An E-Mail To Eurostar
The fuss about getting to The Netherlands by train seems to be escalating. I’ve had an e-mail which is very critical of the withdrawal of the local service from The Netherlands.
Although I had some unofficial feedback from a Eurostar employee, I thought it would be an idea to get the corporate view. So I sent this e-mail to the company.
I have bought a ticket to Any Dutch Station a couple of times, and find it is the easiest way to get to see my friend in The Hague.
I now see that this ticket has been discontinued and that there is no direct link to The Hague from Brussels.
I went in to your ticket office in St. Pancras last week and talked to one of your excellent sales staff. She felt that this is not best for Eurostar, as she told me, that she used to sell quite a few of these tickets.
I shall probably fly to Schipol in future, as it is the easiest way to get to anywhere other than Rotterdam or Amsterdam in The Netherlands.
I write for various publications and shall be writing a hard hitting article about this fiasco, which is obviously not of Eurostar’s doing.
I shall be going to The Netherlands via Brussels some time next week to see how the Dutch deal with a stroppy tourist, who wants to get a direct train from Brussels to The Hague.
The other great thing about the Any Dutch Station ticket was that you booked it in one, from your excellent web site.
I’ll post their reply when I get it.
Why Has Google News Got Worse?
When I want details on something, say like Dalston Junction station, I will use Google to search for it. Then for any news, there used to be a simple button, which repeated the search on just the news.
That seems to have disappeared and now in most cases I have to open up Google News and start the search again. I supose, it’s an improvement setup by some idiot just out of nappies.
I also find that it always wants me to sign in to my GMail account to store my alerts there. But I prefer them on my standard e-mail, which has nothing to do with GMail.
I suppose they are annoying me, so I use my GMail account, which can then be processed to send me all sorts of spam for products I don’t want.
As they don’t pay enough tax in the UK, I think I might look for another search engine, that does pay the proper rate.
Who Is Burt?
The caption on the travel news on BBC London this morning said.
London Bridge bus station is closed due to burts water main.
Who is this Burt? And why does he own an important water main?
Cardiff looks At A Tram Network
Cardiff appears to have various transport problems and a fair bit of congestion, so it is refreshing to see a well-thought out plan being proposed using trams to solve it. It all described here on the BBC’s web site as Cardiff Crossrail.
It may not be ideal and it may just stay in the planning stage, but at a proposed cost of £200 million it would appear to be affordable.
it also seems to make good use of existing infrastructure, which is obviously the way to go. The new London Overground showed that you get value-for-money by this approach and what money you do spend, can be concentrated on what the customers see, like the trains and the stations.
I shall be interested to see how the planning of this project progresses.
Do We Need Retail Banks?
There was another cash machine fiasco last night, when Lloyds and Halifax had a big computer system failure. Read about it here in the Daily Mail.
This problem hit so many people, as they didn’t really plan their day out properly.
I’ve never been hit by one of these periodic cash point failures, as probably more by luck than judgement, Nationwide haven’t had a problem.
But one thing I do, is make sure when I’m down to my last twenty or so in my wallet, is get a cash injection. But then in places where I spend money, there are lots of cash machines. Take yesterday on my trip to Notting Hill. I passed machines in Kings Cross station, just outside Notting Hill station and close to Otto. But then I didn’t need any money.
So although yesterday’s failure was disastrous for some, with a bit of planning, it could have been avoided.
On the other hand, I’ve heard of people queuing on pay day by cash machines, so they can draw their money out to get some cigarettes.
These failures will do one good thing and that is get customers to look at how they keep and use money.
More and more we’ll question, whether we need to have a retail bank at all.
What is really needed for most of us, is a simple bank account to hold our working capital, accept our salary or pension, pay our standing orders and other bills, and tell cashpoint machines that we have money to withdraw.
A Match Not To Be Missed
After what I’ve been through in real life and also watching Ipswich Town, I think the match of February 9th at Blackburn might be worth a visit.
Unless of course Blackburn get their act together. But they do appear at present to be the team with the worst management off the field in England.
They might appoint a good manager, but even if they could persuade Jose Morinho to join them, I don’t think he’d be able to pull a team together.
The Dyslexic Spammer
I’ve just had two copies of this simple spam message.
Do you need a laon
As it was headed Dear Sir/Madam and both copies were sent to the same male e-mail address, he or she is pretty stupid as well.
A Leather-Clad Contestant On Mastermind
I know it’s Celebrity Mastermind, as opposed to the more normal pleb version, but in all the years I’ve watched the program, I’ve never seen a female contestant in a short leather dress.
Years ago, C and I discussed this, as we saw another set of dowdily dressed women on the program. She always dressed well for Court and very much believed that dressing well always gave her an advantage. Especially with a difficult case. Even if it was just about her self-confidence.
I’ve also heard another legal story, where a commercial solicitor had a very expensive, short suit to give her usually male clients the bad news. The person, who told me this tale, always knew, when this suit was getting an outing, the way her colleague’s case that day was going.
Mastermind too, has had its fair share of male winners doing ordinary jobs, but female winners have usually been academics or those that work with their brains.
I’ve never seen a lady on the program, who was stood out from the crowd, dressed well and gave her profession as shop assistant, receptionist or barmaid.
But Adele Silva played it hard in a dress to match the chair, with heels as high as the dress was short. She did reasonably well, so did her style of dress give her confidence? And did it put off her opponents?
Is This Going To Be My Worse New Year’s Eve Ever?
I don’t know, but let’s face it the weather doesn’t get any better as the day rumbles on. When I went to Otto’s Pizzadrome, it wasn’t raining, but when I left God was sending every bit of water, she could in our direction. As I got the bus home, intrepid tourists from Asia were braving the rain on a tour bus.
Intrepid Tourists
I can never understand people using tour buses in London, as you get almost as good a view from some of the regular buses, like the 38 with its New Buses for London and the 9 and 15, with its fifty year old Routemasters. And of course you never get wet! Surely someone must have written a book about touring London by Oyster on buses, trains, trams etc.
When I went out an hour or so ago to get a few bits at the littleWaitrose at Highbury Corner, it was still raining madly and I got wet in the short walk to the shop.
So I did the lazy thing and got the first bus I found, which was a 43 going past Carluccio’s at Upper Street, but in the wrong way to get home.
I just had a coffee there and then sneaked down the side of the building to the Essex Road to get a 38 bus home. It was a bit of a detour and it cost me the price of a coffee, but at least I got home in a dryish state.
I doubt, I’ll venture out again, unless it really does stop raining. I have a fish pie, if I need something substantial, but otherwise, I’ve some eggs, bread and a small tin of beans. And of course, plenty of beer and Aspall’s cyder.
So does this look like it’s going to be my worst New Year’s Eve?
I think not! Unless of course, a Jumbo Jet should land on my house or some other serious disaster happens!
I had some pretty bad ones as a child, as my parents didn’t really do New Year, although I did have a couple of good ones in my late teens serving in The Merryhills at Oakwood. The least said about one evening there, the better!
C generally wasn’t in to New Year either, except when we used to go hunting as a family on New Year’s Day. We also had some good ones when we managed to get away to places like Majorca or Venice, but for the last twenty years or so with horses, they usually came first. And a couple of those in particular were pretty grim, as it never stopped raining, and there were masses of horses to muck out and feed.
So on a scale of one to ten, I suspect tonight will be about five, whilst I’ve had a few very low scores in my time.
I hope, I haven’t spoken too soon.
CSI Victorian London
The BBC’s new police drama, Ripper Street, was called this in this review in today’s Daily Telegraph.
I watched it and depending on your view of the typical reader of that newspaper, some of the elderly men, who read the Telegraph, probably liked it too. There was quite a bit of Victorian underwear and unrestrained boobs for a start. I don’t know whether Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells liked it, as he hasn’t put pen to paper yet!
I certainly enjoyed it more than Downton Abbey, which because of my allergy to adverts, I never watch!
The Anonymous Widower 