Cambridge to Nice by Train
I was dropped at Cambridge early, as since my stroke I get almost paranoid about missing anything. It’s probably that I’m insecure. But then I always was a bit! I’m just moreso now. But I really had no worries as my credit card and the reference number from Eurostar got the tickets issues without any fuss.
The outcome was that I got the 7:15 out of Cambridge instead of the 7:45 and sat comfortably in First Class. I should say that the extra two single tickets from Kings Cross to Cambridge cost me just £15 for the pair. And as I’m travelling First all the way to Nice, I get First to London. First Capital Connect are not always praised for their service and punctuality, but I had no problems and arrived in London on time.
But of course it was into the main station at Kings Cross, rather than the old surburban one which is just a short walk from St. Pancras International.
Kings Cross Station
As I knew I had a fully flexible ticket, was thirty minutes early and I had to pick my tickets up from the station, I decided to see if I could catch an earlier train. It’s the paranoia again, as I was rather worried that I might miss the connection in Paris, so a few extra minutes might be welcome.
Let’s say the flexible ticket worked and instead of being on the 9:32, I was on the 8:55. But I was told there might be a problem with my gluten-free meal, so would I mention it at the gate. I think the paranoia ruled the stomach and I preferred to be early and hungry, rather than full and late. It was just as well.
The guy on the gate made a note and said that he’d try to get it sorted.
He did and the first thing the steward said when I boarded was that they had the gluten-free breakfast.
That in itself felt that at least someone was looking after me!
The trip was uneventful and I tried yet again to take a picture of the Dartford Bridge from the train. At least this time I was ready for it, not like when I took the journey a couple of months ago on a Javelin.
Dartford Bridge from Eurostar
The only other new feature of note on the English side of the Channel is the station at Stratford. For my liking it is too stark and nothing but concrete at the moment. Surely not something for the entrance point to the London 2012 Olympics. But then, I suspect it hasn’t been properly finished and a good bit of colour helps most things.
On the other side of the Channel the train rolled along as it should across the flat open countryside of Northern France.
Flat France
You can understand why they didn’t have much trouble building this high speed line, as except for Lille, it missed out all the towns and villages. But then France has a lot more space than we do.
Gare du Nord, Paris
I arrived on time into Gare du Nord or Gare Nord, as they call it now, and had ninety minutes or get to the Gare de Lyon. I had been intending to take a taxi, but as I had the extra time I took the RER D from under the station.
It was a wise choice.
A young lad about eighteen or so was by the ticket machines, dressed in a vest which said that he was there to help. He showed me how to use the machines and told me that I needed track 44. Paris is certainly trying to make sure that they welcome visitors! But then tourism is a cut-throat business these days and personal service is something that always works.
Paris RER
Note the double deck! Will Crossrail be that way? I doubt it.
Gare de Lyon, Paris
But then I had an hour to spend in the Gare de Lyon.
Le Train Bleu, Gare de Lyon, Paris
Le Train Bleu Restaurant, that evokes pre-war travel and glamour, is still there, although it does have an Express version as well. Perhaps, we don’t have as much time as we used to.
The station is being upgraded and probably not before time, as such as St. Pancras, Milan, Berlin and even dear old Liverpool Street show that a good station creates the right experience.
The train left on time for the long haul to Nice. To say it is a large train would be an understatement. It is two TGV Duplex or double-deck units coupled together. Short of a boat, it must be one of the largest people carriers around. According to Wikipedia each set carries 545 people.
You do wonder about trains though!
A friend is joining me at Nice for a few days and they have just phoned me from Lyon. Their plane has diverted there because is on the ground there because of mist at Nice! Do I hear herds of thundering tortoises?
Now I’m the tortoise, as the train threads its slow way through Toulon and all stations to Nice. Not the best.
Neither was the snack I got. Despite asking several times in my worst French, I ended up with a fish thing clearly labelled gluten. So I picked out a few bits of fish and potatoes and left the rest. I hope I’m OK. Why didn’t the silly woman show me the packet and I could have read it?
We’re barely walking pace at the moment and my friend has just arrived in Nice. Perhaps this train is always late, as it was the last time I caught it. That was between Antibes and Nice in 2007 on one of the last holidays with my late wife. It seemed strange to use it as a local train then, but everybody does.
Still the countryside is all green and it’s sunny.
TGV Duplex Arrives at Nice
Finally we arrived in Nice about a quarter of an hour late.
And then I got ripped off by the taxi driver.
Who cares? There are worse things in life! But it’s probably why I avoid them like the plague.
A Tax on Coeliacs – 2
It’s funny, but all the budget forums I’ve read so far have got coeliacs in them moaning about the tax on cider. There are three in this article in the Guardian for a start.
If nothing else, Darling has at least got coeliacs talking about their condition on the Internet.
As they make up one percent of the population, could they have an effect on the election? Probably not, but it does show how stupid Darling is. Surely, he needed to bring in a flat tax rate for drinks like cider, so that cheap crap was taxed heavily and the good expensive stuff wasn’t.
But then in most cases you have to be stupid to be a politician!
Vitamin B Complex for Coeliacs
I mentioned in this post some research, which investigated the “effect of B vitamin supplementation on plasma homocysteine levels in celiac disease”. These were stated that they might lead to strokes.
I have since contacted the lead researcher, Muhammed Hadithi, and he said the following :-
Your option to take vitamin B complex supplement is in my opinion very justified and wise.
Our findings were also confirmed but probably not published by group of Joseph Murray in Mayo clinic. Coeliac is risk for hyperhomocysteinemia and secondary blood vessel disease that can be well compensated by taking vitamin B complex. These vitamins can not do us any harm anyway and the benefits outweigh their costs.
If this simple pill might have a positive and as there is unlikely to be harm, I have now started taking them.
A Tax on Coeliacs
Darling has put the tax on cider up significantly.
It may be alright for those who can drink beer! But I can’t!
A Scare to Laugh At?
Last night I noticed that one of my eyes was very red. This morning it wasn’t any better, but it wasn’t any worse.
Was it blood pressure? Was it the statins? Was it the aspirin? Or was it something much worse?
So I got driven to the drop-in Health Centre in Haverhill and feared the worst. Perhaps that was that I had to wait twenty minutes or so, but then there did seem to be quite a few walking wounded in the centre.
When I did see the doctor, he gave me a bit of a thrice-over, had a deep look into my eyes and said that it couldn’t be any of the first three, as only one eye was badly affected. He said it looked very sore and said that it could be caused by hay-fever.
Too right! I suffered badly last spring and when I got the prescription for some drops at the pharmacy a few minutes later, the pharmacist said that he was dolling them out at a high frequency!
It’s funny, but before I was diagnosed as a coeliac, I never suffered from hay-fever. Now, I usually spend a rotten spring. You win some and you lose others. I suppose my immune system was so crap before, it wasn’t good enough to give me hay-fever.
A New Face for an Old Lady
I found this article on the British Library web site. It’s called Stroke and Coeliac Disease and is from Italy.
I’ve ordered it. I hope it’s worth the price.
Another Paper
This paper has the title of “Effect of B vitamin supplementation on plasma homocysteine levels in celiac disease”. It sounds boring, but I think it says that if you have low B6 and folate levels, then you might be more likely to get a stroke.
In any case I’m going to get my homocysteine, folate and B6 levels checked. I know the B12 are OK.
Coeliac Disease and Ischemic Stroke
I’m up early and playing on the Internet with Google. I’ve just typed “stroke coeliac” into the search engine with a couple of modifiers to cut out some of the things I already know about.
I have now found this paper by El Moutawakil B, Chourkani N, Sibai M, Moutaouakil F, Rafai M, Bourezgui M and Slassi I working in Casablanca in Morocco, entitled Coeliac Disease and Ischemic Stroke. This is the extract.
INTRODUCTION: Neurological manifestations of celiac disease are various. An association with ischemic stroke is not common and has not been well documented. We report two cases.
OBSERVATIONS: The first patient had experienced several transient ischemic strokes in the past 2 years and then had an acute ischemic stroke involving the territory of the right posterior cerebral artery. Investigations revealed celiac disease with no other recognizable etiology. The clinical course was marked by persistent visual aftereffects, but no new vascular event. The second patient had been followed since 1998 for celiac disease confirmed by pathology and serology tests. She was on a gluten-free diet. The patient had an ischemic stroke involving the territory of the left middle cerebral artery. Apart from a positive serology for celiac disease and iron deficiency anemia, the etiological work-up was negative.
DISCUSSION: The mechanisms of vascular involvement in celiac disease are controversial. The most widely incriminated factor is autoimmune central nervous system vasculitis, in which tissue transglutaminase, the main auto-antigen contributing to maintaining the integrity of endothelium tissue, plays a major role. Other mechanisms are still debated, mainly vitamin deficiency.
CONCLUSION: Being a potentially treatable cause of ischemic stroke, celiac disease must be considered as a potential etiology of stroke of unknown cause, particularly in young patients, and even without gastrointestinal manifestations.
I’d always fancied going to Casablanca to see the ghost of Humphrey Bogart.
Google Flu Trends
I found reference to Google Flu Trends in The Economist in an article about how Google are searching blogs and other information to find out what is going on.
An interesting graph is shown, but why are the UK, Finland and Denmark left out?
I wonder if the same techniques could be used to check for relationships. For instance, I wonder if my being a coeliac means that I am more likely to have strokes. So what if there are a lot of blog posts, with these two words in them? Obviously, it would need powerful and correct statistical analysis.
As an aside here, some years ago I wrote a program that used Google to deep search the Internet, create a database of all possible results and then display them in a Daisy chart. It showed a lot of promise, but I then had other things to do. That’s my life all over.
Gluten-Free Meals in Holland
When it happened the first time at a cafe near the Watersnood Museum, I just thought it was a nice gesture. But when it happened last weekend, I thought it could be part of an encouraging trend for coeliacs.
Cafe Restaurant Landbouw
But last week at the Cafe Restaurant Landbouw, for the second time I got gluten-free bread with my meal. So it was frozen and had been warmed in an oven or a microwave.
It was a nice gesture, that rarely happens in the UK.
The Anonymous Widower 