Lakeside by Train
Jerry never spent any excess time choosing anything when he built this house. Every room is illuminated with a series of cheap wall lights, where you play a game of chance to see which switch is used to turn them on and off.
I had thought I had found a suitable replacement and the company that sells them had an outlet at Lakeside. Or rather in one of the related retail parks within walking distance of the centre.
Fenchurch Street Station
The picture shows the station where I started my journey, Fenchurch Street. I took a train to Chafford Hundred, which is linked directly to the centre by an eclosed bridge.
Lakeside Shopping Centre
This picture is the view from that bridge.
THe bridge led me into the centre into a rather run-down House of Fraser store and it took me a couple of minutes to find my way out and then find a toilet, which seemed to have to be accessed by a lift. And when I got there, the toilet paper was so thin, I almost forced my finger up my backside when I wiped it. But at least I had some decent tissues in my back-pack.
I have a feeling that Lakeside is losing market share and they seemed to be doing a lot to cut costs.
I didn’t enter any shops at the centre and made my getaway as fast as I could to the lighting shop I had intended to visit in the first place.
Escaping from the Lakeside Shopping Centre
As you can see it is not a very good walk on a narrow path alongside the road. I suppose it is designed to keep punters in the centre, when there is quite an attractive lake that might be worth a walk past on the way to the other shops, where I was going. But then if punters walked, they couldn’t be shopping, could they?
Was the walk worth it?
No! The shop didn’t have the lights I wanted and they didn’t even have the Internet, so that I could show them what I wanted. But I don’t think I’ll be spending just short of a hundred pounds on a fitting I’ve never seen!
But at least there was some weak sunshine, as I walked to IKEA to have some lunch and check out a few things. I did buy another couple of racks and jars before I walked back to the station.
And what a walk that was, involving several crossings of a busy dual carriageway without any pedestrian lights. There is plenty of space and surely a few signs to the station would have helped. But then Lakeside is for people with cars and people like me are the enemy, so if I get run over and killed, that’s one less stupid pedestrian.
Was there anything positive about my visit?
Yes! The trains were comfortable, clean and warm! But the station though was bleak, cold and there were few places to sit.
It did think about complaining to Thurrock Council about how pedestrian and cycling-unfriendly and downright dangerous the area was, but they don’t give a direct e-mail address, just a complicated form, which wants all of your details down to the inside leg measurement, so you won’t fill it in fully and they can put it straight in the Deleted Items folder.
Travelling is More Eye-Opening than Reading
On an item on the BBC this morning about why Chinese tourists visit Clarks Shoes in Street, the title of this post was quoted by a Chinese interviewee.
The quote is from Confucius and I quite like it.
There is more on the story here in the Daily Mail.
The Battle for HS2
I listened with interest to the debate on Radio 5 yesterday morning about the London to Birmingham route of the High Speed Rail route called HS2.
On the one side were a few people who feel the line should be built and extended to the north, but the vast majority, including the respected rail commentator, Christian Walmar, were against the proposal. Many on both sides preferred emotive arguments instead of facts.
A classic selfish comment was from a man with a Range Rover, who said that to turn up and use the train cost him much more than the fuel for his gas-guzzler.
He may have a point about costs and I suspect he’s one of those who wouldn’t really wants to be seen dead on a train and say if he had an appointment in the West End of London, he’d drive. He’s probably one of those who rants against fuel, parking and clamping charges too.
I am sceptical about the need for HS2, although I do concede that we need extra capacity to the Midlands, North and Scotland. But a lot of this is to get freight up and down the country. You’d think this was a no-brainer, but any freight developments like the Radlett freight terminal, will get the Nimbys, who are worried more about their house prices than the ecomony of the country out in force.
To be fair to the government, they are trying to get a coherent strategy together on HS2 and the essential freight developments, and realise that if they don’t the problems in the economy will mean they are a one-term government. But if the strategy is accepted by those of sense, the Nimbys will still vote against it, when the election comes.
After all a good rail strategy would mean that people will have to give up some of the things that they consider essential to their life, like the cottage in the country.
So what we see on HS2 is just a small skirmish in the long war against climate change. Many people will never change their selfish lifestyles and will fight and of course voteto keep their large car affordable.
So what would I do?
I did lay out a ladder strategy in Relections on My Journey to Scotland, with better West and East Coast routes. Whether or not we build HS2, some of that strategy needs to be done anyway.
- Higher capacity on the West and East Coast routes.
- Electrify Glasgow-Edinburgh, TransPennine and create a fast Birmingham to Peterborough route via Leicester or Derby.
- Create proper interchange stations, so that changing is easy and quick. We need stations to be proud of that are destinations in their own right at Birmingham and many other places. How many stations are places where you could meet someone special for lunch or a business meeting? It is a list of two; St. Pancras and Liverpool Street. Although to be fair, some could be there fairly easily with vision and a small investment.
- Scrap all of the dreadful rolling stock like Pacers, used in the North, East Anglia, the West and Wales that connect a large part of the country to the fast network and replace them with modern comfortable trains.
- Whether HS2 is built on not, Euston should be rebuilt and be properly connected to King’s Cross and St. Pancras.
- Safeguard the proposed route of HS2.
The Noise of a High Speed Train
There is quite a reasoned article on the BBC today about the sort of noise you might get from a high speed train on HS2 and how you could reduce it.
The article doesn’t mention a technology that by 2020 will probably be available to quieten the train and that is the use of anti-noise, where an equal and opposite noise is generated to cancel the sound of the train. I dabbled in this twenty years ago and even then the technology had been successfully applied in a few applications. But even if anti-noise itself is not used, in ten years or so how trains create noise will be better understood and better design will be used to cut the noise.
I may be generally against the building of HS2, but I do think that noise will not be one of its biggest problems.
The Avo Hotel in Dalston Lane
My grandmother was born in either the Balls Pond Road or Dalston Lane, depending whether you believe my mother’s story or the birth records.
As I live round the corner, I’m pleased that someone has seen fit to open a high-class hotel in Dalston Lane. This is the hotel’s web site.
I wish them luck!
Ticket Madness?
I add the question mark because sometimes I end up with train tickets that surprise me. But if they benefit me financially, why should I bother?
When I travel to Ipswich to see the football, I generally go First Class, as I can be guaranteed a comfortable seat and a table, where I can spread myself out. If I don’t deserve some of life’s hedonistic pleasures then who does?
The Standard Class Off-Peak Return to Ipswich from Liverpool Street is £22.60, if I use my Senior Railcard. And I can upgrade it to First for £14.00. So effectively a First Class Off-Peak Return is 36.60.
Yesterday though, was my first trip after receiving my Freedom Pass and after a few questions when I bought the ticket at Liverpool Street I ended up with a Standard Class return from Harold Wood to Ipswich and a First Class Upgrade for the whole journey. The total cost was £33.45.
So you can see why Which has reported that people don’t always get sold the cheapest tickets on trains. The staff must ask all the right questions and the passengers must bring all the correct documentation.
I would assume in this example, that Harold Wood must be the limit of travel with a Freedom Pass. But who’d want to travel there anyway?
From the Match Factory to Eastfield
Today, as I went to the football in Ipswich, I took a video as the train passed the site for the London Olympics in 2012.
The video starts as the train passes the old Bryant and May match factory and continues until the new Westfield shopping centre at Stratford. It opens in September 2011 and will inevitably be called Eastfield.
The red-bricked former match factory is now flats and a few houses and is called the Bow Quarter. It is famous for the match girls’ strike in 1888, which was part of the suffragette movement and one of the defining moments in trade union history. A musical, The Matchgirls, was written and produced about the strike in the 1960s. The musical was written by Bill Owen, who later appeared as Compo for many years in Last of the Summer Wine.
The Olympic Stadium is now substantially complete or at least on time for its full opening later this year.
The red tower after the stadium is the ArcelorMittal Orbit.
The Aquatics Centre is next.
The recently completed London Velopark is to the back of the Olympic Park and is not really visible.
The video ends at the new Eastfield Shopping Centre, which opens in September. The owners as you can see are still calling it Westfield.
But of course it will be part of that new Olympic sport; shopping, based on the new Underground line; the Shopping line, which must be the new name for the Central line. You start at Eastfield, after arriving by train and perhaps even from Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam on Eurostar, before travelling to Oxford and Bond Streets and then taking the line onto Westfield at White City.
Note that the video was shot from left side of the train in First Class. My thanks go to the driver, who specially slowed the train, so I could get a better video and to the ticket collector, who didn’t interrupt me to check my tickets. If you listen carefully, you can here his voice on the video.
It would be nice to repeat this on a clear day from the DVT on the front of the train. It would hopefully be as spectacular as the video, I took from the High Speed Train on the way to Inverness.
London is Going Two-Wheeled
I know the weather has been a bit warmer in the last few days, but there do seem to be more and more cyclists commuting in the local area.
This area of London is fairly flat which helps and there are quite a few cycle routes weaving down the side roads, towards the city and along the Regent’s Canal.
So perhaps, many Londoners are changing their habits to avoid the fuel prices. And of course the exhorbitant parking charges.
Petrol and Diesel Prices
As someone who doesn’t drive at the moment and gets free travel on buses and the tube, I can’t say I’m sad that petrol and diesel prices are rising fast.
I know that I will see price increases in goods because of the increase in transport prices, but then a lot of prices are rising anyway as China and other developing countries demand a bigger share of global resources.
But having moved to London, if I look at my finances, I see a drop in gas and electricity costs, as this house is modern and fully insulated, a severe fall in transport costs and because I now have choice, my everyday food and living costs are lower too!
I know my lifestyle change has been forced on me because of the stroke, but by changing it, I have been able to make substantial savings in my cost of living. I’m also enjoying myself much more, as there is so much more to do here in the city, rather than being trapped without transport in the countryside.
So those that complain about high petrol and diesel prices, would be better to use their energy to change their lifestyle using ways that cut that energy usage.
After all, we’re going to have to cut our CO2 emissions whether we like it or not!
The Anonymous Widower 