25 February 2002
Not such a great journey
I had never really thought of the Bittern Line as one of the Great Railway Journeys of the World. To my mind it lacks something of the grandeur of the Canadian Rockies, as well as the wide open spaces of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the unpredictability of the Indian sub-continent.
The wide open spaces of Gunton and the grandeur of North Walsham do not quite fit the bill. But it does have an element of unpredictability, and surprisingly, it does have Michael Palin.
I remember Mr Palin most fondly as Cardinal Ximinez (or was it Cardinal Error?) in the Pythons’ Spanish Inquisition, but he has gone much further than that. Southwold, to start with, and then to even more obscure and expensive places, travelling the world on our behalf.
And now the Bittern Line? Well, not quite. The Michael Palin that lurks on those tracks is a single-carriage dirty diesel train that all commuters dread. Some say it is the train of last resort, turning up at the end of the day to transport three carriage-loads of passengers within its squat confines, engendering a degree of togetherness altogether foreign to retiring Norfolk people.
It has an interesting engine noise set permanently at loud, strange suspension and only two doors – one at each end. Not, one suspects, what the original Mr Palin might have hoped for, especially as he now lends his name to the equally ageing and ill-equipped Transport 2000 pressure group, which tries to persuade people to use public transport instead of cars.
Its chief weapon is surprise, and a fanatical devotion to misleading statistics. Two weapons. It has two weapons: surprise, a fanatical devotion to misleading statistics and a hatred of motorists. Three weapons. Amongst its weaponry are such diverse elements as . . .
He’ll come in again.
Mr H has a close encounter
A colleague of mine who shall remain nameless but is Neil Haverson, master of Fortress H, is concerned about an unusual phenomenon that he has observed while travelling to work along Newmarket Road, Norwich.
Here there is a helpful bus lane, installed to assist motorists in getting out into the middle of the road nearer to oncoming traffic and, well, generally making life easier for everyone.
Mr H takes up the story: “A tad late one morning, I was bowling along Newmarket Road at precisely 38mph. If only, I thought to myself, I could go a shade faster, I could catch up the time I had wasted before I left home indulging in an early-morning argument with Mrs H.
“Then I became aware of a feeling not unlike claustrophobia. Glancing to my left I noticed I was travelling beside what looked like a moving wall. The wall was not there for long; it accelerated past and revealed itself to be – yes, a bus. It must have been travelling at something over 50 mph.”
Shortly afterwards, the fast phenomenon stopped to pick up some cold and stationary people.
“By the time I arrived at the ring road roundabout, where the bus lane finishes, I thought I was well ahead of him and glanced in my mirror with a view to moving into the left-hand lane. Bearing down on me was the bus. He must have taken off at such a speed that he is probably the only bus to achieve a wheelie.”
The explanation is relatively simple, of course. Clearly the bus lane is subject to quite a different speed limit.
Since this experience Mr H has begun to research the speed of taxis, but this has proved difficult. “By the time I have identified the ghost-like blur that whistles past they are out of sight,” he says.
Strange.
Flaming difficult, really
Following warnings from senior fire officers that retained firefighters were not being released by their companies to attend fires during working hours, a Flaming Commission has been formed.
“Our aim is to ensure that fires take place at convenient times,” said smouldering chairman Len “Kissme” Hardy, a wholefood chef from Hindolveston.
“We have already secured a guarantee from the United Arsonists Friendly Society that they will comply with our new guidelines.”
He added that other representatives had broadly agreed to try to reach the targets set by the end of the year. The Dropped Matches Encounter Group and the Electrical Fault Connection Committee were both in agreement, as was the Spontaneous Combustion and Other Smoking Commune.
The only doubt concerned the Totally Accidental and Unpredictable Burning Association, which was complaining that the aims of the Commission were unrealistic, but Mr Hardy was hopeful that everyone would come into line.
“If we don’t sort this out by the next election, we will have failed,” he said. “I’ve told them they’re either reformers or wreckers, and they have to make their minds up.”
Elf problem
Last time I reported on the activities of the Environmental Elf, whose mission it is ruthlessly to sort out flooding in South Norfolk.
A parish councillor complained at my observation that an earlier bid to solve the problem of filled-up ditches through parish councils had failed “because parish councillors know nothing about land-owning”.
He has asked me to put the record straight on this, and I am happy to do so. Parish councillors, of course, do know a great deal about land-owning, and about ditches. Indeed, most of them are land-owners.
I apologise for any misunderstanding this may have caused.