Now We Know What Freemasons Get Up To
In both The Times and the Metro this morning, there is a similar article about the sale of a rather extreme convertible Rolls-Royce nicknamed the Honeymoon Express. Here’s the piece from the Metro. I particularly like this paragraph.
It was originally delivered as a chassis to the coachbuilders who adapted it for a high-ranking Manchester freemason.
Now we know what freemasons get up to in their spare time!
The car is coming up for auction next month! I shall not be going!
The First Northern BBC Breakfast
I watched it all the way through and there wasn’t one politician. Some will say that’s a good thing, but the quality of the guests wasn’t good and they were very local to the studio.
If it doesn’t improve, I’ll be switching to Radio 5 or perhaps even Radio 4.
Perhaps this is what the BBC wants as radio must be much cheaper to make than television.
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Consequences of the BBC’s Stupid Move to Salford
Obviously we’re going to get a lot more inconsequential phone-ins based on Manchester, because of the BBC’s stupid move to Salford. Today’s was about Manchester City, who aren’t even the best team in Manchester and their rather immature player; Mario Ballotelli.
To be fair too, Manchester is probably not even the third English city after London and Liverpool.
Can you imagine French radio moving its flagship breakfast program to Lyon from Paris?
Let’s get rid of this sillyness and bring Radio 5 back to London!
This Backlash Just Had to Happen
Last night in Rochdale, various factions attacked the takeaway and the police, that used to be owned by some of those on trial for sex offences in Liverpool Crown court.
And people wonder why Rochdale has such an awful run-down town centre.
With all the goings on there, would you let any of your children go near the place? And would you go there yourself, if there were a decent alternative nearby? Of course, you wouldn’t!
It strikes me before you try to build up the town centre, you must give it a steam clean first, to remove all the low life of whatever race they are to a place, where they can’t do any more damage.
Rochdale
To illustrate how bad some of our town centres have become, BBC Breakfast is looking at Rochdale, where 1 in 6 of the shops are empty, today.
Surely the problems of Rochdale are going to get worse in the next couple of years, when they open the Metrolink to Manchester.
As it opens in Summer 2012, it looks like some of the rats have left before the ship sinks, making the problems worse. Dorothy Perkins, Mcdonalds and The Body Shop were named in the program.
It looks a classic case of planning a city bit-by-bit in isolation. The new Metrolink will bring people into the centre for their shopping. But it seems, they haven’t thought about Rochdale.
On my travels I did go to Eccles and that town surprised me. So what have they done right in Eccles and wrong in Rochdale?
Salford Claims A Victim
Tim Gudgin has read the football results on the BBC for the last 16 or so years.
Today will be his last reading, as he has resigned. He did indicate that to travel every week from the South Coast where he lives to Salford would just be too much.
The ridiculous move to Salford will change the BBC in many ways. not all, by any means will be positive.
Moving to Salford will prove to be a disastrous folly.
A Linguistically Correct Train
This train to Manchester from deepest Wales shows the Welsh form and the English form of Manchester on the destination board.
A Bilingual Train at Manchester
I’m not going to say it’s a waste of money to make the train bilingual, but how many people in Wales know the Welsh for Manchester?
I’ve always believed that those who live in a town or city, should chose its name and I’ve posted as such before in this blog.
You have to wonder how far this could go. How about using the Essex dialect form for Southend for trains out of Liverpool Street. Or would Saafend be too confusing?
At Last A Decent Map Of Manchester!
After asking about six Mancunians, where Spinningfields was on Day 26, so I could have supper in the Carluccio’s there, I was finally directed to this map by a young Polish woman.
Manchester City Centre Map
I thought all my prayers had been answered. Until I realised that the You Are Here sticker is in the wrong place! I mean if the Council mapmakers don’t know their city, how can the good people of Manchester get to know it? On the other hand, they perhaps don’t walk at all, except to get into the car!
After an excellent meal, I then had the problem of finding Piccadilly station. There are quite a few finger posts, but none indicated the station where most people arrive at and leave the city by train.
Perhaps, it’s a rather dark plot to entrap tourists and visitors, so they have to spend a night in a hotel!
Luckily, I found a couple of policemen in Piccadilly Gardens and they showed me the quickest escape route to the station. When I said that I found Liverpool so much easier to visit, they both agreed with me!
92 Clubs – Week 4 – 11 Clubs – 18 Trains
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7
Day 22 Day 23 Day 24 Day 25 Day 26 Day 27 Day 28
This was a rather poor performance on my part, but it had got off to rather a bad start on Day 22 and I did take three days off.
Here are the awards.
Heroes of the Week
These have to be Peter, who at 84, guided me across Manchester to Oldham and the unknown driver of the 14:06 out of Paddington to Penzance, that I took to Plymouth.
Most Surprising Stadium of the Week
It has to be Port Vale, as it shows how a small club can create a stadium of whom any supporter can be proud.
Best Stadium of the Week
I’d give this to Port Vale as well, if it wasn’t so difficult to get to. I might give it to Norwich, but then I can’t, can I? Both the Nottingham clubs have good stadia, which are easy to get to, but the others with the exception of Peterborough, are public transport nightmares. So I think I’ll leave the award! in a few years time or on a match day, it will probably go to Port Vale.
Best Signposted Stadium of the Week
Portsmouth virtually has its own station at Fratton and even has separate signs to the ground for Home and Away Supporters, so it wins by a country mile.
Worst Signposted Stadium of the Week
Peterborough virtually lacks signposting and as it is fairly close to the station, some signs would help. But as I said on Day 27, the stadium is very much a work-in-progress, so perhaps it will be very much better in a few years time. I think I’ll give it to Northampton, as with a bit of thought, they could probably make a nice walking route to the ground.
Dump of the Week
After a couple of near misses Manchester finally gets the rewa4rd it deserves. It is a city with bad maps, no information and a completely indecipherable bus system. Perhaps some of the billions, they are spending on the new trams could be used to make sure the buses work or that the maps are correct.
Sign of the Week
It just has to be the one at Port Vale.
Best Train of the Week
The High Speed Train to Plymouth, where I sat on on the floor.
Worst Train of the Week
The two trains to Oxford, where there was no tables in the back of the seats in front. How can I do my Sudoku?
Worst Bus of the Week
The one I took from Boundary Park to Oldham Bus Station. If you were in a wheelchair or had a baby in a buggy, you ewouldn’t have been able to use it.
This was rather a dissappointing week, in that I could have done much more. I could make the excuse of my hay fever! So I will!
Trans Pennine Services
I’ve crossed the Pennines several times so far on a train. Sometimes I used the smart Trans Pennine expresses and at other times the slower trains of Northern Rail.
It would appear that a word of advice is not to use any of the expresses that go anywhere near Manchester Airport without a reservation, as they are generally overcrowded with both people and luggage. I first experienced the problems on Day 3, when getting from Horwich Parkway to Manchester Piccadilly. There also on that train seemed to be a surfeit of obese people sitting in more than one seat. A guy I talked to who was on his way to Prague for business says it was always like that.
But the line from Leeds to Preston is very pleasant as it winds its way through Bradford, Burnley, Accrington, Blackburn and other places, at a fairly leisurely but purposeful pace. On one trip two freight drivers said that the driver of our train was going a bit slower than he might. So do freight drivers think themselves the Kings of the Rail?
And of course there is the Tyne Valley line that I took from Carlisle to Newcastle, which winds through almost spectacular countryside, stopping at stations, straight out of film sets for Victorian melodramas.
How much pressure could be taken of the West Coast Main Line, by doing a small amount of evelopment on these lines? The expresses need more carriages and the slower services need modern units with an extra carriage or two.
Until the 1980s, if you had done the journey I’d done from Morecambe to Newcastle, you’d have just had one change at Leeds, rather than two at Lancaster and Carlisle. Go back even further and it was electrified all the way from Leeds to Heysham. Now the electrification ends at Skipton. Such is progress!
But then on another trip across the Pennines, I sat with a guy, who used to commute on the old Woodhead electrified line from Manchester to Sheffield. A lot of that line doesn’t even exist any more.
All of this just illustrates one of the real problems of railways all over England. East-West routes have not been developed as they should have been. Try to do a journey like Ipswich to Shrewsbury or Hereford?
The Anonymous Widower 