18 September 2006

on 18 September 2006 at 05:00

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.

4 September 2006

on 7 September 2006 at 18:19

Landscape problems make road works unbearable

Having just spent a couple of weeks in Scotland, I have discovered what’s wrong with road works in Norfolk. There is insufficient scenery to alleviate the tedium.

Specifically, there are no hills. All right, there is Beeston Bump. And Edgefield. And Gas Hill in Norwich. But there are no hills worth looking at for more than a moment.

I came to this conclusion while queuing lengthily for bridge repairs in Glen Coe, several miles north-west of King’s Lynn. The magnificence of the surroundings drove any frustration from our minds as we surveyed the picturesque pinnacles and ridges looming on each side of us, so untypical of Lynn itself.

The answer clearly is to import a few mountains into Norfolk – a move I have advocated on occasion in my role as president of the West Norfolk Mountain Rescue Team. They could be inserted almost painlessly at points where road works were planned, like Attleborough. You could then hold up as much traffic as you liked. There could be practical problems, I suppose, but if so perhaps pictures of mountains might be used instead.

The presence of so much natural beauty in the Highlands obviously generates a more sensible approach to traffic management. The motorist will quite frequently come across signs like: “Frustration causes accidents. Allow drivers to pass.” And they do.

You do not get this sort of thing in England, where the attitude is that if this tedious dawdle is good enough for me, it is good enough for you, you homicidal lunatic. I put this, too, down to the lack of mountains.

Most road signs in Scotland are worth reading, unlike their English equivalents. I particularly liked “No road markings for miles”, which seemed to work very well. In one respect, though, the two countries are as one: whenever you see a “Flood” sign, you can be sure of one thing: there is no water on the road.

Secret service cars refuse to signal

Those of us inclined to blame drivers for many of the mishaps on our roads would be intrigued to read statistics prepared by an alert EDP reader.

For legal reasons, I cannot give these here, but I can give the nub of their gist: cars themselves are to blame.

Basing her observations on newspaper reports, the reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, noticed that very rarely was the driver at fault in an accident. Instead “the car hit a tree”, “the car crossed the double white lines” or “the car failed to negotiate the bend”.

She writes: “It seems that we now have cars that not only think for themselves but also decide where they should go.”

She wonders if these are the same cars that “trundle along the middle lane of motorways at 50 mph or carry on in the overtaking lane at 65mph without any intention of overtaking anyone.

“Are they the same cars (working for MI5) that never indicate at junctions because their journeys are so secret that no-one should know where they are going?

“Are they the cars with only one speed - 40mph - for all journeys regardless of 30mph limits or wide open roads?”

She concludes with one statistic that I can reveal: 90 per cent of cars shouldn't go out in the rain. Hard to argue with that.

New planet may be home to someone, says UEA expert

Following the reclassification of several celestial bodies, the Erpingham firm of Houseago Inc has announced that it has unearthed a new planet on the outskirts of Norwich.

The discovery, which has been confirmed by the University of East Anglia’s School of Penguins, Chess and Road Surfacing, has been named Hellesdon (HML200699C- Beta).

Early indications are that it has a strong gravity field that tends to force anything within its orbit to move in circles or come to a complete halt, especially on Middleton’s Lane, the romantically named crater just south of the Great Rift.

Reports of life on the surface are believed to be exaggerated, though there are a few believers.

“Most people would regard it as just another piece of rock,” said Prof Ian “Sam” Aufmerksam late last night. “But I prefer to think of it as home to someone.”

Erpingham Inc hopes to claim ownership of the new planet and then sell it on eBay.

Newts accuse 'upstart' celebrities of wasting time

A press release from a consortium of great crested newts based in Tattersett, near Fakenham, attacks “time-wasting minor celebrities” for muscling in on their claim to be the major obstacle to bulldozers in the United Kingdom.

The newts have won large amounts of money for resettlement purposes as a result of construction projects, their victories in East Anglia being rather dwarfed by the £43,000 they won to make way for a new children’s playground in Wales in 2003. But a national newspaper survey places them only fifth in a list headed by a tiny snail that held up the Newbury bypass to the tune of £250,000.

The newts claim that this was “just highway robbery” and the snails, at 3mm long, were “practically invisible and very slow”. Nor do they have much time for the water vole, the dark-bellied brent goose and the badger.

They claimed the bog bush cricket, the “upstart” black redstart, the dunlin, the brown-banded carder bee and the Dartford warbler, also on the list, were “johnny- come-latelies who had no real talent and should be shut up in a house together for sad people to observe”.

Lack of driving saved warming 18C world

Documents recently discovered by this page have revealed an alarming trend in global warming going back to the 18th century.

Scientists in 1733, it seems, might have announced: “The UK has heated by a massive 3.2 degrees over the last four decades, to the present 10.47C. (The 2005 average was 10.45C.)

In 1779 they could have warned: “If the warming trends of the last 40 years continue, the UK could have a Mediterranean climate in the early years of the next millennium. The warming of 0.89C per decade to the present 10.4C is without precedent since records began.“

The documents, more details of which can be found at numberwatch.co.uk under Guest Papers, reveal that the average UK temperature in the year 1800 was 0.65C higher than temperatures at the end of the 17th century.

According to 18th century computer models, it could have got a lot worse, but fortunately people stopped driving cars.