More Things I Like, Things I Don't Like

Things I like: Trains.

These past two weekends, I've ridden my bicycle to Cambridge and ridden a train back, and taken a train to Stevenage for a running race and come back. In both cases, my wait for a train was minimal and travel time was tolerable. Train service is frequent and more often reliable than unreliable. You can get to more than 2,500 destinations by train. Now if you ask a Briton, it's gone downhill since Margaret Thatcher reorganized it. And having been on Swiss trains recently, I can say that they appear to make more allowances for bicycles than British trains do. But still, the rail service makes car ownership optional for a larger share of the population than the United States.

Things I don't like: Northern accents.

I shouldn't make fun of the way people talk, but there is something in the northern English accent that rubs me wrong. I love a broad Scottish brogue and a Welsh lilt, but strong Yorkshire and Liverpudlian accents are at times almost incomprehensible to me. The TV serial Hollyoaks best exemplifies the accents I hate. See if you don't want to punch your computer screen when you click through to this Hollyoaks clip for which embedding has been disabled.

Things I Like; Things I Don't Like

The stamp on my UK visa tells me I entered this country on a permanent basis Jan. 21, 2006. Three years (or thereabouts) gives me some perspective on life here. It's not long enough to be cynical ... OK, it's long enough to be cynical about some aspects of life here ... but long enough to have developed some clear likes and dislikes. Or at least things we enjoy and things we find peculiar. So to celebrate the three-year anniversary, I thought I'd do a series of posts on things I really like and things I really don't like (Mrs. Werbenmanjensen is free to join in as she wishes).

A thing I like:

Beer.

It is fortunate that I live in a land with so many good beers. It is unfortunate that I am unable to try each and every one of them. So my advice to those who ask me what they ought to drink when visiting Britain is to tell them to walk into the nearest pub, look for the long handles on the bar and order what looks interesting from the selection of badges on those handles. Those are the cask ales, pumped by hand from a cellar to your pint glass. While over time they may have gone from being made by specialist brewers to being a brand owned by a major conglomerate, they are beers you won't get in any other country--bitters, porters and the like. Across the rest of the bar you may see familiar names--Guinness, Kronenbourg, Carling, even Budweiser and Coors. But you can get those at any old bar. I like to try something I haven't drunk before.

A thing I don't like:

The obsession with the carbon cost of heating a kettle of water for tea.

This is a comparison you'll find in many contexts. This morning, the BBC reported that two Google searches consume the same amount of energy as boiling a kettle of water (never mind the auto trips to the library averted by Google searching). A major train operator advertises that its trains are so energy efficient that they actually make up for millions of boiling kettles (the first of four on this clip):




Look, almost every action causes carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere. If we're going to drink tea, it will require energy, and until our energy sources are 100% sustainable, that energy consumption will result in carbon emissions--no matter if we heat our water in kettle, on a stove, or in an animal skin over a wood fire. If you don't want your beverage to have a carbon impact, drink water. From a stream.

This obsession wouldn't be so bad if it weren't trivial in comparison to some of the choices we make in our lifestyle, living accommodations, residence, commute, and leisure travel that release far more than the 14 grams of carbon that a kettle does. But we don't like the thought of giving up our houses, yards, automobiles, and sunny holidays, so we obsess about tea kettles.

The Chrysalis Cracks. A Londoner Emerges.

My palate is far too relaxed and my diphthongs too chewy to ever speak British English. I choke at the thought of pledging allegiance to a royal. When "God Save The Queen" plays, I hear "My Country 'Tis Of Thee." But I can feel like a Londoner nonetheless--because I can now navigate Soho's twisty passages and narrow streets without a copy of London A-Z.

The more astute of you may note, based on taglines from recent posts, that I could easily use the map function my iPhone. Yes, I could, which makes it easy to leave the A-Z behind. But twice this past weekend I found my way around Soho quite easily without ever having to check a map.

This is a major accomplishment for me.

The London Bus Boycott

I'm having a customer service battle with both our horrible bank and Transport for London, which runs the Underground and the buses. To sum up, there has been a botched transaction of an automated payment that neither one wants to take responsibility for, despite hours on the phone and a few shouting matches with snarky, lazy customer service types. For this, neither one deserves my limited funds.

I think I've resolved that it will be more than worth it to sever our ties with the bank, but denying TFL my money will be a little bit more of a challenge. For obvious reasons, there's no real market alternatives, except for minicabs, black cabs, and overground rail. I'm already off the overpriced, overhyped bullies of the street they call the black cabs, which leaves minicabs and overground rail. But I have resolved to avoid using TFL services whenever possible, because they've made me angry. Today, I have to get up to our old neighborhood, and I've decided to ride my bike, despite the on-off rain. Rail would be an option if I wanted to walk some distance, but I think I'll just stick to the old pushbike.

We'll see how this goes.

That Worked Out Well, Didn't It?

Boris' Tube drinking ban ended up making things worse:

Thousands of people have marked the banning of alcohol on London transport with a party that ended with arrests, assaults and cancelled trains.
Drinkers, many in fancy dress, gathered on Tube trains and station concourses in a last celebration before the ban came into force at midnight.
But police said what should have been a fun event came to an "unfortunate" end.
Six Tube stations were closed, while police made 17 arrests. Six assaults were reported on Tube staff and police.
There were also numerous reports of damage to Tube trains, which led to suspended services.

Think George W. Bush and the Middle East, only with beer.


UPDATED: London/Diamond Geezer is right.

Boris Lies

Well, we learn from Annie Mole that Boris' promise to bring back the Routemaster may not happen, which means we really will be stuck with those stupid, not-designed-for-narrow-London-streets bendy buses, which can't fit down the street, annoy taxi drivers because they can't fit in the designated bus stop areas, and by the way endanger pedestrians.

Of course, being a good right-winger, Boris would go back on a promise to do a good idea but would never back down on an authoritarian promise, which is the Tube drinking ban. Annie Mole reminds us of the final night parties on the Circle Line. Drink up: Happy hour is now enforced by law.

UPDATED: For more good anti-Boris vitriol, go visit London Geezer, who unfortunately doesn't make his permalinks obvious.

Deep Thought

Why does National Rail suppose that nobody would want to travel by train on a holiday weekend?

Movin' On Up

I probably shouldn't leave our readers in suspense: Yes, we are moving, next weekend, to the flat we mentioned here. It's a bit of a whirlwind move, and seems a bit overwhelming to me right now. Although I don't know what I'm complaining about, since our last move was maybe a little bit more disruptive.

According to my London A-Z, the neighborhood is called St. Luke's, but since Wikipedia tells me "the name is rarely used today," I may refer to it as Old Street, Finsbury or Clerkenwell, since they're probably more well known.

More Things That Are Better Back Home

Automobile licensing agencies:



Memo to the DVLA: If you impound the car and sell it at an auction rather than crushing it, you can defray some of the costs of enforcement. I know that's thinking outside of the, ahem, box ....

Longish Diary Of The Year's Shortest Day

We saw this twice yesterday, have yet to see it for the first time today

To celebrate the 2007 winter solstice, Mrs. Werbenmanjensen and I rose at roughly the same time to make ready to fly nearly halfway around the world: Ten time zones behind, so to speak, landing us in Hawaii sometime late last night local time. Our polar route took us through our first sunset around 1:30 or 2 p.m., only to greet us with a second sunrise a few hours later, somewhere over Canada. Even though we were in the dark, over the North Pole, with an outside air temperature of around -70 something Farhenheit, our British Airways 747 managed to keep the cabin at sweat-wearing-cotton-T-shirt temperatures. Then the hell of LAX, waiting forever for our bags, getting searched by Customs because we wandered the wrong direction, going out of the secure airport environment only to have to re-enter it (really, does that make any sense?) in another terminal, watching the Keystone Kops of the TSA handle luggage in a single X-ray machine, and finally being unable to sit together for our leg to Hawaii because BA and American Airlines can't manage to communicate. We watched our flight chase the second sunset across the Pacific. Warm breezes on Kauai blow the palm fronds into a single green arrowhead atop all the trees, calming my travel-addled and fatigued nerves. We called the taxi dispatcher, who wondered why we didn't want to wait for the shuttle to our hotel. It was an easy $15 for him, a mere seven-fifty in the Queen's sweet sweet sterling, which can't even get you from one side of the Square Mile to the other in a Black Cab.

As I type these words, my computer's clock tells me it's 4:30 p.m. in London, where the sun set 40 minutes ago. Outside our balcony, I can hear the white noise of the Pacific's surf, cheering for a Hawaiian sunrise. It's going to be a good week.

Stonehenge Tunnel Scrapped

The transportation department has decided that noise pollution at the site is less of a priority than wildlife habitats:

Fears for the future of rare wildlife surrounding Stonehenge were eased yesterday after the Government ruled out a £540m tunnel under the ancient monument as well as alternative plans to build a new road on the site.

There were fears that abandoning the 2.1km tunnel on grounds of cost would lead to a bypass being built across the Wiltshire plains to ease congestion. Among the birds said to have been at risk from such a move was the rare stone curlew.

Announcing it was dropping the Stonehenge project, the Department for Transport said yesterday that "significant environmental constraints" meant there were no acceptable alternatives to the tunnel, which was recommended by public inquiry in 2004.

My 2p: It's really a bit noisy at the site, and with lots of pedestrians in the area who want to gawk through the fence rather than pay the admission fee, there is a significant public safety concern. I hope they come up with some solution.

Happy Wednesday!

The former Miss Mind The Gap has a happy message for you.

Public Service Announcement: The Final Word

BBC Radio 6 Music awarded Emma the Don of the Week award, whatever that means.

Random Thoughts At 22 Months

1. The island of Jersey is a peculiar of the crown. I always thought "peculiar" was a term reserved for town weirdos or mints.

2. I never see stop signs in Britain.

Public Service Announcement: Emma's Back

Well, not as the Voice of the Tube, as far as I know, but at least you can go to her website:

This is an emergency!

Public Service Announcement: You're Fired

The voice of London Underground loses its job.

I'd link to another of my favorites over on Emma's website, but sadly, since the story broke, it appears her site is overloaded.

I'll save 'em for later.

Updated: Oh wait, I can get through. Here's one for you sudoku fans.

Updated again: Well, no you can't after all. We'll see how long this takes.

Fast Track To The Continent

I'm a little late on this, and you may already have read of it, but the new Eurostar terminal opened in London on Wednesday, on the "good" side of the river. Not a big deal, I suppose, other than that the trains will take a slightly different route to the Chunnel, on upgraded tracks that will allow them to spend more time at top speed. The Guardian:

The journey time between central London and Paris was cut to two hours 15 minutes today as Eurostar services from St Pancras began.

The train departed the station - which has been restored at a cost of £800m - on time just after 11am. It arrived in the French capital on time despite a national strike paralysing most public transport in France.

It is the first passenger service to use the new £5.8bn Channel tunnel rail link, known as High Speed 1, which allows trains along the full stretch of the British section to travel as fast as those in France.

There is absolutely no reason to fly to Paris, or Brussels, or any other destination that has a direct Eurostar link. You'll spend more time in airports than the time it takes to get there by train.

The New Tube Maps Are In! The New Tube Maps Are In!

Featuring the London Overground.

Looks like we can walk down to Gospel Oak and catch a train straight to Barking (hmmm) or Kew Gardens (yay!) using our Oyster cards.

As Long As We're Talking About The Tube

The Tube has its own unique species of mosquito.

Take that, you intelligent design folks.

Tube Icon Undergoing Change

Yesterday, I got an email from Transport for London informing me that the overland train lines known as the Silverlink Metro are now going to be known starting next week as the "London Overground." Not a big deal, but the overground routes will be included in the iconic Tube map starting next week. Annie Mole has a sneak preview of the new map. She says it looks crowded. I think it looks like a stone of potatoes in a half-stone sack.