How Various Nationalities Could Get to the Olympics
London has always been a multi-national and multi-cultural city, so there has always been large groups of various nationalities in various parts of the city. Where I live is just a stone’s throw away from where my French Huguenot ancestors lived and go a little bit further south and east and my Jewish ancestors could be found at the start of the 19th century. Even now, certain Caribbean groups have settled in places like Brixton,New Malden has been populated by Koreans and there’s an area of Camden with lots of Georgian restaurants. London is a complete jigsaw of nationalities.
So you can get a few mildly humorous rules about how the various nationalities might get to the Olympic Park.
The Koreans in New Malden, as do many, have an easy trip. They just take a train into Waterloo and then take the Jubilee line round to Stratford.
Remember the London Underground rule to estimate journey times; 2 minutes per station and add 5 minutes for an interchange.
The French should walk to the Park from West Ham or Hackney Wick stations, on top of the Greenway, as this walk and cycle path, sits on a major part of London’s sewerage system, which was built by a man called Joseph Bazalette, whose grandfather was French.
A few of the Russians will be very rich, so will be in VIP limos, but if they and their fellow countrymen do go by public transport, they’ll take the Olympic Javelin Shuttle from St. Pancras station. But one day they might like to go by the Central line and go a few stops past Stratford to look at Gants Hill station, which is to a design for Russia by Charles Holden. There’s some pictures I took of the station here.
The Orange Train for the Dutch at the London Olympics
London’s new Overground system is four lines, with a fifth to be added in October, later this year.
The Dutch will feel at home on these trains, as the colour scheme of the trains and stations is predominately orange and the line is shown in orange on the tube map.
The major line, the North London line, also travels across North London from the Olympic site at Stratford and connects to buses and trains to get to the Heineken House at Alexandra Palace. If you go further west you get to Hampstead Heath and Kew Gardens, two of the best places in London to get over a hangover.
I suspect that getting to Alexandra Palace during the Olympics may be difficult, as the two train routes from Kings Cross St. Pancras station, where the Olympic Javelin Shuttles arrive, the suburban rail to Alexandra Palace station and the Piccadilly line to Wood Green station, are crowded most of the time, even without the Games. If you can get to Alexandra Palace station, it’s a much shorter walk up the hill to the Palace.
So a better alternative might be to take the North London line from Stratford to Highbury and Islington and then take the suburban rail from there to Alexandra Palace station. It will certainly avoid the inevitable crush and wait at Kings Cross.
Presumed Dead Law
The Justice Committee of the House of Commons is calling for a new ‘presumed dead’ law. There is an article here on the BBC.
This law could go further in that we also need an Interim Death Certificate, for where someone has died, but the cause of death needs to be determined by a formal inquest.
The mother of a friend of mine died a few years ago and until the full Death Certificate, it created a lot of heartache, grief and administrative pain. Especially, as his father had delegated everything financial to his mother. He couldn’t even find out how much was in the bank account and what standing orders were set up. But an Interim Death Certificate would have remedied that situation, although perhaps to avoid fraud, it would not have the full rights of a full Death Certificate.
I heard from my legal friends at the time, that this is quite a common situation and so today I wrote to the Justice Committee. I just found the page for the Committee on the web. There is an e-mail address there. So if you have a matter for a House of Commons Committee, it is very easy to contact them.
This Story Beggars Belief
The man who ordered this book-burning in Afghanistan has a functioning brain as poor as that of Dominique Strauss-Khan. Surely, he should have known that to burn anything slightly sensitive would have caused a riot. And of course it did!
Today, the day after the Times has leader entitled, Flaming Idiocy, on the subject.
Doesn’t DSK Ever Learn?
There are reports everywhere to say that Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been detained by French police investigating a prostitution ring.
As he supposedly had sex with several of the women, what else could he have thought? Perhaps, that they just felt sorry for him? Or they were giving him a free sex-education lesson?
Imagine if the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition had been involved in a similar enquiry! But it wouldn’t happen here would it? Not now maybe, but similar things have happened in the past.
Sarah Palin ‘believed Queen was in charge of British forces in Iraq’
Another article from the Daily Telegraph.
I think if the Queen had been in charge, we wouldn’t have had a war in Iraq.
Sarah Palin always strikes me that if she had had a word fight with any of the great wordsmiths, she’d have been metaphorically hung, drawn and quartered.
Zara Phillips Turned Away from Horse Event
This was the headline on a report in the Daily Telegraph.
I wonder what Disgusted from Tunbridge Wells thinks of it all.
Remembering M.R.D. Foot
M. R. D. Foot, who has recently died, was an historian, whose wartime exploits and subsequent researches led him to be a leading authority on the Special Operations Executive.
I seem to have come across him first, as he had written one of C’s books for her History and Politics course at Liverpool. But I remember him most for his book that he wrote in conjunction with Jimmy Langley, MI9: Escape and Evasion in 1939-1945. In there he relates how the first two British servicemen to make a Home Run from Germany were two Sikh sergeants in the Pioneer Corps.
It is a tale that has fascinated me and no-one seems to have any more knowledge than that one line in the book.
Hopefully, one day the tale will fully surface.
Basques Want to Join an Independent Scotland
I can’t work out if this was a Spanish joke or not, but it is reported in today’s Times. The leader of one of their political parties has said it and has also waxed lyrical about kilts and said that Edinbrgh should replace Madrid as their capital.
Probably it’s just another way of stating the old adage – You don’t have to be mad to be the leader of a political party, but it helps.
I actually think on a day of such miserable foreign news, the story lightens everything up.
On the other hand it could be a large publicity stunt on behalf of Bilbao-based company CAF, who are building the trams for Edinburgh’s tram system and they want to get it finished and of course get paid. When it does get finished, I suspect that a mixture of Scots, Basques, paella and Scotch will be a good recipe for a party.
Bureaucracy Isn’t All Bad or How to Get a UK Pension Forecast
I am 65 in a few months and I need to find out what my State Pension is going to be, so that I can plan my life accordingly.
As I live only a short walk from my local Jobcentre Plus and they helped me with my winter heating allowance, I decided they would be the first place to try.
They couldn’t help me directly, but they gave me a list of useful numbers and told me to ring the Pension Service on 0845 606 0265. This incidentally is free from BT, but expensive from a mobile.
After I got home, I rang the number and they told me that the simplest way was to ring another toll-free number, 0845 300 0168.
It took me about ten minutes before I gave them all the information they needed, like both out National Insurance numbers, C’s Date of Death and our Date of Marriage.
The guy at the other end said, I’d get the Pension Forecast through the post in about ten days.
It was all fairly painless! And there were no charges anywhere. Not even phone ones!
The Anonymous Widower 