18 September 2006
Pinning down buses proves problematic
There are few greater admirers of public transport than myself, but I have to admit that it can be its own worst enemy.
I am not speaking at present of the choking cloud of diesel fumes emitted by a coach pulling away from me the other day, which would have been even worse if it had not been exceeding the speed limit and disappearing rapidly into the distance. No, what concerns me is an information problem: how do you find out which buses run where, and when?
A friend who lives in Lowestoft wanted to find out if he could travel by bus from Norwich rail station to the airport. A fairly simple query, and he called Norfolk County Council to see if they could help him.
No, they couldn’t, but they knew someone who could: Traveline. They provided their phone number.
My friend eventually reached a woman at the Traveline call centre, which is where he ran into real problems.
“She wanted to know where we were coming from, even though we had a perfectly good One timetable from Lowestoft to Norwich and knew what time we would arrive at the station. She then proceeded to route us to Liverpool Street Station and then back to Diss. We never did discover what we were to do at Diss, because my wife interrupted with gales of laughter and asked her where the call centre was.”
It was in Devon. I suppose it could have been worse.
My friend then went to the county council’s website and clicked on "Public Transport”, where, amazingly, there was a link to Traveline.
“I did give Traveline another chance,” he said, “but when I told their website that I wanted to travel from the railway station to the airport I got the ‘Route not recognised’ message.”
So here we have someone who wanted to make a simple bus journey, but could not find out from the county council, the city council (not us, mate) or Traveline whether he could or not.
I can only guess how he felt when he read in the following day’s EDP that trains from Lowestoft to Norwich were going to be cancelled for a fortnight. It’s enough to make you buy a car.
Swamped by onrushing tide of propaganda
It is soon going to be hard to know where to go for a rational discussion on climate change.
Now that all the populist politicians have adopted it as a much-loved child, we can expect a frenzy of legislation whoever gets into power. The Tories, who one might have hoped would take a more critical view, have fallen headlong into the climate catastrophe swamp, with David Cameron apparently quite content to be shoved there by his ecological chum, Zak Goldsmith.
“All must do their bit regardless of political colour,” he intones dutifully, calling – of course – for an “independent” panel of experts to scrutinise Government behaviour. One trembles to think who such experts might be, but we can be sure that anyone lacking a fundamentalist approach to climate change need not apply.
If it was not so frightening, it would be amusing to note the state that certain professors got into when a scientific discussion about the paranormal was given a platform at the University of East Anglia. Such things, they said, should not be discussed without a sceptic on the platform. Or being “properly balanced”, as Lord Winston put it.
For some reason, this argument does not seem to apply when climate change is discussed. I wonder why. Because some things are self-evident?
It is hard to say which is more deplorable – an Oxford professor saying that scientific work on the paranormal is a “complete waste of time”, or the assumption that in climate change, everything is as settled as 2+2=4.
For the poor voter, who suspects that in certain climates 2+2=5, there will soon be no means of expressing any kind of scepticism: he will be left to fall off a cliff into the onrushing tide of totalitarian propaganda.
Perfect road hazard coming into its own again
The nights are drawing in, making driving trickier, and it is time to consider what is the Perfect Road Hazard.
One of my correspondents has no doubt: it is bollards.
For him, specifically, it is those at the Mildenhall end of the A1065. He writes: “You come off a fast section of dual carriageway – probably all the way from London – on to our country roads, and within 100 metres, if you are lucky, you just miss the first of several deliberate obstructions.
“They are lethal to motorbikes, and not only have they never been lit since their installation (I presume they are not connected), but during the months of November, December, January and February especially they are for the most part covered in filth.”
This correspondent is backed up by another, who is “always amazed that local highway authorities seem to get away with siting unlit “keep left” bollards in the centre of the road. In the darker evenings they are an absolute disaster, and it would be interesting to know how many accidents they cause.”
It has become the fashion to put all kinds of junk in the road to slow people down. Sometimes it slows them down permanently – the inevitable result of an obsession with slowness, as opposed to safety.
Baptism opens unexpected doors
Down the centuries, theological arguments have raged over the meaning and method of baptism. Should it be by immersion or sprinkling? Infant or adult? What does it mean, anyway?
To those outside the church, these may seem trifling issues, but Hertfordshire County Council has acted to clarify the essential point. Apparently baptism is necessary to qualify a child at a faith school for a free bus pass.
For some reason this has escaped biblical commentators up to now, possibly because of the unfortunate lack of an equivalent to “bus pass” in ancient Greek or Hebrew. But it is never too late…
“Believe and get free bus passes” may be precisely the slogan the Church of England needs to swell its congregations. Expect a statement from the Archbishop any time.