Does The Devil Look After Her Own?
Admittedly, I don’t live in a place, which is likely to suffer much from today’s storms, which seem mainly to be a gloomfest for the media.
But I’ve already had my very lucky escape from a big storm, as I said here.
I have a feeling though that this storm, won’t be anything like that one in October 1987.
Who’d Have Thought It?
I have a Google Alert on my name and sometimes it picks up an interesting story like this one from NBC, entitled Curing Mississippi’s blues with Iranian care? Here’s the introduction.
An American doctor from Mississippi searched far and wide for solutions to his state’s endemic health problems.
Now, after years of practicing what he calls “health diplomacy,” Dr. James Miller, director of Oxford International Development Group in Mississippi, thinks he may have found some solutions in what may seem like an unlikely place: Iran.
Whether he’s right or not I don’t know, but you have to agree it’s not a story, you’d expect to read on an American news feed from NBC.
Good luck to the doctor.
Buses, Buses Everywhere!
I’d arrived home on Saturday night to a lot of chaos due to road works on the Balls Pond Road.
But today, it was still chaos as these pictures show.
At least though the police weren’t about, as on the Saturday night, where they were giving a wonderful demonstration of how they have forgotten their point-duty skills. They may have kept the cars moving, but it took me and a few others about ten minutes to cross the road, before a gap appeared.
Racism In Moscow
One of the stories dominating the news on my trip north was the racial abuse of Yaya Toure in Moscow by so-called fans of CSKA Moscow.
I shall be looking forward to the fifth of November and the return fixture in Manchester.
Knowing Manchester City fans, they might come up with an unusual and probably humorous protest, that everybody, except racists, will applaud.
As my father often said, there’s nothing that bigots, fascists and bullies hate more than ridicule.
The Disused Circular Railway In Paris
Surprisingly, I’d never heard of this railway that connected the main railway stations in Paris, but there was a piece on it, on BBC Breakfast this morning. If such a railway had existed in say London or New York, it would have been the subject of books, documentaries and probably as famous as the sewers of Vienna, immortalised in The Third Man.
I think the next time, I visit Paris, I’ll find a tour or an expert and do an explore.
Back Home Via Bolton
I didn’t go directly home, but broke the journey to see Ipswich play Bolton at the Reebok stadium, which is very close to Horwich Parkway station. This meant changes on both legs at Preston.
I would have preferred to come home via Manchester, but because Manchester United were playing Stoke City, I couldn’t get a train ticket at a reasonable price.
This resulted in having to rush my second change at Preston, as the London train had already arrived, when my local train came into Preston a few minutes late.
But the train was in London at the scheduled time of 20:15.
I’ve talked about the problems of getting gluten-free food on Virgin at weekends, so I didn’t really bother, as they had one gluten-free ham salad sandwich in the Marks and Spencer’s at Glasgow Central station.
And of course, it’s impossible to get any gluten free food in a football ground.
If I’d gone home by Manchester, I could have eaten in Carluccio’s in Piccadilly station. And probably a couple of other places too!
Glasgow Central Station
Glasgow Central is a large impressive station, that has been refurbished quite recently.
The station has a large well-lit waiting/meeting area in front of the platforms, which is a bit like having Kings Cross Square under the station roof!
Too many stations don’t have enough space for waiting and meeting, but Glasgow Central is not one of them.
Walking Around Glasgow City Centre
I had an hour or so before I needed to get to Glasgow Central station, so as it was fine, I walked around looking at the buildings.
Glasgow is easy to navigate, as it has lots of wayfinding liths, just like London.
As you can see, some are megaliths and have a lot more than just a simple map and a few words.
Without doubt liths are the way to go.
This was illustrated, when I came across a group of students and a local, who were discussing in detail, the direction the students needed to go.
In my view, Glasgow’s liths may only have one problem, except for the misplaced Tourist Office.
And that is on Friday, with all the rain, they didn’t stand out, as the colours were too subtle. Perhaps, that is why London’s liths have yellow tops.
Riding The Clockwork Orange
My mother visited Glasgow in the 1930s and first told me about the Glasgow Subway. I know little of her trip or was it trips to Glasgow, except that she went by coach. She also told once, how a lady on the coach, put her hair in curlers to go to sleep. I don’t think I ever saw my mother with her hair that way!
Why she went, I have no idea, but the trip to Glasgow was probably the only vaguely exotic place I ever her talk of going.
My host at dinner last night, had told me that a station on the Subway was about fifteen minutes walk from my hotel. So to explore the city centre, before I took the train south, I walked to the station at Hillhead. An illustration of how times change was the Waitrose opposite the station. Only a few years ago, their furthest north store was at Newark.
I took the train to Buchanan Street station, which was close to the main stations and shops.
Although, the stations all seemed to have a lith with a map and information outside, I don’t think I ever saw a system map inside a station or on the trains.
But then as it is effectively one line going continuously round in circles clockwise and another doing the same in an anticlockwise direction, it is about as far in concept from ninety-nine percent of the world’s metro and subway systems, as you can get. So perhaps a map would just confuse people unfamiliar with the system. I suppose that in my journey from Hillhead to Buchanan Street, I could have taken any train in either direction. This is a bit like London’s old Circle line, before they broke the circle and made it a spiral.
Glasgow’s Impressive Buildings And Structures
There has been a lot of building in Glasgow lately, much of it to do with the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
I was totally surprised by the combined velodrome and sports hall, called the Emirates Arena, which looked a real world class building from the outside.
What with three large football grounds; Ibrox, Celtic Park and Hampden Park, the SSE Hydro and the Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow certainly seems well prepared for the Games.
The finnieston Crane is a Glasgow landmark and was used to lift heavy cargoes onto ships. It reminds me of the massive seaplane crane at Felixstowe, which was used to lift seaplanes and flying boats out of the water. There’s a picture in this report.
i can’t find anything suitable about the Clyde Harbour Tunnel of which the two rotundas are part. They look very much like the buildings of the Greenwich Foot Tunnel in London, except they are much larger.
The Anonymous Widower 