could get more out of owners, managers and ultimately taxpayers for as long as I can remember.
Today’s action by ASLEF was supposedly about triple pay and a day-off for working Boxing Day, in variance with an agreement they are reported to have signed, but was it also to show their power with the Olympics coming in 2012? They didn’t get the Danegeld this time and as millions of Londoners and tourists were seriously inconvenienced, I doubt they’ll get it if they try to do something similar about extra benefits for themselves during the games.
I was seriously inconvenienced today, as I had intended to get a Central Line train to Newbury Park for a friend to take me to the football at Ipswich. As I said earlier, the direct trains weren’t running. Instead I tried to take a 25 bus to Ilford, from where I would complete the journey on another bus.
But I was running seriously late for a pre-arranged pick-up time on a bus that would have had just a small bit of space for a couple of Snow White’s friends. All of the overcrowding could be put down to the non-running Central Line, as people had things like cases and bags of presents with them. So I abandoned the bus with some difficulty at Stratford and thought I’d get a bus home. The queues were enormous, as I suspect many had come to the interchange to get buses like the 25 to Oxford Circus. The shopping centre by the interchange was very busy too and it looked like things were getting worse rather than better.
I’d determined that I needed to get a 276 to Stoke Newington, but as that shared a stop with the 25, it would not have been a sensible proposition, so I walked back down West Ham Lane to the previous stop of the bus. Eventually, I got on a small single-decker bus after about a quarter of an hour, as that is the Sunday frequency. It then drove back through Stratford and the overcrowded stops and was probably carrying twice its legal capacity by Bow Church, where it started its meander towards Hackney.
It was then, that I got a text saying that the match at Ipswich had been called off due to a frozen pitch. So at least I was saved a long journey, even if my shorter one wasn’t much fun!
In the end I abandoned the 276 when it got to Mare Street in Hackney and went to look for another to get me back home.
I shall be interested to see how this story develops. ASLEF have seriously managed to annoy all of the shops in London, Transport for London and I suspect several million Londoners. At times, at Stratford, I felt some were going to seriously explode and that was one of the reasons, I walked away to look for a bus. I saw mothers with children getting distraught, as youths refused them access to buses with buggies, drivers and other staff were getting abuse and no-one was offering the disabled and the elderly the priority seats.
Still it was all good fun and practice for a man with dodgy eyesight and only one 100% hand. But the idea is to see if I can improve the parts of my body that don’t woek too well, by using them!
A Walk To and Around the Kingsland Basin
I walked to the Regent’s Canal this morning and took a quick saunter to and around the Kingsland Basin.
The Anonymous Widower 