The Clock Isn’t Ticking
This clock on the Royal Bank of UK Taxpayers could be said to sum up the city.
The Clock Isn't Ticking
If it’s working it is about half-an-hour slow. Or it was when I took the picture and you might be able to see the actual time on the church behind.
In my view the picture sums up the city. no-one believes in attention to detail.
Pedestrian Unfriendly Plymouth
If you like walking and you have to go to Plymouth for some reason, then don’t think that walking in the city will be easy. Good walking cities have three things in common; fairly flat terrain, lots of signs, well-thought out maps and if those fail a well signposted and logical public transport system. Obviously, I would say London has these, but then I know the place like the back of my hand and I know many of the short-cut bus routes. But then except for the terrain, Liverpool scores well, as does Leeds, Sheffield, Milan, Valencia, Berlin and even Naples.
For a start, the hotel porter couldn’t find me a map and when I started my morning constitutional to get a newspaper on Saturday, I only had a vague idea of the city’s layout in my memory. There were signs however, so I thought I might find my way to the Hoe. But try as I might, I could not find any maps. Not even on the bus shelters. I know that is rather a hobby-horse of mine, but every bus shelter should have a local map. Preferably, there should also be a spider bus map like London and some other cities. I can’t remember a time, when I went to a tube station and there wasn’t a local map of the area, so they must have been there well over fifty years. Now most London bus shelters have them and it makes travel around the city so easily. Especially if like London each stop is announced on the bus or train! All I tell my visitors is to take an xxx bus to a particular named stop and text me, when the bus passes another, so I can meet them when they arrive.
I did get to the Hoe and what a disappointment!
Plymouth Hoe
Information was bad and it was just vast expanse of asphalt, which gave the impression it was used as a car-park in busy times.
Wikipedia says this of the Hoe.
For forty years, there has been controversy about development on the edges of the Hoe green space. The erection of two discount hotel chain box buildings, at the southern end of Armada Way and the other at the Sound end of Leigham Street, contrast with their Victorian surroundings. The former Grand Hotel is being converted into luxury flats, and the long derelict yacht club site has now been filled by a modern block of flats. The Plymouth Dome, a turret and domed building, built into a small old quarry site above Tinside as an historical theme tourist attraction, failed to attract enough tourists or locals and closed in 2006. As of 2008, it may be demolished.
I just walked along it for a bit to admire the view and then walked back into the city.
I know it was only six in the morning, but I’m a bad sleeper away from my own bed, so very often I’ve found myself walking around deserted city centres. Usually, I’ll buy a paper and then perhaps find somewhere to sit and read it. But Plymouth was as dead as the proverbial dodo. Most city and town centres have a paper shop or a Tesco Express or a Sainsbury Local, where I can do the first and a cafe to do the second. I couldn’t find anywhere open to buy a paper, so I just walked in a wide circle, back to the hotel. I suppose if you live in the centre of Plymouth and need something urgently like nappies or a ready meal early in the morning, you have to get the car out and drive to the larger food stores on the outskirts. But then Plymouth is a city designed totally around the car and pedestrians are sad losers, who aren’t welcome. Look at this barrier for a start.
Anti-Pedestrian Barrier, Plymouth
Any sensible city would protect pedestrians, by building crossings along a main shopping street and imposing a low speed limit. But Plymouth just make you walk a few hundred metres in a direction you don’t want to. And then look at this light controlled crossing.
Unphased Pedestrian Lights, Plymouth
You have to wait for one set of green lights and then cross to the middle, then wait again. Locally in London, lights are often timed so that if you’re walk naturally, you can do the double crossing with ease. I checked too in Bristol and there they phased the lights more for pedestrians.
Cities need to attract visitors to bring money in. People may arrive in cars, but then they will become pedestrians. So it is very easy to hack your visitors off. Plymouth does this in spades.
One point they also miss, is that say you arrived in a Plymouth car park and walked to the Hoe, would the signage get you back to where you parked your car. I doubt it!
These visitors will never come back and will tell their friends why.
Two Bombed Out Churches
In the UK, we have several bombed-out churches from the Second World War. I have post about St. Luke in Liverpool before, which is generally known in the city as the bombed-out church.
On my weekend trip to Plymouth and Bristol, I came across two more. First was the Charles Church in Plymouth.
Charles Church, Plymouth
If ever there a badly situated ruin, that is a monument to the excesses of town-planning it is this. Surely, they could at least given pedestrians access, but it seems to be unfortunately left in the wrong place by the bombing of the Second World War.
In some ways, this church sums up Plymouth. Very disappointing!
And then there was St. Peter’s in Bristol.
St. Peter's Church, Bristol
The surroundings have been left to show it off properly as a monument to those who died. It also had an information board.
Information on St. Peter's Church, Bristol
Plymouth could learn a lot from Bristol.
Tearing Newspapers
I like to take bits out of the paper to bring home, so I can read them later and perhaps comment on them.
But newspapers now seem to be made from such poor quality paper you can’t seem to tear them cleanly.
A butler certainly wouldn’t be able to iron and fold The Times, so that Lord Muck could get the Court and Social page on the front, just as the paper used to be laid out.
Is a Sattelite Dish a Human Right?
According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission it is. Read about it here.
In my view satellite dishes are ugly and should be banned. Especially, as there are so many other ways to get the service through broadband.
I have a feeling that in ten years time, we will rarely see a satellite dish. Especially in towns, where so many new methods to deliver signals will be developed. I also think, that hidden aerials that are flat and flush with walls will be developed, if for no other reason than they can be quickly and easily involved.
The Coffee Obstacle Race
The worst and in some way the best part of the journey to Plymouth was getting down the train to buy a coffee. Obviously, on such a crowded train, you couldn’t have run a trolley, unless it was attached to the roof.
I had to travel through about six coaches to get to the buffet and to say it was made very difficult because of the junk in the aisle wouldn’t be too much of an understatement. Why is it that people load enormous cases, even a full size surf board and car seats, that would fit Cyril Smith, into the vestibules and aisles of a train? Strangely sitting though imperiously in this chaos was a pug, who politely got out of the way as I passed.
The buffet was quiet too and I bought my coffee with the sort of speed you’d expect from a typical Starbucks in mid-morning.
And then there was the walk back. I should probably have stayed in the buffet and drunk it there, but I do like a challenge. It actually wasn’t much of one, as of course, I’d got one of those excellent two-handled small paper carrier bags to carry my coffee. Why can’t other shops and kiosks use them more?
So although I indicated it was the worst part of the journey in some ways, it was also one of the best given the circumstances. The ride of an IC125 is so level and flat, that it made a difficult task easy. It would have been impossible in a Pendolino.
I did make a mistake and that was not to bring a stirrer. So I gave it a quick stir with my pen.
Human Echolocation
We all know that bats use this, but surely humans can’t! Oh yes they can, if you believe what Wikipedia says here.
I was alerted to this story by yesterday’s Times Magazine, where they had an article about Daniel Kish. Perhaps he read Dark Universe by Daniel F. Galouey. In my view it’s one of the best science fiction novels ever written. And it’s still in print! I have a copy on my bookshelf and like all good science fiction, it has a yellow cover.
The trouble with people is that they use the creative part of their brains for all the wrong purposes rather than to improve themselves or the lives of others.
Staff and Passengers to Plymouth
One thing though that should be said about my trip to Plymouth. The train was crowded, but as the staff kept announcing, there were a few seats left. So why did people keep standing and moaning to the staff about it? From what I overheard many had bought expensive tickets at the last minute. No-one would fly on easyJet or Ryanair at the last minute and expect to get a good price, so why do they expect to have a cheap walk up ticket on a train.
After all, I booked a couple of weeks ago and did the journey for just over twenty pounds!
The staff though coped well and did a very good job. And I told them so at the time.
I’m not sure, but I think on some services in Europe, if there is no seat you don’t get a ticket. Surely on some of the more popular services in the UK, the same rule should apply! I think the staff would like it, as they wouldn’t have got the abuse, which seemed to come from those without booked seats.
One other point about the staff, was that in my carriage an elderly lady had turned up on the wrong day. As there was still the odd seat, it didn’t matter, so she wasn’t left behind. But those around me played a bit of musical chairs, so that everyone had a pleasant journey.
Three Hours on a Train
I wanted to see Ipswich play the first match of the season at Bristol yesterday and instead of going just for the say, went to see a friend in Plymouth on Friday.
I arrived at a very crowded Paddington in mid-morning for the 11:06 to Plymouth. It was crowded, with the usual wheeled cases being trailed everywhere. Do these selfish people realise that their mobile obstacles are a nuisance to anyone with limited movement or vision? I’m alright now and to prove a point, I had everything I needed in my new Samsonite bag.
I was carrying my gluten-free sandwiches and a bottle of wine for my friends, from Marks and Spencer in a carrier bag, but as I’d arrived with plenty of time, I walked straight on to the Standard Class Quiet Coach nto the window seat I’d booked. My two bags and coat spent most of the journey on the overhead coat rack. I only needed to disturb my companion once to get my lunch down and for another to get a coffee and take a toilet break. I should say that I was surrounded by a family of about six, all of whom spent most of the time reading and playing on a laptop. Their mother was dispensing a real picnic, with lots of parma ham, salad and fruit. Surely, they were showing how you use a Quiet Car!
In fact, the whole car was mostly quiet with not even a crying baby and there were some small toddlers there. The only problem was that some had blocked the aisle with heavy luggage. Those going to Plymouth seemed to have used the Baggage Car as the staff had asked them to.
I made one mistake on the journey. Although, I was sitting by the left hand window, I forgot to get my camera out to take shots of the train as it sped along the Exeter to Plymouth line between Exeter and Newton Abbot.
At Plymouth, I got ff the train pretty fresh, which is more than could be said as I got off my flight to Athens on easyJet.
Both journeys are about the same time, but give me the train anytime. Especially in a forty-year-old, but newly refurbished IC125.
The Anonymous Widower 