How Good Are British Rail?

How goodat planning are British Rail. They show a complete lack of faith in their customers by installing ticket barriers at Darlington and Newcastle. Each time I come to them usually half are out of service , and the others either have staff or clueless customers blocking them , and even when you get someone who can use them properly often the tickets don't work.

Added to that all the cash ,achines on Newcastle station are inside the barrier , tough if you want to buy a ticket and dont have a debit or credit card , or just needed some cash as you were passing by. Also the pastie and sandwich stalls are inside the barriers so they must be really pleased at their loss of trade!!


Then there's Darlington , where the cash machines are outside the barrieres , but the barriers are situated at the far end of the station giving you an unneccessary extract five hundred yards to walk to catch the train going north, capped off by the idiot placement of one of the barriers right in front of a canopy supporting pillar rendering the barrier unusable!!

Yuu'd be better off taking the bus!!

Wexford - Some Good Bits

Just back from a week in Dublin , and took a day trip out to Wexford. Didnt know what to expect but generally Wexford has some excellent places to go.

Trie a pub which may have been called The Undertakers , and Maggie Mays , both of which had good atmosphere, drink and service.

Sampled a couple of restaurants , the excellent italian "La Dolce Vita" which had brilliant food and atmosphere . Also the excellent "Jacques" at Green Acres (website here) which again had excellent food , and atmosphere.

The day was made by finding a branch of BPM Records (website here) from which I purchased a couple of "Tighten Up" compilations at a bargain €10!!!

Spirit of 1963

Nine days in to 2010 and we're still well and truly snowbound. I've not been into work this year , having the privelege of being able to work from home, but not everyone is so lucky. However it's only snow and public transport is still functioning fairly well , and Shalimar managed to deliver my pizza order last night without any problem!!

Preston managed to sack Alan Irvine (who walked straight into the Sheffield Wednesday job , really glad for him) and we now have young Darren Ferguson at the helm , which bodes for interesting times to say the least. Unfortunately most of this weekends fixtures have been wiped out by the now , so Ferguson's first home match will be at home to Chelsea on the 23rd of January!! Still at least Drogba and Kalou are in Africa!

New Year's Eve 2009

Another fun year with lot's done and more not done. Preparing to wind down for the last day of work , get some Fizz for the Party, and have a good time. Amazingly the bin men came this morning so they must have been putting in double shifts this week , good on them. Anyway here's a short vid of some of the snow, soundtracked by some of my white noise guitar:

Blair Dunlop - A Real Christmas Treat

We've just returned from watching the Albion Christmas Band finish up their 2009 tour at the Sage in Gateshead , and the concert was , as usual , a resounding success with Ashley Hutchings leading proceeding in between selling and signing CDs outside the hall and engaging with the audience ably supported by the rest of the band , Simon Nicol on guitar , Kellie While on gorgeous vocals somewhere between Sandy Denny and Joni Mitchell , and Simon Care on various squeezeboxes and Morris dancing. An excellent run up to Christmas while promoting their new CD "Snow on Snow".

As if this wasnt enough they had brought on support , the 17 year old Blair Dunlop , and prodigious guitar talent who played 4 pieces and held the audience spellbound throughout. There were two songs the ominously titled "Road Beneath My Wheels" (I was thinking "Wind Beneath My Wings" , mercifully Mr Dunlop was in a different universe) and "Why Georgia" a John Mayor composition.

These were complemented bu the percussive instrumental tour de force "Drifting" and finishing with the Trace Bundy arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon which can be seen here:




Blair Dunlop's website is here. As yet there are no official releases. Just like General Fiasco when I first saw them , and in his field just as impressive.

Winter Solstice 2009

The Winter Solstice was yesterday, Dec. 21, 2009, the day when the Earth tilts farthest away from the sun.

The solstice marks the shortest day of the year and the official start of winter. The word "solstice" comes from the Latin "sun stands still" and celebrations of the solstice pre-date Christmas, though you wouldnt think so the way some Christian Fundamentalist go on. Anyway the days get longer from here and I've put together some winter images backed by Jethro Tull's "Ring Out Solstice Bells" which can be downloaded here:

The Snow Has Arrived

The snow has arrived managing to curtail all my weekend travel including parties and visits to friends. Friday I managed not to slip on all the snow and and ice , though vertical continuation was curtailed by a combination of marble floor and spilt coffee on Newcastle's Central station. This capped a bad end to a really good day which started to go bad when I caught a bus to Darligton Station which went for a one hour journey round a dodgy concil estate before dumping me back where I started. At the beginning of the journey I asked the driver if the bus went to the station , he replied in the affirmative. Hmmmm....

Darlington seems to be the only place where busses with the same numbers going in the same directions can have completely different destinations!!! This happens with the 11 and 14 in Darlington . They also have timetables with huge important chunks missing . This one opposite the station has no information between 0718 and 1301 !!


Anyway to on a more cheerful note here's some of the snow that kept us housebound this weekend soundtracked by the excellent "Alan Parsons In A Winter Wonderland" by Grandaddy , which you can get here: