There used to be a feature on the Inflight Entertainment where you could watch your progress across the ocean on the little screen embedded into the back of the seat in front. Even though progress across the Atlantic was slow, watching the little plane increment its way across the little map was usually better than the Inflight movie.
I haven’t been on a plane with Inflight Entertainment systems like this for a long time, and I don’t suppose they are necessary anymore, now that everyone carries their own devices. That must be a lot of unnecessary weight they’ve been able to remove.
The problem with carrying your own device though means that flight mode must be active, and that means no Inflight tracking. Until now.
On my last flight they were trialling a new customer app that allows you to order food and drink, duty free etc from your seat. I’m not really interested in that sort of thing, but what did grab my attention was the flight progress monitor.
With Flight Mode on, you can now connect your phone to the local loop network on the plane, and then open up a map that shows your progress. It shows you where you are, your direction, altitude and even speed.
On this particular flight we topped out at 650 miles per hour, at 36000 feet. This is somewhat faster than regular flights but we were very late.
It’s interesting to compare this with the Flight Radar app. Flight Radar is an app that tracks your flight in real time and logs it for replaying later.
Comparison Shots
This is really cool. I use Flight Radar all the time. Usually when something loud flies overhead and I want to know it was. Indeed, the highlight of a holiday in Puerto del Carmen was sitting on the balcony, looking out to sea, and watching the planes circle and land at the very nearby Aracife airport, looking up where they came from on the app. Not that I make a habit of such things.
On the way back from a school trip earlier this year, my son was snapping shots from the plane at the same time as I was taking screenshots of the flight app. When he got home we compared notes. These are two photos taken within a minute of each other, and I could identify the plane in the photo on the right. Modern technology might be evil, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be cool.
I’ve been a regular on the 16:30 from Euston for over four years. Not every day, no, just when I’m needed down south, usually just for a couple of days every other week or so. Sometimes I get the half five or the half six, even the half seven if I can be persuaded to stay for another pint or so, but the half seven is a risk; there is no half eight to fall back on, and its been known to get cancelled.
So this was a fairly typical journey, different only in that I had my son with me, and it was a Monday.
The school had an inset day. We used to call them teacher training days, but it meant that the school was closed to pupils, and rather than allow the children to enjoy a bit of spare time to themselves, they instead devised a way to ruin that.
Take Your Child to Work Day, they called it. There was a form to fill in, some proviso for insurances, safeguarding, health and safety etc, and the children were given a workbook to complete along the way. An excellent learning experiment, and the perfect opportunity to take the youngest to my Favourite curry house. We do both enjoy a good curry.
So the day arrived and it gave me the opportunity to teach the lesson of the overnight business trip. Pack spare pants, washbag, laptop, a charger and power bank for every possible eventuality. Then was the lesson of the Greggs, for in the vicinity of any good train station, there is a Greggs, and for the three hours it takes to get to London, you need a Greggs.
The trip proceded without hicup, and we did the lesson of finding a seat on the train. We did the lesson of sitting still and chatting quietly. We did the lesson of checking in at the hotel and hanging up our clothes for the next day. We did the lesson of the Curry House and the enjoying of the food.
We did the lesson of watching traffic and listening to sirens all night from our hotel room next to the Emergency Department. Need to remember that when I’m booking the next one. Note to self: avoid hotels next to hospitals.
We did the lesson of the getting up in the morning and making instant coffee with the tiny kettle. The lesson of checking the room for forgotten chargers and toothbrushes for the forty seventh time. And the lesson of facing and then filtering through the hoards of commuters swarming from the secret hatches of The London Underground.
We did the lesson of finding a desk at the office. Except for a stretch of desk permanence in the second half the Twenty Tens, I’ve been hot desking since 2000. Its the norm. After that we did the lesson of the casual chatter in the staff kitchen while making a brew. The lesson of the checking the schedule for the day ahead, checking for urgent messages, and then compiling the priorities for the day.
Then it got boring for the little one as I, as he put it, was just writing emails, and he asked if he could watch YouTube with his headphones instead. I said yes.
I wasn’t just writing emails, I was writing Teams messages too, updating Jira, SharePoint. I was preparing code for deployment. None of which is particularly interesting to a thirteen year old, and I wasn’t going to force him to watch every mouse click and key stroke just for the sake of it.
The day passed quickly, as the busy ones do. We had a pub lunch and numerous stops through the day to discuss progress and fill out his booklet for school. Before we knew it, it was home time, and time to rush for the scrum that is the 16:30 from Euston. Today was different.
Euston station is rarely quiet, and never at the times that I have to use it, but today it seemed a little subdued. We arrived in good time, and using my special app that tells me which platform our train will depart from, we stood at the gate and waited patiently to be allowed on to the platform and board our train. We were joined by a handful of others and when the gate opened our tickets were checked, and we made a civilised run for a seat in Carriage G. There is usually a stampede at this time as seats are limited and if you’re not fast enough you can find yourself standing all the way to Warrington. That didn’t happen on this occassion, and I counted no more than three other passengers in our carriage. Clearly, Mondays are the day to travel north.
We left Euston on time and were soon up to speed, whizzing through the suburbs of North West London, and out in the countryside at full pelt.
After about half an hour, we came to a screeching juddering halt, the sort of stop that sends your belongings sliding off of the table. We were out in the middle of nowhere, stopped at a red signal. Red signals happen quite a lot, but they’re not usually that abrupt. Outside to the right, trains were still running normally on the other three lines. I don’t know what it is about sitting on the express train watching the slower commuter services pass us, but I find that particularly annoying.
After ten minutes, the train manager announced that we were stopped at a red signal, which we’d already guessed, and would proceed as soon as we were cleared to do so. Another six minutes passed, and the train manager chimed in with more information. We were being held just outside of Milton Keynes station whilst a Welfare Check was completed on one the platforms.
A welfare check, not to be confused with a Welfare Cheque, is when the authorities or emergency services intervene on behalf of an individual that they believe to be in danger. In this case, a person standing at the platform edge where we were about to pass through at one hundred and twenty five miles per hour.
We were never told the outcome of this welfare check other than they were no longer in danger, and that we were ok to resume our journey.
As our train picked up speed and very soon was whizzing through Milton Keynes Central, I wasn’t concerned about the delay. I was just grateful that whatever might have been about to happen, didn’t because at the very last second, the signal flipped to Red.
There is something about Indian Cuisine that keeps me going back for more, and there is so much choice that its impossible to keep track of them all. And then I thought about it some more and realised that it wasn’t impossible to keep track of them at all. I just needed to keep a log of my curry journey. Some sort of Curry Journal, a Curry Diary even. Ta da.
So here we are. Entry one. And as curries go, this one is a cracker.
We Begin With The Anecdote
This is possibly the greatest experience of Indian Cuisine that I have ever tasted. I first encountered Kala Bhuna, what, two years ago now and it took a while to sink in.
It was an after work thing, you know what its like. Someone says “fancy a pint” and before you know it you’re finishing your third pint and its now your round. Then some one says “Is anyone else hungry?” And as if by magic, you’re sat looking a menu.
I don’t know London that well, but those in the know know about Drummond Street, and though it no longer is what once it was, it still remains a treasure trove of Indian and Indian style eateries, and so that is where we went. And at random, from all of the options, we chose the Drummond Villa, and an excellent choice it was too.
Mandatory Pickle Tray
There were a few of us, so the pickle tray was mandatory for starters, and for my main, I have no idea what I ordered, this being before I thought to journal my curries, but it was almost certainly lamb something.
Who had what? Dunno, I didn’t keep a record.
Whatever it was that I had, I no doubt had it with chips and mushroom rice. Looking back on the old photos, the one above probably wasn’t the night that introduced me to the Kala Bhuna, but I’m intrigued by what was served in the metal tray. There is rice, and naan, and portions of four other dishes. It looks amazing.
But thats not why we’re here. We’re here because on one such lovely evening the waiter recommended the Kala Bhuna, and one of us said yes. It wasn’t me, but I realised my mistake when the food arrived.
The Kala Bhuna is a dark curry, almost black, indeed, Kala Bhuna means black roast, and I was intrigued. I did have the opportunity to dip a chip in what was left of the sauce and was immediately impressed. I made a mental note of the name with the firm conviction that I would have this the next we came. I didn’t.
You know what its like when someone suggests a pint after work, and then a curry after pints, and then some more beers after the curry. With the best will in the world, you’re not going to remember two words like Kala Bhuna, or Saveloy Sausage. Saveloy Sausage is a story for another time, though.
And so days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years. Every Indian restaurant I visited, and there were a few, I scanned the menu looking for something vaguely similar to what I recalled of the Kala Bhuna, but I had no luck. Until, that is, about a month ago when I finally spotted it on the menu, and ordered it.
It arrived with a smile, the chiefs favourite dish. Blackened and spicy. But not hot spicy, its a contradiction in a dish, there is almost no heat to begin with, but the intensity of flavour, the heat grows toward the end. By the time you’re licking the bowls and plates clean, it really does have quite the kick to it.
It is now my curry of choice, though I’ve only been in to London twice since discovering it, but it is now also my London Curry Bud’s curry of choice.
We Say Something About The Curry
A bit of quick research tells me that Kala Bhuna is a traditional Bangladeshi meat curry originating from Chittagong. Kala means black in Bengali, and the name comes from the dish’s signature dark blackish-brown color, achieved by slow-cooking the meat with lots of onions and spices until it caramelizes deeply.
Bhuna is a South Asian cooking style where ingredients are fried and reduced until the spices are richly flavored and the sauce thickens. It is usually made with beef or mutton, though I have only had lamb, and is cooked with mustard oil, fried onions, ginger-garlic paste, and a blend of spices like chili, turmeric, cumin, coriander, and whole aromatics. It is slow cooked after frying, making the meat very tender and infused it with a rich smoky flavor.
I rate this 10/10. Bonza!
Enjoying Kala Bhuna
I don’t live in London. I only go there for curry, and work sometimes, so I did some more research on where to find a good restaurant that serves Kala Bhuna near where I live in Lancaster. There aren’t any. Infact, when I searched London menus for Kala Bhuna, only two came up, and the first one was Drummond Villa.
Its seems that if I’m going to be enjoying Kala Bhuna at home, I’m going to have to learn to cook it. Its a good job that I love cooking almost as much as I love eating.
Dreams are fascinating aren’t they? At least our own are to us. There are tomes and tomes written about dreams and what they might mean.
This isn’t a post about my dreams as such. If you try telling anyone about a dream you’ve had the general reaction is ‘so what?’ And that’s fair enough. What this is, is a bit of analysis of the relevance of dream interpretation, by taking a few of my recent vivid dreams, looking up the interpretation, and seeing if it holds water.
Dream 1: The Window
A fairly tepid dream with not much going on. In the dream I was lying on the living room floor, I sometimes do this when my back is playing up, so it seemed perfectly natural. Just laying on the floor watching TV when I noticed someone at the window. A builder. They were removing the window, replacing it.
In real life the window does need replacing but it’s low on the priorities. It turned out that the work had been booked by the previous owner and was already paid for. I left the builder to get on with it.
Windows
The dream then moved to the kitchen, which was more like a staff kitchen. My colleagues were there from a previous job. In real life, my relationship with these colleagues was not good, but in the dream we were friendly enough. We chatted small talk things, and eventually we came to my news. In real life I have had a somewhat important breakthrough. I shared my good news, and they did not care.
What do they care?
There was also a middle aged Indian lady with a walking stick. I did not know her, but she seemed to want me to talk to my colleagues.
Dunno
Dream 2: Cellars
The second dream was a little more abstract, and was one of those recurring ones. The sort about finding extra rooms in your house, I get that dream often, but something I have only just realized as I write this is that home has always presented itself in my dreams as the old family home, but not anymore. Home is now my own house, where I live now.
In the dream there was a mix of it being extra rooms, but the rooms were also underground, in the cellar. I did become aware at some point in this dream that it wasn’t real. Our house is way too small for the amount of unnecessary stuff we feel compelled to retain, and my subconscious must be conscious of it.
The cellars were a bit like the undercroft of a station or something. With rooms splitting off from a central corridor. Most of the cellars were like void spaces, but others were filled with storage boxes and lit by candles, the perfect place to sit and share ghost stories with friends.
In the dream, I was also worried that the naked flames might start a fire. This danger was ever present in the dream.
The dream did move on though, to the upstairs, and the main feature was the front door that would not lock. A builder was required to fix the door before it could be secured.
Dream 3: Business
In the third dream I went into business with a couple of other parents I know vaguely from the school. What was surprising though, in the dream, was that the joint bank account of my wife and me was suddenly renamed to the business of those parents and was several thousand pounds overdrawn. Naturally, I was a bit miffed and felt betrayed. I was also unclear if we had just a business arrangement or were having some sort of affair.
Thingi
The scenery then changed to what I assume was some sort of leavers ball, and my business was somehow involved in the arrangements. It was early and the party had not got going, and guests were people that I knew from my own school, though I’ve long since forgotten all of their names, I recognised them as such.
Lass
The party soon picked up though, and whatever was my role in this business venture was complete and I was free to mingle and drink beer. I remember bumping into someone from university, who explained that she had broken her nose twice since the last time we had met. Bizarre.
Then there was the eating of food. Lots of food, curry and Chinese dishes by the bucket load. What I noticed about the food though was that it was very much like a variety of frozen meals I used to buy, but have not seen for almost twenty years.
Dancing
And then I joined the dance floor with a partner that had been giving me the eye throughout the night, but what was meant to be the start of a beautiful and elegant dance led to my companion landing flat on her arse when I failed to catch her hand. There is a reason why I don’t dance in real life. People get hurt.
There was a brief incursion by an armed assailant at one point but that seemed to resolve itself, and the business was drawn to a close and we all went our separate ways.
But what does it all mean?
In the first dream, there was building work, and windows. To dream about windows can symbolise curiosity or new perspectives. The window was being replaced, and in real life I am about to embark on a new career . One that will certainly bring new perspectives.
To dream about colleagues is apparently a sign that one is doing well at work. This seems to be the case at the moment. And perhaps these particular ones appeared because they held me back. I will take their dreamy disinterest in my news at face value and remember Matthew 6:7, to not cast pearls before swine, and be grateful that the dream allowed me to say what I wanted, but without giving them the opportunity to trample it.
The second dream had more familiar dream imagery. That of the extra rooms appearing in the house. This is understood to signify parts of our psyche developing. As we grow as individuals, the house of the mind expands. This fits with the career change. The cellars too. To dream of a cellar relates to our belief structures, and accessing our inner self. This might signify my relationship with God, and that I have one now. Or it might just be that the cellar was cool.
Ghost Stories in dreams is a puzzler. I couldn’t find anything about that. But the dream about the front door not locking is indicative of vulnerability and insecurities, which is pretty accurate for my current situation. Giving up the secure and familiar for something new is always daunting.
The final dream seemed to have a lot more going on. Going into business suggests facing a challenge. Yup. The potential of the affair may represent insecurities, and I’ve always got those. The debt suggests a sense of obligation, and I currently have a lot of those, not least in my current job.
The dancing suggests happiness, but I did drop my partner. I felt like I had let them down, which can mean that I need to revisit my choices. Possible.
Meeting an old friend can reflect a desire to connect with the past, nostalgia. Last weekend was spent visiting a railway museum and an outdoor Victorian museum. We rode vintage trams and enjoyed old style fish and chips. Nostalgia is a lifestyle choice for me, but I don’t think it’s something my subconscious would care about. The broken nose, again relates to vulnerability and losing control, which is exactly where i am right now.
There is a lot of interpretation here, but what I have found, just by searching up the main themes from my dreams is that they do translate into a common language. That we can interpret our dreams and derive meaning from them in an intelligible way.
I have written at length previously about the meaning of sex in dreams. And I find the whole subject fascinating. Something that I will probably revisit many times.
As I write this, the Omicron infections are rising, and as a new lockdown looks imminent, it is, once again, temporarily, academic, for the foreseeable.
I’m talking about Working From Home, or WFH as it’s often shortened. Ever since the first lockdown, when anyone who could work from home was instructed to do so, and anyone who couldn’t was paid to stay home. Unless of course they were a key worker. A driver, a nurse, a shop assistant, a butcher; anything that the country needed to operate.
At the start of 2020, the world wasn’t ready for Working From Home, psychologically at least. Pragmatically, many millions have been working from home for centuries in their home businesses: cottage industries, freelancers, and the like.
In 2009 we had snow. Lots of snow. Lots of snow in comparison to places that don’t get snow, but just a dusting compared to the snowy alpine countries that deal with several feet of snow on a daily basis. Switzerland doesn’t grind to a halt when there’s a bit of snow, they say, and it’s true, but they’re always expecting snow. In 2009, it snowed, and I remember being in the office as colleagues gathered at the big glass windows and watched everything turn white. Everyone checked the weather news sites, and one by one, reluctantly, declared that they couldn’t risk being stuck, so left work early.
I was one of the more persistent ones. It wasn’t that work needed me. I was an analyst, I provided monthly figures, but I felt this unfathomable pressure, a duty to stay at my post whilst others lost their heads. “What if they needed the First Time Permanent Reinstatement figures three and half weeks early? I really should stay.”
Eventually the Director walked by and saw me stood looking out the window. I don’t remember exactly what he said but it was something along the lines of “What the bloody hell are you still doing here? You’ve an hour’s drive in this you idiot. Sod off home and be safe, and for God’s sake drive carefully!” There may have been more swearing. Actually, there might have been less, I do tend to embellish my anecdotes with every retelling.
But why am I writing this? Much as I like recalling this tale, I do have an actual point. There is a thing, call it a condition, that inflicts our industries and encourages bad practice and drives inefficiency. That condition is Presenteeism. The idea that career progression is best served not by productivity, not by what we do, but by what we are seen to be doing.
Make sure that everyone in the chain of command knows what car you drive and make sure they see it in the car park when they arrive at 7am, and make sure it is still there when they leave, even if it’s 10pm. Have a jacket on the back of your seat so when you’re not there, you can’t be far away. Always make time for the CEO and those around them, but always have something important in your hand, and always be on the way to somewhere. Be aloof, but available if needed. Don’t be afraid to big yourself up and get junior staff to do some of your work. I’m obviously exaggerating here to some extent, but there’s a lot of it going on.
But what does this have to do with the snow? The very next day the whole country woke to a fresh covering of crisp white snow. When it snows overnight you don’t even need to look outside to know it’s snowed. You can hear. Everything outside is muffled, muted, like the volume is turned down.
Outside on the street, neighbours were returning to their homes, unable to leave the village because of the ungritted roads were too steep to climb. I couldn’t go to work even if I wanted to, so it was lucky that the boss called me on my company phone and told me that the roads were treacherous and under no circumstances must I attempt the journey. Brill, but this didn’t mean that I could just go back to bed, or sit by the window with a hot chocolate and watch the sheep huddle in the field across the road. No. I had a company laptop, I had a company phone, and I had access to the virtual desktop. I had access to everything I needed in the office from the comfort of my own home. Except for the best liver and bacon in the world from the staff canteen, I had everything I needed to get the job done.
But there’s a problem. How can anyone park their car where it can be seen by senior management – remotely? How can anyone be seen to be doing anything at all – remotely. How could anyone demonstrate their value to the organisation if they have nothing to show for their time?
This was a problem in 2009 and it was a problem in 2020, but technology has moved on. So as the whole world went in to lockdown, and vast numbers made offices in kitchens, bedrooms, and on sofas, thousands felt the icy finger of accountability on their shoulder. “Work from Home?” They said, “Out of the question. Its impossible. A physical presence is critical. One cannot just send emails from anywhere you know. First you must phone the person that you are about to email and for that both you and your colleague need to be at your desks. Then you must send the email, again, from the desk in the office. Then you must ring the person to check that they have received it. And then the critical part, and this cannot be done remotely. You must visit your colleague, or subordinate, and discuss the content of the email while resting against their desk. None of this can be done from home”.
In lockdown, diaries filled with zoom meetings. Meetings about meetings. There were meetings about meetings. Pre meeting meeting meetings. Post meeting meeting meetings. Meetings to discuss the next meeting. Meetings to discuss discussing the next four pre meeting planning meetings and follow up. If nonsense and absurdity had a bastard child it would still be more sensible than that shower. But what does that matter? Everyone is busy, as they should be.
Well not quite. Productivity is right down during lock down. There are numbers and everything so it must true. Even the Guardian says so, and they’re the most unbiased and sensible newspaper in the world ever. Also, now that lockdown is over, there is a reduced footfall in the city centres, less workers eating overpriced sandwiches and drinking over priced coffee, filling over priced car parks, trains and office space. A terrible knock on effect that we are still yet to grasp the full magnitude.
Except. What about the ones that are rather suited to working from home? The ones that have found that they not only get more work done when they are free of the distraction of others, but they don’t really miss the commute?
There are some who quite enjoy the new way of things. No longer do they set their alarm clock for before sunrise to drop of their children in a breakfast club, for a fee, before enduring a long drive or ride to the office. They quite like that they now saunter to their desk at 9am feeling fresh and well rested.
They like that, instead of sharing a cramped office, at the far side of a long commute, and with others that complain about the smell of cuppa soups, or can’t agree on the temperature, or talk loudly on the phone, or fart discreetly but whiffilly, or pretend they can’t hear them with headphones in, and talk about them behind their back etc, they can just sit down and do their job. Some people happen to really enjoy their job but just aren’t interested in office politics. This peculiar type of worker is often overlooked but they do add value to their organisations.
But why aren’t they worried about their value not being seen by the business? Why aren’t they just as desperate as the others to prove their worth? That difference is another P word, productivity, and unlike Presenteeism, it can be measured, and a value can be assigned. This class of worker isn’t burdened by politics, they simply receive their assigned task and complete it within an arranged timeframe, some times alone, sometimes in collaboration, but always more effectively than when also contending with the commute, or Barry’s smelly lunches.
Of course. Any job that can be done as effectively in a log cabin in the Lake District as it can in the office, could also be done in North Korea for a penny a day. While this is technically correct, outsourcing isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. It was tried in the Nineties with IT, and again in the Naughties with customer service. There are still IT jobs and Customer Service jobs in the UK. Automation is by far the biggest threat to job security, but that’s something else entirely.
Then there are the key workers, those whose jobs cannot be done from home. Some would say it’s not fair on them that others have the luxury of working from home. Sounds stupid but this has been said on forums and newspaper comment sections. Others have said that home workers should have their pay cut because they no longer have to cover the commuting and childcare costs if they won’t return to the office. Imagine the outrage if they were told to spend much of their income on something they didn’t need, or if shop workers and drivers were forced to convert half of the kitchen into an office space they don’t need because it’s not fair on homeworkers if they don’t. But let’s not linger on how ridiculous the argument can get.
The cat is out the bag now, the genie is out the bottle. There is no going back to normal, this is the normal. Big shiny offices, and grubby back offices where the support staff are hidden for that matter, are enormous overheads. Overheads that WFH has now made discretionary. While some businesses have taken the line that their staff will work where they are told, where they can be watched, whether they like it or not, their competitors are telling their staff to work where they perform best and are happiest, and are using the cost savings to improve pay and undercut the unresponsive and reactionary rivals.
The industrial revolution brought mass production and transport that changed the face of the planet. Anyone that didn’t adapt was outpaced by those that did. The digital revolution brought the internet and enabled the infrastructure for homeworking. Like the companies that failed to computerise in the eighties, and retailers that didn’t move online, those that snub their employees preference for WFH will also disappear.
Working from home has given me time with my family I would otherwise spend on the commute. It’s given me longer hours in the evening and more hours of sleep. I’m eating better, sleeping better, drinking less, and not missing out on what matters. And on top of that, I put in a good shift every day and the results are there for all to see.
I’m under no such pressure to return to anywhere, but the voices are out there, calling on us all to do our duty and keep Pret supplied with starving miserable workers looking for a quick bite to eat, and the nurseries filled with miserable infants missing their parents for ten hours a day. Well I say no. Not on your Nelly. And so should everyone else.
I listened to George Orwell’s essay while waiting for the kettle to boil this morning and immediately felt minded to write a response.
Orwell writes about the perfect London Pub, The Moon on The Water, and captures so closely the quintessential essence, the quintessence, of such a perfect London pub that I have little to add, only that he wrote this essay eighty years ago, in 1946, and much has changed, and much hasn’t changed, but still, I felt it worthy of a response. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do. Read it here.
There are many Moons Under The Water now, but Orwell’s is the original. Our Pub, for the purpose of this response, is called the Lune Over The Water, its a sort a play on Words. My perfect pub is not in London, it is in Lancaster, the city of the fort on the Lune. The Lune being the river, the water, on which Lancaster is built, and Lune being the French word for moon, its all really very clever if you think about it.
So Orwell speaks of the perfect pub being one that is close to a bus stop, but is tucked away to where the rabble cannot find it. We can all agree, though perhaps the rabble will differ, that we all love a good pub without the rabble. The rabble have their pubs, we have ours, and never twain shall meet.
He speaks of the ample elbow room of Victorian grandeur, and the original features and decor, uncheapened by modernity. Of a warm welcome and familiar faces. Pub grub and delicious ales served in the proper vessels. Little has changed in the mix of the perfect pub in those eighty years.
To the Lune Over The Water, I would perhaps add only maybe a large jar of pickled eggs on the shelf behind the bar. Homemade pickled eggs of a certain vintage and sour enough to set the drinking pace for the evening. Like the Moon, the Lune is as much a place of conversations as it is for drinking, and we very much want to keep it that way.
There were no jukeboxes in Orwell’s time. Might we risk the addition of a small jukebox in the corner? Or would that invite a newcomer to inadvertently break the conversational ambiance with their poor taste? No. The only good jukebox is an inoperable jukebox. Some stylish lines from a fifties antique offers us some intrigue and a window on the past, its tantalizing playlists trigger conversations and recollections, and stories abound. But, gracefully, we are spared the sounds of another’s loud and invasive noise of choice by the want for a replacement needle.
Hey, ain’t nobody got time for that.
Live music is no bad thing in the more boisterous establishments, where shouting words at the ear of your companion and moving on to the next one is all part of the fun, and those establishments are welcome to it. A charming pub of the quality of the Lune Over The Water has no call for entertainers, for a pub is entertainment enough of itself.
The biggest change from Orwell’s time is the smoking ban. The air may be cleaner, but gone is the smokey charm. And gone too are the cigarette machines. I am self censoring here, no one called them cigarette machines, but we’ll run with it. Somewhere in every pub, often near the door or the toilets was a vending machine that would sell packets of 16 cigarettes, in boxes the size of twenties. The perfect pub sells them in twenties, they would be tax exempt, and by some ill understood legal concession, smoking is permitted in some areas.
Vaping is not permitted anywhere on the premises.
Packet of fahhh… Cigarettes.
Of the decor, on the walls of the Lune there are small framed photos of famous and note worthy patrons of the past, now difficult to discern, and somewhat faded by time and the near century of accumulated nicotine yellow. Where some pubs might make the mistake of redecorating, this one hasn’t. The furniture is replaced only when it is beyond repair, and is replaced with the suitable stools and chairs and tables from those pubs still recklessly engaged in the mistake.
Serving food at lunch, I would call for liver and onions, hotpot, or beef stew. Neopolitan ice cream or spotted dick for pudding. The modern pub has too much choice, we are spoiled for choice in fact. We choose from burgers to pizza, to curry, to fish and chips, even gourmet fish finger butties. This is not the way. A limited choice, or no choice at all keeps things nice and simple. Less is more.
The modern Fish Finger sandwich
Sunday Roasts though. That’s a good honest meal for the weekend. Always two meats to choose from. Sometimes Chicken and Lamb, sometimes Beef and Pork. Every now and then we’d be surprised with roast duck or goose, or even goat, and there would always be some sort of amusing anecdote behind the unexpected menu. Like the time farmer Ted had the problem with the rabbits, and rabbit and ale pie was on the menu for weeks.
And while the food that is served is excellent, the Lune is not a restaurant. You cannot book a table, and the choice is limited. Do not arrive hungry at the Lune, you might be disappointed.
Every pub has a selection of snacks. Its keeps the thirst going, and therefore the drinks, and therefore conversation, and thats how you build the evening. The snacks at the Lune are frozen in time, somehow stocking long gone brands and flavours. Piglets, Hedgehog flavour crisps, and KP Skydivers. Along side the usual pork scratching and peanuts, and of course, pickled eggs.
PigletsHedgehog FlavourSky Divers Beef and Mustard. Legendary.The Best Snacks known to man.
In the evenings, around 20:30, a man called Trevor, wearing a white overcoat would enter the pub with with a wide tray or basket, offering the delicacies of the marine for a small sum. Cockles, mussels, fish sticks, crab claws, and prawns.
Fish, mussels, cockles, crab sticks, crab claws…
Entertainment at the Lune. Need it even be said? No television. No sports. No football. No music videos.
But there is a piano, positioned right where no one will notice it. It is in tune, and it receives a lick of polish every other day, but its used only often enough to not be annoying. Every once in a while, maybe to mark an occasion, maybe when the beer is on the turn and the patrons are going loopy, the whole pub would gather around the key thrasher and an old dear reliving her choir days.
Wild nights around the piano
The Lune is not without its novelties. Beneath the building is a deep well shaft, discovered during structural work, and revealed for the first time in 400 years. This well is capped with glass allowing guests to peer down in to the atmospheric lighting, and maybe see a face staring back at you from the shadows.
The Ladies Toilets are said to be haunted. There are several stories behind who that ghost may be. The coachmaster’s daughter. A pendle witch. A jilted lover. New sightings bring new stories and ideas every other year or so.
In the Gents, next to the Johnny machine is a gullabilty testing machine. A narrow wooden case with brass fittings and a glass compartment displays an old 60 watt light bulb. A small sign by the coinslot invites you to insert a coin, preferably a pound coin. I won’t spoil the surprise by revealing what happens when you insert your money.
Outside, there is a beer garden, plenty of seating for those rare sunny days when you can risk leaving the house without a coat. Plenty of shade for midday, plenty of shelter for when the short-lived sunshine returns from whence it came. As with the Moon Under Water, the Lune too has a play area. Not just slides but the whole gambit, outdoor adventure play. An enormous wooden fort with slides, and rope bridges and ladders and poles and more ropes and everything you can imagine and more. All safe and sound with soft padding of springy ground coated with rubber and a thick scattering of cork and soft bark. Having children should be no impediment to the joys of conversation.
Most importantly, The Lune Over Water is within walking distance of home, and just one street away from the humblest family run fish and chip shop you’ll ever know. On entering the chippy, six pints in, you’re greeted from behind the counter by the cute smile of a young lady that seems to fit available but not available but not unavailable, and hello what can I get you in to the small space between two cheeky dimples. The freshest haddock and cod, fried in beef dripping, and the crispiest batter you can get, and a generous serving of chips, drenched with lashings and lashings of salt and vinegar, wrapped in yesterday’s news and eaten with a small wooden fork on the walk home, beneath the brilliance of a clear moonless night.
Much like the Moon, the Lune doesn’t exist. But there are, or there have been, many such places about Lancaster that would qualify as the perfect pub. In the Three Mariners you’ll find a ghost, in The Sun Inn you’ll find a well, and though its long gone now, the John O’Gaunt had a gullability testing machine in the gents.
I recall many great nights out. Back when pubs were always crowded and the beer affordable. Now, many of our beloved public houses, are dying. Barely worth opening in the midweek for the amount of footfall they see.
I can think back on countless nights, unbroken runs of perfect nights out, where the beer was perfect, the company was perfect, the atmosphere was perfect. Like the Moon, the Lune doesn’t quite exist as I would like it, but after a few beers, every pub is the perfect pub.
It was great to see one of our local cafes included in the Guardian’s list of best seaside cafes last week. Half Moon Bay Cafe, located on the shore by Morecambe Bay in Heysham is a genuine treat in a local beauty spot. I have many fond memories of enjoying a hot bacon butty and a coffee, taking in the sea air and the views of Morecambe Bay and the Lake District hills beyond, while the driving rain lashed against the sides of the cafe.
Zoo Cafe, 2009Half Moon Bay Cafe, 2019
The cafe now occupies a permanent structure on the site of the original Half Moon Bay Cafe which closed in the seventies, but it started out in a small trailer called the Zoo Cafe in 2008.
Back then, the wife and I would take a weekend stroll along the grassy pathways that crisscross the area from Heysham Head and drop down on to the beach, occasionally buying a couple of coffees if we had enough time or loose change, but the habitual stroll soon became the weekly compulsory fried breakfast at the beach, and the strolling petered out.
Half Moon Bay
Half Moon Bay is beautiful, and we’re very lucky to have places like this on our door step, free to use by the whole community, and there’s something for everyone.
Dogs bring their humans here for their daily exercise.
Have you seen my human? About five foot, green coat and carrying a red ball. Answers to “Woof…”
There’s the clean sandy beach.
Wild grasses. A haven for bees, butterflies and crickets.
There’s art. This one is called ‘Ship’ by Anna Gillespie.
There are both types of beach here, gravelly, and sandy, and the bedrock is exposed at low tide leaving behind rock pools, abundant with marine life, to explore.
More pebbles than there are stars in the sky.
If you like collecting beach glass, and who doesn’t, there are many fine specimens to discover. Some of the stones are perfectly triangular.
Glass CollageFossilized Toblerone and Chocolate Button (Pre-Cadbrian period) Beach Ceramics
You can park your glutes on one of the many benches, plant a deckchair on the sand, or even cast a line out to sea and catch yourself some supper.
The Other View
Half Moon Bay has an alternative view. We all enjoy Television and frozen Yorkshire Puddings, and for that we need power. And Britain, being an Island, is also dependent on its ports. The ports and power stations have to go somewhere, and Half Moon Bay is one of those places.
High tide in summerLow tide in winter
How many English villages can boast not just one thermonuclear power station, but two? The plans for Heysham 3, one of a new generation of nuclear power stations seem to be on hold for now, but nuclear isn’t the only way to generate electricity. We’ve also got a wind farm, a solar farm, and offshore gas comes ashore here. There’s a domestic waste incineration plant in the pipeline, and if the Bay Bridge ever happens, with its tidal energy schemes, this is where it will be. Talk about Northern Powerhouse!
Next to the power station is the port. A passenger ferry sails daily to the Isle of Man, and a freight only service runs to Ireland.
Sitting on the dock of the bay…
For thrill seekers, there’s opportunity to be blown to bits.
Free parking is available across from the cafe, but it can be unreliable at certain times of the year. Heysham is affected by roving boulders that sometime come to rest across the car park entrance and block access for vehicles, though the stay is short lived and the boulders eventually move on.
With so much to see and do here, its definitely worth a visit.
It was a Twitter post recently. It was doing the rounds and getting lots of engagement. And I had ten bob worth to put in.
Now. I’m not saying I get everything done and that I’m super organised, but I do know that I am wasting a lot of my free time in front of the TV that I could be spending productively. Most of the time I do what I feel like doing, unless there is something that needs be done, and then I’ll do that. And that was always the problem.
The question was basically, how do people do it all? The job, the exercise, the 10k steps. All the house work, the personal grooming, looking after kids etc. And still get 8 hours sleep. It feels like propaganda.
But this is the trick. Its the difference between doing what you want, and what you feel like doing. I want to get fit, for example, I might even go so far as to say that I don’t want to sit on the sofa all night drinking wine, infact, I want to not sit on the sofa drinking wine. But. When it comes down to it, and I feel like drinking wine on the sofa all night, I do, even though I don’t want to. Crazy right. Non wonder there’s no time.
I had an epiphany a little while ago. You know how we all feel like we ought to bake our own bread? Its nicer and healthier. There’s nothing better than the aroma of freshly cooked bread filling the home. Its even a cliche of vendors selling their homes. And the taste. The taste of hot fresh bread, dripping in butter. And yet most of us settle for Warburtons Toasty loaf, with all of the preservatives and emulsifiers and who knows what else.
Well. I never cook bread because I don’t have the space for it. Bread is quite intense on the space when it comes to the kneading of it. I have work surfaces in the kitchen, sure, but they’re always cluttered. I simply can’t bake bread because the work surfaces are cluttered.
That was my epiphany. I had it all backwards.
My kitchen work surfaces are cluttered because I don’t bake bread. They don’t need to be uncluttered because I’m not using them for anything else. This was quite the eye opener. And now, with uncluttered surfaces, the path is cleared to delicious home made bread whenever I fancy it.
But how?
How do they do it all, they ask? They do this. They prioritise outcomes and prepare. This is actually one of Jordan Peterson’s twelve rules, to do what is meaningful, not what is expedient. Keeping surfaces clutter free means that they can be used for delicious home baked bread. Those that fit it all in do this sort of thing automatically.
Its not propaganda. I don’t doubt that there are some fibbers out there, who like to boast and exaggerate, indeed, I know many of them. But the silent super achievers aren’t that, and they aren’t built differently. They simply prioritise and organise their goals.
How do they do that? Let us break it down.
The question was basically, how do people do it all?
The job. The job is mandatory if that is how you put food on your table and a roof over your head. Its a whole segment of the 8-8-8 Rule.
The 8-8-8 Rule splits the day in to three. With eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for leisure. Some will argue, rightly so, that the eight hours of work are sandwiched between an hour of commuting. And that the eight hours of work is actually ten, and this is fair. Not much you can do about that, but even if we’re driving, we can use some of that time, listening to an audio book maybe, or learning another language. Most of us have these on our list of things we’d do if we could only fit it in.
Next one. The exercise, the 10k steps. Ten thousand steps is less than five miles, or a hour and half of walking. Some of that we can fit in to the commute, some of it we can do in the job. The rest of it is a lunch time walk or an evening stroll. For a proper exercise regime, we’re looking at an hour session, with maybe fifteen minutes of travel, and we need to fit that in to 6-8 hours of leisure time. How we manage our other activities can help with that.
All the house work. Honestly, how long does it take to tidy a well organised home? We have a clean as you go policy in our household. If you make a mess, you tidy it up, as soon as possible. If you spot something out of place, you deal with it, you don’t leave it for others. Another household rule is that if you cook for yourself, you wash it up and put it away. If you cook for the house, someone else washes up, and someone else puts away. And we have a rota for that.
We have a rota for everything. We know who is cooking on what days, we know what they are cooking so that we can plan the shopping. We know who will wash up. We know what laundry is done on what day. We know what day we change the bedding. It takes away the drama and the stress. We all know where we are at. And we all know where everything is.
How long does it take to wipe down some surfaces, mop the floor, dust the paintings? With everyone pulling their weight it can all be done within an hour. And its only necessary once a week. This we leave for Saturday mornings. Along with the weekly shop.
I timed it once. The washing up, after a big Full English breakfast. There was the grill for the sausages and bacon and black pudding to wash up. There was a frying pan for the eggs. There was pan for the beans, the pan for the tomatoes. The pan for the garlic fried mushrooms There was the grill for the toast. There were serving bowls and utensils. There were plates and cutlery. There was the coffee pot. There were mugs. Washed and away in just over ten minutes. Who hasn’t got ten minutes?
The personal grooming. This varies from person to person. But I can be shaved, showered, dressed and ready to go within 15 minutes. Ironing is something you make time for, and it can be done while watching TV, listening to an audio book, or podcast, or even while completing the DuoLingo Daily Streak.
Looking after kids. This is a tricky one, but I’m a parent, I know what its like. But it falls within the pattern of organisation. Having kids doesn’t change the Rota. Whoever isn’t cooking watches the kids, whoever isn’t washing up watches the kids. And we tidy as we go. The toys spread across the house go back in the box. The soiled clothes go in the wash at the scheduled time. There are free slots in the laundry schedule for emergencies.
Et cetera. There were other things mentioned, like hobbies and pets. What does it take to feed and clean up after your pets? I suppose it depends on the pet. A gold fish will take less care than a hippopotamus. Hobbies though. What time do we have left on a weekday, after all the non negotiables are accounted for?
Work + Commute 10 hours
Sleep 8 hours
Hygiene 0.5 hours
Laundry 0.5 hours
Cook/Eat/Washup 1 hour
Exercise/Gym 1.5 hours
Thats 21.5 hours taken. That leaves 2.5 hours of free time, per day, for socialising, or hobbies. Thats twelve and a half hours a week, not including the weekend.
On Saturday, let’s say we allocate three hours to the scheduled weekly clean, the shopping, and ironing. Plus half hour for hygiene, and eight hours for sleep, there a still twelve and half hours free on the Saturday. And Sunday, we take eight hours sleep, half an hour for hygiene, and two hours for church. That leaves thirteen and a half waking hours on a Sunday to do whatever you want. Climb Helvellyn, visit the garden centre, write a book, visit family, bake bread, or even binge watch Netflix.
There is plenty of time to fit it all in. Its definitely not propaganda.
As a northerner, a resident of the sticks that are way out there, I grew up almost entirely reliant on scant service buses, and as such, only visited the places to which the buses went. Cities, like London, with their subway systems were a great source of envy for me. Trains, being not just cool, they can take you anywhere. Using these systems, like the London Underground, give you a different perspective of them.
My First Time
My first experience of the Tube must have been in the very early eighties, and I was very little, and don’t remember very much of it. A family trip to London on the brand new Intercity 125s, and that’s about as much I recall. So my first genuine exposure to the tube was around 1994 when I visited a friend in Watford.
Being a young adult of limited means, a student, I was using the National Express, like in the song, and the way from Watford to Barnsley was via Victoria Coach Station. And the best way to get to Victoria was an Intercity train from Watford Junction to London Euston, but that was something that only happened to people with money. The cheaper alternative was the semi fast commuter service in to Euston. Cheaper than that was the slower DC line to Euston. And even cheaper than that was the Metropolitan Line to Baker Street, and then the Circle to Victoria. An hour longer than the next best option, but it cost about £1.50 instead of a tenner.
I remember this journey particularly well because of much it contrasted with my expectation of London and the South of England. To make the coach from Victoria I had leave early, before seven am. And it was still dark, foggy, snow on the ground, and to get there I had to walk through a lonely municipal park, and for the entire twenty minute walk, I didn’t see another soul until I arrived at the tube station and purchased my ticket from a chap behind a little window. The train was waiting for me at the platform, and as far I could tell, the train too was empty. I had an entire London Underground train to myself. The first stop was a couple of minutes down the line, Croxley, and no one got on or off there either, and the snow was crisp, fresh, undisturbed.
It was the darndest thing, and I began to doubt the realness of my situation. Was I dead?
Obviously I wasn’t. The whole of the South East had just over slept or something. Having an entire train to myself wasn’t going to last though, and from then on it began to fill up and by the time the train arrived at Baker Street it was standing room only.
The thing I remember most about that train ride, aside from the emptiness at the start, was looking out of the window of a London Underground train and seeing open countryside and suburbs, and with a dusting of snow no less. The closer you get to London, the denser the housing gets. Victorian terraces that stretched as far as the eye could see, four of five, or even six stories tall, smoke bellowing from the chimneys. Very Mary Poppins.
Recalling this journey made me realise something about myself. This trip was the first and only time I ever used Baker Street station without a certain song getting stuck in my head.
From a certain music video…
The onward train from Baker Street wasn’t as pleasant as the first. The station wasn’t as empty, in fact it was positively heaving. And when I did manage to board a train, well, “like a tin of sardines” might be a well worn cliche by now, but its yet to be beat. It was packed. I was unable to raise my arms to hold a hand rail, but there was no danger of losing your balance as the train jolted about beneath the streets of London. I can’t even use the word jostle, for that would imply some degree of freedom of movement within the carriage. There was none.
Gone too was the scenery. We were now deep below ground. The delightful snow topped open countryside and suburbs was replaced with armpit. A lot of armpit. Armpit in ever direction, as far as the eye could see. I’d never held breath so long, and the diesel fumes and tabacco smoke of the open London air never tasted so sweet.
Credit: UK Photo & Social History Archive
Since then, I have used the tube many times and found it just as unbearable at rush hour, but quite pleasant at any other time.
Their First Time
A year or so ago I was working in London and thought it would be a good idea if the wife and kids traveled down to meet me for a weekend of sights and sounds, and travel down to meet me they did.
Waiting at Euston
It was a weekend of firsts, for all of us. It was the boys’ first long distance train ride, first time in London, first Black Cab, first West End show. It was my first, and last, Uber. It was also, the first time on the London Underground for the kids, and it did not go well.
We were staying at the Kings Cross Plaza, quite a walk from any tube station but I was absolutely adamant that we should have the experience of the London Underground. It would be fun. It wasn’t.
The nearest tube stop was Russel Square, so we walked there. I was particularly looking forward to showing the kids the steep long escalators that go so far down that you cannot see the bottom. Russel Square is not the station for that sort of thing. The platforms being accessed by lift. A very busy crowded lift as it happened. It took us a while to figure out how to buy tickets too. The whole system is geared up for using contactless tickets. You just present your oyster card, phone, or bank card to the gate and it opens for you. There was very little provision for passengers traveling with children that did not have oyster cards, mobile phones, or bank cards.
When we did finally make it down to the platform, it was quite exciting. You could hear, even feel, the rumble of the trains, the whoosh of air as trains whizzed through the tunnels, and that musty old ozone smell that is unique to the London Underground. This was what we’d come for.
The first train burst out from the tunnel and slowed to a screeching halt. The doors slid open for us to board, but we couldn’t, beyond the door was a wall of people, several layers deep. There was no boarding that train. We let it go and waited for the next one. It was the same. We observed the locals forcing their way in to the carriages and after watching the third train leave without us we resolved to give it a try.
We (wife and I) each took a firm hand of a child, straightened our backs, and took a deep breath as yet another train drew in to the station. I had the hand of the eldest, and as the doors opened, he stepped aboard along side his mother, who held tightly the hand of our youngest. Without warning. The doors slid shut, separating me from my assigned child, and my youngest from his mother. I pulled him away from the platform edge.
“I’ve got him” I shouted to my horrified wife, “Meet at next stop!”
And then they were gone. The train whizzed out of view and we had no option but to wait for the next one. I shudder to think what might have happened had the kids boarded the train together first, or been left on the station without us.
Onboard the train, our separated family unit was the talk of the carriage. All were disgusted that this could have happened. Where was the warning that the door was closing? Where was the guard? I don’t know why I didn’t make a complaint, this was a serious breach of railway safety rules. This one event would have been enough to put the kids off London, but that was only the outbound trip, later, we had to return to the hotel.
It wasn’t until much later that we returned to the Plaza, by then it was late, after eleven, and the platforms and trains were all much quieter. I think we used Leicester Square, and there was a relaxed friendly atmosphere as most passengers were wined and dined and returning from a pleasant night out. The train came in and we boarded without incident.
Just up from us was a young man sat hunched, his head in his hands. I only really registered that he was there at because it was just as I was looking in that direction that he suddenly belched the content of his stomach on to the carriage floor. It stank. We got off of that train and waited for the next one.
Quieter at night.
Larping a Commute
The thing that inspired this post to begin with was a recent trip to London for a few days, and my usual hotel haunts were unavailable so I ended up staying further out. Baker Street is well within walking distance of Bloomsbury but I rather liked the idea of pretending to be a beleaguered weary tube commuter for a few days. Larping, for the unitiated is Live Action Role Play-ing. I doubt that I will do it again.
Its nice for cities that have metros, they are fast and efficient, but in rush hour, they really aren’t fun. They are hot and sweaty, the London Underground has a constant temperature of 50 degrees Celsius, or there abouts, which is why it always feel so warm, even in winter. Even before I arrived at the station, there were crowds of people overtaking me on the pavement, a stream of people, a river, nay, a raging torrent of commuters.
Through the station gate and you have to make a payment to gain access to the trains. Everyone knows where they are going and work on autopilot. You hear the sighs from behind as you fail to complete the card payment at the gate in one fluid motion, adding crucial seconds to their journey. Baker Street station is on the junction of 5 lines, interconnected by tunnels and bridges and subways and walkways. Its easy to get turned around and find one’s self about to board a train in the wrong direction. Luckily, during rush hour, there are plenty of trains, but they’re all full, and it takes a few trains before one appears with a gap in the door way to accommodate you.
The ride itself is bouncy and awkward. You don’t want to catch anyone’s eye in case it got weird. I don’t know what would happen if that did occur, but I feel like it would be bad.
Baker Street to King’s Cross is three stops. More than enough to get the taste of a central London commute, and when you get there, you follow the swarm up the escalators and along the wide subterranean avenues. On the first day of my larping, there was some sort of delay, and crowds were gathering, hundreds of people penned in line like sheep. Its always a relief to break out in to the open air again, and promise ourselves, never again.
Please Can You Help Me
On the last day of this trip, after checking out, I made my way to the office for the last time. I had planned to take a photo of the commuters penned in like sheep to illustrate this blog post, but it was clear so didn’t bother. I took a wrong turn however and found myself walking beneath and along the undercroft beneath the magnificent train shed roof.
As I wandered past the shops and outlets beneath the railways of the international rail services, marveling at the Victorian opulence, my eye met that of another. To be fair, it was the pie that I noticed first. A disheveled young lady with a thick blue coat and backpack was eating a pie. She changed her course to intercept me. I had every intention of walking away but she said something and I had to stop.
“Please can you help me” She said.
Something about big cities and crowded spaces with strangers sort of shuts down your responsiveness to others I find. Like not wanting to make eye contact with others on the train. Whats the worst that can happen? Well, they might want something for a start. I was more than prepared to mind my own business and go about my day. For a moment, I was reminded of the movie Liar Liar, when Jim Carey’s lawyer that cannot lie character was asked on the street “can you spare any change”.
If I replied with anything other than yes, it would have been not only a lie, but it would have been a heartless lie. So I stopped and turned to face her. “What help do you need” I said.
She was very softly spoken and seemed to choose her words cautiously and deliberately. I do not know if she was recalling a well practiced script or thinking on her feet.
“Thank you for stopping and talking to me” She said. “I am homeless and destitute and I need to get money for a ticket”.
I am accustomed to this play. We have it up north, but its not usually a disheveled young lady asking politely. More often then not its a coarse “Scuse me pal you haven’t got twenty pence for the bus home have ya?” spoken in an accent not unfamiliar in one of the larger cities to the western edge of Lancashire.
“How much do you need?” I asked her, and she told me. It wasn’t a trivial amount, nor was it excessive, so I gave her what little cash I had on me. She thanked me, and said bless you. And its difficult to fathom because her expression was unchanged throughout the entire encounter, until I said “Bless You” in return.
Its almost better to believe that I had been scammed out of a small amount of money, than to think that there really are destitute and homeless people dependent on the generosity of commuters on the London Underground.
We don’t see that up north, not in the rural communities. There is no one around to ask for money for a start, and its difficult to imagine being asked for help every day without having to harden the heart a little. As useful as the underground is, I am glad I use it rarely.
Is it really an impulse purchase if it takes three years to act upon that impulse?
For three years now I have been attending the annual Steam Gala at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, and at Picking station there is a stall selling new and used model trains, and in the box of unboxed odds and ends, the bargain bin, there was a distinctive orange mk3 carriage. It was there in 2023, and I thought about buying it, it was there again in 2024, and I thought about buying it.
It did not occur to me to take a picture of the carriage in the bargin bin, but I did get a picture from the opposite platform
This year, 2025, it was there again, and I thought about buying it. And again, I put it back and walked away.
But, over a plate of scampi and chips at a nearby chippy, I gave the matter some more thought, and there and then I resolved to buy the carriage, if it was still there.
Proof of scampi and chips, should it be necessary.
So after lunch I returned to the stall, and there it was, the Northern Irish Railways Intercity Mk 3 carriage.
And there it is. Mine.
This is my first Lima carriage, and it immediately reminds me of how poor my Hornby carriages are. This is not only sturdy, and nicely detailed, it is weighty, and the correct length.
I feel compelled to compare and contrast it with a Hornby variant, but I’m writing this from the Youth Hostel. Something for another time perhaps.
I did wonder why no one had wanted to buy this over the past, at least, three years. But now that I have it, I don’t really have any use for it. It doesn’t match any of my existing mark three coaches, being a different manufacturer, to a higher standard than my hornby set, a different length, different livery, different railway.
There is no prototypical scenario in which a NIR carriage would run on BR rails. They’re not electrically compatible with the British variant, and they’re not even the same track gauge.
Purely academic anyway, as I don’t even have a railway to run it on. Not yet anyway.
Edible Coal
There is a curious confectionery to be found at Railway Museums and similar. Blocks of coal that you can eat.
I’ve had it before, at the Yorkshire Coal Mining Museum. It’s a sort of cinder toffee, coated in chocolate, and coated in a blackened sugar compound concoction that turns your mouth, lips, teeth, and tongue, black. One piece is plenty.
Duggan's Dig 