Rail Ticket Machines
The on-line rail ticket system is good, in that you can pick up your tickets from any machine you want, anywhere in the UK. They do ask you to nominate a specfic one, but I generally use the ones in Kings Cross, as they are convenient for me and are often not very busy, as there are lots of them. They are also slightly more private than some I could name.
The biggest problem is that you need to type in a randomly generated transaction number. I usually text it to my mobile phone, so that when I look at the Inbox, all I see is the numbers of tickets I need to collect, so I can hold the phone in my left hand, whilst I type with my right.
The system could be improved, by allowing you to type in a collection code, when you buy your ticket on-line. So for East Coast, you might use EC and the last four digits of your phone number. As to get the tickets, you’d need to put in the right credit card, that would probably be as secure as the current system. In fact it could be more so, as I’ve seen people take little bits of paper out of their wallet and then read the code, whilst they type it. Some machines have a Qwerty keyboard, which can be difficult for those who don’t type too well.
It would of course mean that collecting multiple tickets, as I’m doing all the time at the moment would be very easy, as I’d use the same code.
So I would end up with a pile of little orange cards, that I’d have to check before I left the station. But that happems now. It’s just that I have to type in several numbers instead of one.
I would also like to see the fact that the ticket had been collected acknowledged to me in an e-mail. That way mistakes and fraud would be spotted earlier.
And why not have a few chairs by the machines so that some like me could sit down and sort everything out.
Why Is The BBC Going To Salford?
I can’t see any good reason and now the Evening Standard is claiming the move is causing marital problems.
I have always thought it a silly move to move a lot of the BBC to Salford. This is especially silly with respect to programs like BBCBreakfast, which has always got quality guests to grace the sofa. Are they going to go to Manchester? Some will of course, but why would a film star in the UK for say a day to promote a film, waste half of that in travelling to a studio up north?
The only reason I can think for the move is that it is some Machiavellian plot dreamed up by NuLabor to reduce the effectiveness of the BBC. Did Tony Blair instigate this to please his friends in News International? Of course not, but you could make a case for it.
One thing it will do, is lower quality, as the best producers, directors, program makers and presenters have the power to say that they don’t want the hassle and they will be snapped up quickly by other networks. Many of this experienced group are probably at an age when they can retire too, which will make the decision to go a lot easier.
How Times Change
This was posted in the local newsletter.
The Rosemary Branch is looking to borrow a gentleman’s pipe from the 1950s for use a prop for an opera opening tomorrow. If you can help, you will get a couple of free tickets from a grateful Cec at the Rosie.
My father had loads of pipes in the 1950s. The last time I saw anybody smoking a pipe, it was clamped between a Belgian’s teeth as he drove towards me going the wrong way down a Belgian motorway.
Scott Overall Does An Ian Thompson
Scott Overall’s performance in the Berlin Marathon would appear to the uninitiated to be a glorious one-off.
But it’s happened before with British athletes in the marathon. Go back thirty years or so and Ian Thompson won the British marathon championship on his debut, when he just made up the team. He then went on to win two gold medals in major championships.
You could argue that Thompson’s performance was better, in that he won and Overall didn’t. But then today, training methods are better and more scientific and there may well be a lot more to come from Overall.
Let’s hope that Scott Overall is worthy of and fit for selection next year for the London Olympics. If he improves substantially, as he well might, then the marathon could be one of the highlights of the athletics.
I have a feeling a two pound win double of Overall and Radcliffe might just be the bet right now.
We must never underestimate the value of a home venue. It did wonders for the Spaniards in Barcelona.
Selfish Smoker
I was waiting outside a friend of mine’s offices, when an attractive shop assistant walked out of the back entrance of Heals, bought a coffee in the shop next to me and then crossed the road to where my friend worked and then proceeded to have a fag on the steps in front of the building.
The shop assistant suddenly wasn’t so attractive anymore. I bet she’ll be a lined old bag when she’s forty, if she continues to be attracted to the dreaded weed.
What Do We Do With the Old District/Met/Circle Line Trains?
Last night, I travelled to and from to Upton Park on some of the old D-stock trains. They may be thirty years old and are to be replaced in 2015, but they asren’t fit for the scrap heap yet. In fact with a bit of a tart-up, they would probably last another twenty years or so, judging by how well most Metro-Cammell trains were built.
Ride to Upminster and back on one and then say that they should be scrapped forthwith. You won’t get the words out, as none of the problems on the line, are the D-stock.
The good burghers of Harrogate, who might or might not live up to that Yorkshire stereotype of being canny have proposed that some of these trains be used between Leeds, Harrogate, Knaresborough and York.
The respected rail commentator, Alan Williams, hasn now weighed in with some south common sense. It might be Yorkshire common sense to, as I think he lives in Scarborough.
- He asks why this system is not being proposed elsewhere, like for the Welsh Valleys.
- He also says that it the thinking is very much in line with the McNulty Report. I suppose one could ask, if the civil servants are in-line with it. They probably aren’t as they never travel outside of London, except by air or limousine! It would be interesting to know how many of the top civil servants, who effectively run our railways have travelled in a Pacer.
- He says too, that they could use a modern protected third rail system, where the electric rail couldn’t be touched by trespassers. This is used on the DLR in the UK and in many places abroad. Perhaps civil servants would be more impressed with the proposals after a round trip of Europe inspecting systems elsewhere?
We could have a competition, where there was a prize for the most innovative use in a railway context of the D-stock trains.
Cash For Scrap
No wonder we get so much metal thefts with big screen adverts like this at football grounds.
Where to Sell Your Scrap Metal For Cash
I took this picture at West Ham last night!
If I was the Transport Minister, I’d get them banned.
The Man Who Brought You OK!, Brings You The Health Lottery
The Health Lottery is launched today by Richard Desmond, who owns Channel 5, the Daily Express, OK and other media interests.
Surely, with the state the country is in, we don’t need a venture like this. This is an extract from the BBC article.
Some charity leaders have been critical that less will go to good causes than from each National Lottery ticket.
The Health Lottery will donate over 20p per £1 ticket, compared with 28p for every National Lottery ticket.
That has been branded a “pretty disgraceful development” by Sir Stephen Bubb, of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations.
I shall not be buying a ticket. In addition, I shall not be buying anything from any shop that sells the tickets either, as now is not the time, to inflict another tax on the poor and the stupid.
One point about the Daily Express and the Daily Star is that if you click on their web sites or arrive there through Google, you immediately get a new browser window with an advert. How long before these windows are advertising the Health Lottery?
I also like this bit from the Independent diary of March 2nd, this year.
More sterling work from brand synergy specialist Elisa Roche, showbusiness editor of the Daily Express, who yesterday managed to squeeze an entire two-page spread from the news that her boss – philanthropist and former publisher of Asian Babes, Richard Desmond – had launched “The Health Lottery”, a new lottery game designed to raise money for health charities. Admittedly, almost half of the aforementioned spread was taken up by a large picture of Desmond (who owns Television X, Express Newspapers, OK! magazine and Channel 5) and his girlfriend, flanked by fellow guests at the “star-studded” launch. “Celebrities who were keen to show their support for the fantastic new lottery,” the optimistic Ms Roche dutifully reports, “included Kirsty Duffy, from Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff, [Channel 5] weathergirl Sian Welby, OK! TV’s Matt Johnson and Kate Walsh, Zoe Salmon of Fiver’s The Love Bus and Channel 5 news presenters Emma Crosby and Matt Barbet.”
I’ve never heard of any of those celebrities at the launch of the Health Lottery, but then I’ve never read OK magazine.
Milliband To Pledge To End “Fast Buck” Culture
According to this report, Milliband is going to pledge to end the “fast buck” culture.
Ed Miliband will vow to end Britain’s “fast-buck” culture and ensure the “right people” are rewarded, in a speech to Labour’s annual conference.
The Labour leader will say later that the country needs “a new bargain based on a different set of values”.
Unfortunately, the get rich quick ideas have always been with us at all levels of society. As an example, the only shop I can see from my house is a betting shop. If I go down Dalston High Street, it is a sea of similar shops and pay-day loan companies. And look at the success of those legalised loan-sharks, Wonga.
In fact, it will be much easier to curb, the “fast buck” culture in the City, as many responsible people I know, steer well clear of the more dodgy practices that brought us some of the very high risk financial instruments, that took a lot of banks to their knees. It used to be in the city, that when you invested in Lloyds and similar companies, if it all went wrong you lost everything. Consequently, the risk management was a lot better, proving Dr. Johnson totally right about hanging.
Incidentally, I was urged to join Lloyds and didn’t! Why? Because it’s my money and I like to have some slight control over what happens to it.
Thinking after what I have just written about Lloyds, wouldn’t it have been better to have put the various bad banks like HBOS and Bank of Scotland into receivership, rather than use them to poison Lloyds TSB. After all, they were very much a victim of Milliband’s “fast buck” culture. But NuLabor made the mistake of saving them. And who was at the centre of that process?
The Anonymous Widower 