Do The English, Scots And Welsh Work Better Together Than The Belgians, Dutch And Germans?
If we take these two groups of three countries, they all have different railway companies, but do they illustrate a problem in the relations between various EU countries.
I know my experience of travelling between these six countries is mainly on the trains, but to travel between England, Scotland and Wales by train, is a lot easier than travelling between Belgium and The Netherlands and the Netherlands and Germany is full of little difficulties.
Strangely if you add France into the mix, that is generally as easy as the three home nations.
Judging by my experience in Europe, there are many ways that the Scots and Welsh could make the English unwelcome. But they don’t, except for the Seniors Bus Pass, although the same Senior Railcard is valid everywhere in the UK.
I know we’re all part of the same country, but I think where something has to be agreed across a border, we generally find a solution that is acceptable enough!
In the important area of rail ticketing, there seems little agreement on common standards between Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany.
Imagine how difficult it would be if ScotRail had different ticketing rules to say Virgin.
Surely, if Europe can’t get its act together in something like rail ticketing, how can it get something important like dealing with migrants working?
Keep This Door Closed
I like this witty sign.
Shut Happens
It was in a cafe at Willesden Junction station.
The Tailor Of Bexley
When I had my family traced, the earliest ancestor of mine that could be found was Robert Miller, who was a tailor in Bexley in 1837.
He was found to have had one son; Edward, who was born about 1816 in Bexley, Kent and died in 1871 at Shoreditch.
Linking backwards from the modern day.
My father was Wilfred Ewart born in 1904
My paternal grandfather was Herbert born in 1878 and died in 1929
My paternal great-grandfather was William born in 1853 and died in 1911.
My paternal great-great-grandfather was Edward born in 1816 and died in 1871.
So the tailor of Bexley was my paternal great-great-great grandfather.
My father once told me, that his grandfather, who must have been William, once told him, of a first hand account of Robert the tailor of Bexley, who was his grandfather.
He said that he was German and that he didn’t speak any English. Because of my coeliac disease, which is quite common in East European Jews and his profession, we can probably assume that Robert; the tailor of Bexley was Jewish. My father also told me that the family name was Müller, which had been Anglicised.
Robert Winder in his excellent book; Bloody Foreigners, talks about how many poor Germans came over to London in the early days of the nineteenth century and lived in terrible conditions in the East End of London.
So was Robert one of those poor Germans?
When you dig into your family history, you find professions that are no longer PC. Some of my ancestors were ivory turners and skin dressers in the fur trade.
Museum de Cruquius
The Museum de Cruquius is just up the road from The Hague near Haarlem, although our journey up wasn’t the easiest, because the motorway was closed.
It is well worth a visit as it shows a tremendous amount about how the Dutch have kept water at bay.
The enormous steam engine, which sadly doesn’t work, was actually built in Cornwall.
When I see a museum and engine like this, I do think it sad that London’s massive sewage engines at Crossness were just filled with sand and abandoned in the 1960s.
Both sites incidentally, are about the same age!
The Kröller-Müller Museum
The Kröller-Müller Museum contains an art collection. It is set in The National Park de Hoge Veluwe, near Arnhem.
The gallery contains examples of many great painters and is surrounded by sculpture displayed in a wooded landscape.
Every Problem Has An Invention To Help
This article with video on the BBC entitled Migrant crisis: Inventor creates inflatable tube to save lives, is a heart-warming story about an invention, that has come out of the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.
I can’t believe that it doesn’t have other live-saving applications.
How To Catch Polluting Vehicles
I’ve just read about the EDAR pollution sensor in the Sunday Times.
Read more above the device on this page of the Hager Environmental and Atmospheric Technoogies web site.
I think they’ll sell a lot of these and in some ways it’s the best way to cut pollution caused by vehicles in cities.
Most drivers will make sure they;re legal!
Harold Wilson Liked The Muppets
Daniel Finkelstein in The Times is often entertaining. Yesterday, he told a story about how as a 14-year-old, he wrote to Harold Wilson to ask questions for an article in the Scout magazine he’d established for his troop.
He had just found the letter and it discloses that Harold liked The Muppets. He also read every newspaper except the Morning Star.
I’ve Just Heard The Most Crass Solution To Mass Shootings In The United States
After the shootings in Oregon yesterday, as reported on the BBC, the BBC has just had a pastor from the area on the phone.
You’d think as a religious leader, he would have advocated something fairly sane, but he said that the answer to these school shootings, is to allow the other students to carry guns, so they could shoot an attacker.
With people like that in the States, I doubt they’ll ever solve their problem of mass shootings, until everybody has been shot dead.
A Solution To Lower Energy Bills
This article in that right wing paper, The Guardian is entitled Do you want lower energy bills? Ask at your town hall
It is a must read.
The Anonymous Widower 