For those of you not in the know, Scotland entered a new phase in its long and often bloody history with the election in May 2007 of the first SNP (Scottish Nationalist) Government since devolution. A government that has as its aims independence for Scotland, thus restoring Scotland’s place in the World order and, presumably, opening up a new chapter in “the auld Alliance” between Scotland and France – suits me.
I’ll leave any general observations on the success or otherwise of this new administration to others but I do want to pick up on recent moves to establish St Andrews Day as Scotland’s National Day.
Scotland is something of an outsider in UK National Day stakes. The English celebrate St George’s Day, the Welsh have St David and the Irish (courtesy of Guinness I am advised) St Patrick. St Andrew has long been the Patron Saint of Scotland, but has never been given the honour of a public holiday like our neighbours in the Union.
The SNP Government has been seeking to right this wrong and to much literal and metaphorical flag waving announced various plans to give St Andrew his rightful place in the annual calendar, to sit alongside other impassioned celebrations of national identities like Independence Day in the USA and Bastille Day in France – our Auld Alliance comrades.
You may think so far that this sounds like an admirable plan, which when taken at face value it undoubtedly is. But scratch the surface and I fear that like many comparisons with Mediterranean life our Scottish approach lacks substance, value and credibility, which is why I continue to dream of a life of clement weather, plentiful and affordable food and wine, and a culture that better embraces the importance of family and community.
Unlike the approach to Bastille Day taken in France then, there is no sense that St Andrews Day is a festival for the people; for the population that makes Scotland what it is – flawed or otherwise. The sum total of the celebratory opportunities as far as I was able to tell included an open-air concert in Edinburgh and all Scotland’s public buildings and attractions being free of an entry fee for the day – which is fine if you have a car as most of them are in fairly rural locations. Even in the city though, hopeful visitors to Edinburgh Zoo, in the spirit of honouring Scotland and St Andrew, had to wait three hours in a four mile long tailback to get anywhere near the place.
To my – admittedly incomplete – knowledge then, there were few if any community celebrations. And this in a country of 5 million people. So whereas in France on Bastille Day every city, town, village and hamlet has a community-focussed celebration of the founding of the republic, where everyone has an opportunity to take part and enjoy the atmosphere, in much of Scotland this rather cold and damp Sunday 30 November, most of the population did their ironing for the week ahead and tuned into “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here” as normal.
There was no public holiday, nor were there any fireworks, community dances, concerts, street parties, bull-running, cycle racing or wine tasting (apart from the usual selection of youths drinking Buckfast and Mad Dog around street corners). The day passed by almost unnoticed for the majority of the population. There was nothing in it that made me feel more Scottish. There was nothing to celebrate our turbulent past, nor set down a marker of optimism in the future. There was nothing to get me out to meet my immediate neighbours for a drink and there was nothing in the media to focus the population’s attention or secure their participation.
It seems to me that the Government’s aim for St Andrews Day is for it to be another tartan painted biscuit tin approach to marketing this ancient nation to the rest of the World, rather than using it as an opportunity to inject a bit of confidence back into a nation that has the worst health record in Europe; or to encourage a stronger sense of community responsibility for our environment and our citizens – many of whom live below the bread-line and are afflicted with jaw-dropping levels of substance misuse with little or no support.
Compared to Bastille Day, Scotland’s approach to establishing St Andrew’s Day as our national celebration has some way to go to put it politely. Give me the buzz of a village place in July any day – and that’s where you’ll find me getting my fix of community spirit, co-operation and fraternite. That’s where you’ll find me with my wife and two young children – in an atmosphere of acceptance, of celebration and pride in your country.
I can’t ever see it happening this way in Scotland, and not just because Scotland in November is a far cry from France in July; but because we have lost the very things that make Bastille Day a family oriented, community spirited festival.
St Andrews Day? Ce n’est pas Bastille Day.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Less gloom please
It is that time of year with nights stretching out, days receding fast and the mercury falling when my thoughts turn more and more to what it must be like to live somewhere else. I confess I’ve not checked on the lighting up times in the South of France but with a ready supply of olives, wine and pastis I think I could get by a bit better than I do back here in Scotland.
The winter brings not just a chill that freezes the very marrow in my bones and makes my joints crack, but a certain gloom in my normally cheerful disposition. It is around this time of year that when I look out of the window in the late afternoon I say to myself, “Oh God, another month before the days start drawing out again”.
But it is January that brings me my deepest depression each year. For despite knowing that the days are slowly, surely drawing out by a full two minutes each day, January for some reason appears to me to be the darkest month of the year. It might be due to having had an extended break over the festive period, though you might think that would enhance my mood making me more capable of getting through the month; or it may be down to the fact that the return to work in January leaves me with the gaping chasm of a whole year stretching out in front – stuck in the same job and, worse, with no summer holiday booked.
Or – most likely – it might just be a pathetic, over-indulgent, self-pitying state of mind that I should shake off and shelf; for what can be more optimistic than a New Year. All the stresses and strains of the old year are behind you now. That gaping chasm of the New Year ahead is a blank canvas of opportunity. It is a foundation for personal and professional growth and maybe I should begin to recognise it for its potential, instead of complaining about just how dark it seems and wishing my life away for longer days and a milder climate.
Maybe I’ll take on the New Year with a new attitude this time round and see if it makes any difference. Maybe I’ll spend the holidays thinking long and hard about where I want to be and what I want to do during 2009, and perhaps when I sit down at my desk in early January it will be with a smile on my face because I will know that something great, and in my control, is just around the corner.
Maybe I’ll get to France – even if it’s just for a fortnight in July.
The winter brings not just a chill that freezes the very marrow in my bones and makes my joints crack, but a certain gloom in my normally cheerful disposition. It is around this time of year that when I look out of the window in the late afternoon I say to myself, “Oh God, another month before the days start drawing out again”.
But it is January that brings me my deepest depression each year. For despite knowing that the days are slowly, surely drawing out by a full two minutes each day, January for some reason appears to me to be the darkest month of the year. It might be due to having had an extended break over the festive period, though you might think that would enhance my mood making me more capable of getting through the month; or it may be down to the fact that the return to work in January leaves me with the gaping chasm of a whole year stretching out in front – stuck in the same job and, worse, with no summer holiday booked.
Or – most likely – it might just be a pathetic, over-indulgent, self-pitying state of mind that I should shake off and shelf; for what can be more optimistic than a New Year. All the stresses and strains of the old year are behind you now. That gaping chasm of the New Year ahead is a blank canvas of opportunity. It is a foundation for personal and professional growth and maybe I should begin to recognise it for its potential, instead of complaining about just how dark it seems and wishing my life away for longer days and a milder climate.
Maybe I’ll take on the New Year with a new attitude this time round and see if it makes any difference. Maybe I’ll spend the holidays thinking long and hard about where I want to be and what I want to do during 2009, and perhaps when I sit down at my desk in early January it will be with a smile on my face because I will know that something great, and in my control, is just around the corner.
Maybe I’ll get to France – even if it’s just for a fortnight in July.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Please and thank you
Although my recurring theme will be clear to readers of this blog, to date my sojourns have been limited to the family two weeks holiday a year. But even that limited exposure I have found is sufficient to expose the yawning gap in the standard of living, and just the approach to life, between us Scots and the provincial French.
Let me turn to service, manners and general politesse as the theme for this week’s column. I am sure I am not alone in remembering days gone by when, like the meadow pipit, politeness and manners were routine. People in shops smiled at you, they said hello, please and thank you. Consumers not only expected good service but members of what we now call the service industry also expected to give good service.
In France, politeness is embedded in the very language they speak. You are greeted as Monsieur/Madame in pretty much any shop you go into. People say good morning, good afternoon and wish you a good day. They use the polite form – vous – as a matter of routine, and it is indeed simply the rule. And even French builders, when they are providing excuses for why that wall is still only half finished, will take a full morning to come round to your place and sit down over a glass of wine to explain why this is so; all with that Gallic shrug that says – I sympathise and I really can’t do anything about it but it’s no reason for us to fall out is it?
When the decline in the UK set in I don’t know, but set in it undoubtedly has. It seems to me that every transaction is a favour to the consumer these days. Many shop assistants for example – not all admittedly, but a handsome proportion – do appear to have a problem with the basic description of the job itself. That somehow they are above the demands of welcoming paying customers, being polite, smiling and wishing us well on our way. I swear I have had transactions in shops when not a word has passed the lips of the assistant.
“Hang on – don’t I pay your wages”, I want to scream. But I don’t of course. I take my change, and in that manner of people who remember what it used to be like, say a clear, “thanks very much”, while engaging them in the kind of direct eye contact they’ve probably only experienced in school. They in return are too busy texting their pals under the counter to notice.
But High Street retailers are not the only place where service with a smile has long been forgotten. I recently had occasion to buy new carpets for our house. Quite a lot of new carpet actually and you’d think that a not inconsiderable order might bring out the best in people in the current financial environment.
In fairness the salesman who took our order was courteous and helpful, but thereafter our experience went the same way as our old carpets which were cut up into small pieces and taken to the dump.
Firstly an estimator “I’ve been doing this for thirty years, don’t you worry dear (he was speaking to my wife)” assured us that despite ours being an old Victorian pile, hardboard would more than adequately do the job of levelling the floor; so when the first carpet was laid and the resulting undulating landscape of 80/20 wool twist clearly not up to scratch, the fitters observed that we should have ordered plywood instead – all further progress was then halted as we got back onto our carpet pals.
When the same estimator returned to look at the hardboard effect – “I’ve been doing this for thirty years and I’ve never known a case where hardboard hasn’t done the job” – he grudgingly admitted that it didn’t look very good then refused point blank to answer any further questions as he had to “speak to the boss”.
So the saga continued by phone when our friend the estimator – “I’ve been doing this for thirty years and I still don’t know what I’m doing” – called back with an additional cost to lay plywood that would have in its own right saved HBOS from Lloyds TSB, revived the housing market and allowed the Scottish Government to abandon the council tax right away. But answering questions about how this cost was made up was not in our man’s repertoire for he again went to the most extraordinary lengths to avoid discussing anything material about our order.
At the end of the day we got our carpets laid. The man with the plywood was of course a different man from the one that laid the carpet. He took one look at the boards and said he lays ply all the time on floors like that. I won’t repeat what he said about the estimator, although apparently he’s been like that for thirty years.
So where does this leave the consumer, whether you are buying a newspaper or a carpet. Are sales assistants so de-motivated that they can’t even be bothered to offer the most basic kindnesses? Do retail managers not care about how this looks to customers? How hard is it to actually say please and thank you (I should say at this late juncture that many customers ought to consider this question too)? And how much easier all our lives would be if things went right the first time; why should we all be made to put more effort into recovering from a situation that should not have arisen in the first place?
So back to France. Give me Monsieur and a bon journee any day. Give me a a “C’est moi qui vous remercie” and let s all get tiled floors so we never have to buy carpets again.
Let me turn to service, manners and general politesse as the theme for this week’s column. I am sure I am not alone in remembering days gone by when, like the meadow pipit, politeness and manners were routine. People in shops smiled at you, they said hello, please and thank you. Consumers not only expected good service but members of what we now call the service industry also expected to give good service.
In France, politeness is embedded in the very language they speak. You are greeted as Monsieur/Madame in pretty much any shop you go into. People say good morning, good afternoon and wish you a good day. They use the polite form – vous – as a matter of routine, and it is indeed simply the rule. And even French builders, when they are providing excuses for why that wall is still only half finished, will take a full morning to come round to your place and sit down over a glass of wine to explain why this is so; all with that Gallic shrug that says – I sympathise and I really can’t do anything about it but it’s no reason for us to fall out is it?
When the decline in the UK set in I don’t know, but set in it undoubtedly has. It seems to me that every transaction is a favour to the consumer these days. Many shop assistants for example – not all admittedly, but a handsome proportion – do appear to have a problem with the basic description of the job itself. That somehow they are above the demands of welcoming paying customers, being polite, smiling and wishing us well on our way. I swear I have had transactions in shops when not a word has passed the lips of the assistant.
“Hang on – don’t I pay your wages”, I want to scream. But I don’t of course. I take my change, and in that manner of people who remember what it used to be like, say a clear, “thanks very much”, while engaging them in the kind of direct eye contact they’ve probably only experienced in school. They in return are too busy texting their pals under the counter to notice.
But High Street retailers are not the only place where service with a smile has long been forgotten. I recently had occasion to buy new carpets for our house. Quite a lot of new carpet actually and you’d think that a not inconsiderable order might bring out the best in people in the current financial environment.
In fairness the salesman who took our order was courteous and helpful, but thereafter our experience went the same way as our old carpets which were cut up into small pieces and taken to the dump.
Firstly an estimator “I’ve been doing this for thirty years, don’t you worry dear (he was speaking to my wife)” assured us that despite ours being an old Victorian pile, hardboard would more than adequately do the job of levelling the floor; so when the first carpet was laid and the resulting undulating landscape of 80/20 wool twist clearly not up to scratch, the fitters observed that we should have ordered plywood instead – all further progress was then halted as we got back onto our carpet pals.
When the same estimator returned to look at the hardboard effect – “I’ve been doing this for thirty years and I’ve never known a case where hardboard hasn’t done the job” – he grudgingly admitted that it didn’t look very good then refused point blank to answer any further questions as he had to “speak to the boss”.
So the saga continued by phone when our friend the estimator – “I’ve been doing this for thirty years and I still don’t know what I’m doing” – called back with an additional cost to lay plywood that would have in its own right saved HBOS from Lloyds TSB, revived the housing market and allowed the Scottish Government to abandon the council tax right away. But answering questions about how this cost was made up was not in our man’s repertoire for he again went to the most extraordinary lengths to avoid discussing anything material about our order.
At the end of the day we got our carpets laid. The man with the plywood was of course a different man from the one that laid the carpet. He took one look at the boards and said he lays ply all the time on floors like that. I won’t repeat what he said about the estimator, although apparently he’s been like that for thirty years.
So where does this leave the consumer, whether you are buying a newspaper or a carpet. Are sales assistants so de-motivated that they can’t even be bothered to offer the most basic kindnesses? Do retail managers not care about how this looks to customers? How hard is it to actually say please and thank you (I should say at this late juncture that many customers ought to consider this question too)? And how much easier all our lives would be if things went right the first time; why should we all be made to put more effort into recovering from a situation that should not have arisen in the first place?
So back to France. Give me Monsieur and a bon journee any day. Give me a a “C’est moi qui vous remercie” and let s all get tiled floors so we never have to buy carpets again.
Monday, September 15, 2008
I knew I was right!
I’m delighted to now have scientific support for my cravings for sunshine and a generally milder climate. Let’s hear it all round for Dr Oliver Gillie, someone whom I’ve only been able to identify as a “science researcher and writer”, and who has called for "urgent action" by the Scottish Government to tackle the lack of sunshine. He has already, I am led to understand, pressed the Government to help Scotland’s climate catch-up with those experienced in the Mediterranean zone.
Let me be the first to volunteer for the innovative “South of France Re-location Programme” I feel sure the Scottish Government is going to announce any day now (I’ve already submitted a proposal to the First Minister and The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing outlining my living costs and personal needs).
Commenting on his report, he said: "Scotland has an extreme climate characterised by very little sunshine - it gets as little sunshine as some places in the Arctic Circle.”
Hooray! At last! Someone has confirmed what I knew all along; which takes me to my point.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like what this man has to say. He has brought a serious issue to debate in the public forum. But along with research studies that point out that people who eat chips four times or more a week have a poorer chance of running a marathon, this is research that states the bloomin’ obvious.
Even when I was less affected by it, I’ve always known Scotland has worse weather than many other parts of the world. And as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate just how valuable those few rays of sunshine are, and just how bad some people feel in the depths of winter when we’ve had ten straight days of rain, and only a few meagre hours of what passes for daylight. And I count myself amongst those people.
But I do believe that this is only part of a more complex analysis. Sure it would be great to have a more Mediterranean climate alone. I for one would jump at the chance to compose these thoughts from the veranda of a modest but comfortable villa somewhere in the South of France. But I believe that Scotland’s wider ills are as much to do with society as meteorology.
The continental lifestyle takes the passing of time at a different pace. It places more value on the things that I believe we have lost as a society: family ties, community spirit; and a good long lunch hour. Simple things and simple pleasures have more meaning to more people. Visitors to France are bemused by the seemingly endless fetes and celebrations held across every city, town, village and hamlet to celebrate things a grand as Bastille Day and as modest as the 50th anniversary of the opening of the local swimming pool (honestly!).
What this does is ensure that the community is pulled along with common purpose. It ensures there are no strangers amongst our neighbours, and it helps build something that is greater than the sum of the parts from the individual contributions we can all make.
By all means then, let’s try to do something about the climate; subsidise the cost of sunshine lamps; or give everyone an injection of vitamin D to get through the winter months. Move to France if you like, and think you can make a living of some sort there (I remain open to all reasonable offers), but if we do neither of these things, our communities can come together in a spirit of greater co-operation and ambition to help those less fortunate than us, and breath some new life and vitality into our country.
Let me be the first to volunteer for the innovative “South of France Re-location Programme” I feel sure the Scottish Government is going to announce any day now (I’ve already submitted a proposal to the First Minister and The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing outlining my living costs and personal needs).
Commenting on his report, he said: "Scotland has an extreme climate characterised by very little sunshine - it gets as little sunshine as some places in the Arctic Circle.”
Hooray! At last! Someone has confirmed what I knew all along; which takes me to my point.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like what this man has to say. He has brought a serious issue to debate in the public forum. But along with research studies that point out that people who eat chips four times or more a week have a poorer chance of running a marathon, this is research that states the bloomin’ obvious.
Even when I was less affected by it, I’ve always known Scotland has worse weather than many other parts of the world. And as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate just how valuable those few rays of sunshine are, and just how bad some people feel in the depths of winter when we’ve had ten straight days of rain, and only a few meagre hours of what passes for daylight. And I count myself amongst those people.
But I do believe that this is only part of a more complex analysis. Sure it would be great to have a more Mediterranean climate alone. I for one would jump at the chance to compose these thoughts from the veranda of a modest but comfortable villa somewhere in the South of France. But I believe that Scotland’s wider ills are as much to do with society as meteorology.
The continental lifestyle takes the passing of time at a different pace. It places more value on the things that I believe we have lost as a society: family ties, community spirit; and a good long lunch hour. Simple things and simple pleasures have more meaning to more people. Visitors to France are bemused by the seemingly endless fetes and celebrations held across every city, town, village and hamlet to celebrate things a grand as Bastille Day and as modest as the 50th anniversary of the opening of the local swimming pool (honestly!).
What this does is ensure that the community is pulled along with common purpose. It ensures there are no strangers amongst our neighbours, and it helps build something that is greater than the sum of the parts from the individual contributions we can all make.
By all means then, let’s try to do something about the climate; subsidise the cost of sunshine lamps; or give everyone an injection of vitamin D to get through the winter months. Move to France if you like, and think you can make a living of some sort there (I remain open to all reasonable offers), but if we do neither of these things, our communities can come together in a spirit of greater co-operation and ambition to help those less fortunate than us, and breath some new life and vitality into our country.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Merde alors!
Holy sh*t! What is it about dogs; or more specifically their owners? The French have dogs. The French love dogs. Anywhere you go in France you’ll come across a dog. What you don’t come up against quite so often is dog mess. They care for their dogs and make them use those strange hole in the floor toilets you don’t see so much of anymore in France (ok I made that last bit up).
The point I want to make though is that dogs are all well and good. They are man’s best friend, provide companionship for little old ladies and are fashion accessories to celebrities across the world; if someone mentions Paris Hilton, you automatically think “dog”.
But by virtue of being one of our living creatures’ means they also have needs. Some of these needs don’t interfere with my life very much. I don’t really know any dog owners so never have to shake one off my leg for example when it chooses to get a little fruity. But their digestive and waste management systems do bother me. They bother me specifically when taking my kids to school and I have to negotiate the pavement slalom of steaming residue left by inconsiderate and frankly pig ignorant dog owners.
My Dad wasn’t a great fan of dogs in his lifetime. “I’d shoot the lot of them!” he’d say. Frequently. He used to hold up his walking stick to his shoulder aiming carefully down its shaft, and fire imaginary bullets at all those he saw walking through the park across from his little flat. Now I have to say that while this may be a little extreme, I understand what it was that bothered him. He didn’t mind dogs really. He owned many dogs in his time, but if you’re going to take responsibility for one, then you have to take responsibility for the mess it leaves.
Dog mess is disgusting. It stinks. It is a public health hazard and nobody likes to have to scrape it from those little grooves in their trainers with a toothpick. And if it’s not bad enough that owners don’t clear it up, the local authority does nothing to either incentivise or force people to do this, nor do they come and clean it up when it becomes evident nobody else is going to.
In Paris they have professional pooper scoopers, riding around the city on mopeds taking care of the leftovers from careless and inconsiderate owners. Extreme? Perhaps so, and equally saddening that it is necessary. But while more people look after their mess in France, others take responsibility for those who abdicate theirs – maintaining a clean environment for us all.
The point I want to make though is that dogs are all well and good. They are man’s best friend, provide companionship for little old ladies and are fashion accessories to celebrities across the world; if someone mentions Paris Hilton, you automatically think “dog”.
But by virtue of being one of our living creatures’ means they also have needs. Some of these needs don’t interfere with my life very much. I don’t really know any dog owners so never have to shake one off my leg for example when it chooses to get a little fruity. But their digestive and waste management systems do bother me. They bother me specifically when taking my kids to school and I have to negotiate the pavement slalom of steaming residue left by inconsiderate and frankly pig ignorant dog owners.
My Dad wasn’t a great fan of dogs in his lifetime. “I’d shoot the lot of them!” he’d say. Frequently. He used to hold up his walking stick to his shoulder aiming carefully down its shaft, and fire imaginary bullets at all those he saw walking through the park across from his little flat. Now I have to say that while this may be a little extreme, I understand what it was that bothered him. He didn’t mind dogs really. He owned many dogs in his time, but if you’re going to take responsibility for one, then you have to take responsibility for the mess it leaves.
Dog mess is disgusting. It stinks. It is a public health hazard and nobody likes to have to scrape it from those little grooves in their trainers with a toothpick. And if it’s not bad enough that owners don’t clear it up, the local authority does nothing to either incentivise or force people to do this, nor do they come and clean it up when it becomes evident nobody else is going to.
In Paris they have professional pooper scoopers, riding around the city on mopeds taking care of the leftovers from careless and inconsiderate owners. Extreme? Perhaps so, and equally saddening that it is necessary. But while more people look after their mess in France, others take responsibility for those who abdicate theirs – maintaining a clean environment for us all.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Un billet simple et retour
I recently had occasion to travel by train from Glasgow to Carlisle and back – a reasonably short distance and a journey time of about an hour and 20 minutes, and I have to report a reasonably comfortable train. I now it isn’t like me to start with such a positive outlook, but credit where credit is due I say.
No, the particular irritant in this journey was found in the booking office of Glasgow Central Station – a magnificent old place standing in memory of a reliable and affordable UK-wide rail network.
Picture this if you will (for we are about to enter The Twilight Zone)…wallet in hand I wait a modest few minutes for a teller to become vacant. On hearing the request to approach window number four, I move on over and ask, politely I thought, for a return ticket to Carlisle. £44.50 replied the teller, without so much as a hello, good afternoon or please.
Thinking this a little on the pricey side, and being slightly deaf as a result of persistent sinusitis brought on by this damp, northern climate, I repeated this figure with a quizzical look, and “really?” appended for good measure. All good natured stuff I thought.
“That’s what I said,” replied the teller.
Taken aback by this response, and caught somewhat off guard, I muttered something about having checked on the web and it was much cheaper. My new copine lightened opened up a bit at this point and informed me that this was the price of a cheap day return. But then she became positively engaged in my simple request to get to Carlisle and back as cheaply as possible.
“When are you coming back?” she asked me, though still a little haughtily.
“Tomorrow evening, on the 7.10 from Carlisle,” I said.
“You’d be better off buying two standard singles then, they’re £16 each.”
Now I don’t claim to be a mathematical genius, but it does strike me that you would be better off buying two standard singles regardless of when you were coming back, saving yourself £10 in the process which makes me wonder just how they arrived at the cost of a standard return in the first place.
This is just one example of why the rail network is on its knees in the UK. Another is that if you are travelling from Glasgow to Dundee, then it is cheaper to buy a ticket from Glasgow to Perth and then one from Perth to Dundee, than get a straight through ticket. Add this to the state of the track and rolling stock and you have the UK rail network.
Give me SNCF and even better TGV any day. It’s more reliable, cheaper, and easier to use, and they serve better coffee.
No, the particular irritant in this journey was found in the booking office of Glasgow Central Station – a magnificent old place standing in memory of a reliable and affordable UK-wide rail network.
Picture this if you will (for we are about to enter The Twilight Zone)…wallet in hand I wait a modest few minutes for a teller to become vacant. On hearing the request to approach window number four, I move on over and ask, politely I thought, for a return ticket to Carlisle. £44.50 replied the teller, without so much as a hello, good afternoon or please.
Thinking this a little on the pricey side, and being slightly deaf as a result of persistent sinusitis brought on by this damp, northern climate, I repeated this figure with a quizzical look, and “really?” appended for good measure. All good natured stuff I thought.
“That’s what I said,” replied the teller.
Taken aback by this response, and caught somewhat off guard, I muttered something about having checked on the web and it was much cheaper. My new copine lightened opened up a bit at this point and informed me that this was the price of a cheap day return. But then she became positively engaged in my simple request to get to Carlisle and back as cheaply as possible.
“When are you coming back?” she asked me, though still a little haughtily.
“Tomorrow evening, on the 7.10 from Carlisle,” I said.
“You’d be better off buying two standard singles then, they’re £16 each.”
Now I don’t claim to be a mathematical genius, but it does strike me that you would be better off buying two standard singles regardless of when you were coming back, saving yourself £10 in the process which makes me wonder just how they arrived at the cost of a standard return in the first place.
This is just one example of why the rail network is on its knees in the UK. Another is that if you are travelling from Glasgow to Dundee, then it is cheaper to buy a ticket from Glasgow to Perth and then one from Perth to Dundee, than get a straight through ticket. Add this to the state of the track and rolling stock and you have the UK rail network.
Give me SNCF and even better TGV any day. It’s more reliable, cheaper, and easier to use, and they serve better coffee.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Le monde, ce qui passe?
I swear the world is going mad. And I don’t think it’s just me – though that is a possibility I should never rule out. My journey to work each morning consists of taking the autobus, after having walked the kids to school. My feelings on the quality of this often maligned form of transport will have to wait for another time and so for the purposes of this piece let us assume the journey itself is fine – helped along in its passing by just enough time to read through Metro, the free newspaper taking over the world.
Now I’m a broadsheet man myself generally but Metro, to give it credit, has just enough in it to distract me as I face the short journey to work and the long day ahead. It’s full of light hearted stuff, environmentally sound in that most of the items seem to be re-cycled from other papers, and it’s got a good listings section.
It also has a particular feature called “60 Second Interview” which is where…oh you get the idea, I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out for you. Today a particularly frisky young sort was featured, Jessica Sutta from the popular beat combo “The Pussycat Dolls”; a group that my younger colleagues assure me have superlative musical talent and an attractive wardrobe.
Reading on then, I found out that The Pussycat Dolls have had dolls of themselves banned in the USA for being too provocative (dolls?). They sing a song about wanting to have groupies, but, Jessica assures, “It’s just a fun lyric. Our groupies are all pre-teen girls.” Now hang on a minute and let’s just review this; they sing a song about wanting groupies, fans to have sex with on a casual basis. But it’s only a “fun lyric”, perhaps in the same way that people who make jokes about disabled, gay or black people don’t really mean anything by it. But then she reckons all their groupies are pre-teens – and this coming only a couple of weeks after Gary Glitter’s return to the UK.
Why are these kinds of moronic reflections tolerated? Has our society fallen to an all new low where a girl who sings and dances in her underwear can proclaim in a national newspaper that frequent casual sex is OK and, more worryingly, associate this thought process and their public behaviour with pre-teens?
Anyway that’s the puritan in me, probably driven by my family’s heavy ancestry in the Quaker movement (true as it happens). But this girl continues to amaze and redefine the meaning of moron, albeit in a less tawdry way. Apparently the band has a stylist, and their doing very “innovative” things with – wait for it – their nails. Goodness, how that is going to affect the credit crunch, world poverty and oppression of the people by fascist regimes.
Finally, and to cap it all for I can’t go on much longer without frothing at the mouth, she gets her Tarot Cards read. Apparently she sees this amazing psychic who tells her what’s going to happen! Yeees, that’s the definition of a psychic. She told her not to run in high heels in the rain. Nothing wrong with that advice, but it’s hardly predictive is it? It’s just good old fashioned common sense – something that Ms Sutta seems completely devoid of.
But hey, where does this leave me in my desire to move south; to sell up the ancestral pile to forage a living in a better place? Well it’s exactly this sort of thing that makes my blood boil. That the world is full of idiots is not a surprise – the law of averages means that they’re going to be out there. What I object to is the elevation of these idiots in our society to positions of influence.
I even know and accept that there are idiots in France, but I never get the feeling that idiots are tolerated in the public eye quite as much as they are here; I’m not convinced, for example, that Jade Goody would have been able to forge quite so successful a career in France as she has in the UK out of being ignorant.
Either way, the sun-drenched veranda is still calling me as I sit here in the tail end of the wettest summer on record.
Now I’m a broadsheet man myself generally but Metro, to give it credit, has just enough in it to distract me as I face the short journey to work and the long day ahead. It’s full of light hearted stuff, environmentally sound in that most of the items seem to be re-cycled from other papers, and it’s got a good listings section.
It also has a particular feature called “60 Second Interview” which is where…oh you get the idea, I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out for you. Today a particularly frisky young sort was featured, Jessica Sutta from the popular beat combo “The Pussycat Dolls”; a group that my younger colleagues assure me have superlative musical talent and an attractive wardrobe.
Reading on then, I found out that The Pussycat Dolls have had dolls of themselves banned in the USA for being too provocative (dolls?). They sing a song about wanting to have groupies, but, Jessica assures, “It’s just a fun lyric. Our groupies are all pre-teen girls.” Now hang on a minute and let’s just review this; they sing a song about wanting groupies, fans to have sex with on a casual basis. But it’s only a “fun lyric”, perhaps in the same way that people who make jokes about disabled, gay or black people don’t really mean anything by it. But then she reckons all their groupies are pre-teens – and this coming only a couple of weeks after Gary Glitter’s return to the UK.
Why are these kinds of moronic reflections tolerated? Has our society fallen to an all new low where a girl who sings and dances in her underwear can proclaim in a national newspaper that frequent casual sex is OK and, more worryingly, associate this thought process and their public behaviour with pre-teens?
Anyway that’s the puritan in me, probably driven by my family’s heavy ancestry in the Quaker movement (true as it happens). But this girl continues to amaze and redefine the meaning of moron, albeit in a less tawdry way. Apparently the band has a stylist, and their doing very “innovative” things with – wait for it – their nails. Goodness, how that is going to affect the credit crunch, world poverty and oppression of the people by fascist regimes.
Finally, and to cap it all for I can’t go on much longer without frothing at the mouth, she gets her Tarot Cards read. Apparently she sees this amazing psychic who tells her what’s going to happen! Yeees, that’s the definition of a psychic. She told her not to run in high heels in the rain. Nothing wrong with that advice, but it’s hardly predictive is it? It’s just good old fashioned common sense – something that Ms Sutta seems completely devoid of.
But hey, where does this leave me in my desire to move south; to sell up the ancestral pile to forage a living in a better place? Well it’s exactly this sort of thing that makes my blood boil. That the world is full of idiots is not a surprise – the law of averages means that they’re going to be out there. What I object to is the elevation of these idiots in our society to positions of influence.
I even know and accept that there are idiots in France, but I never get the feeling that idiots are tolerated in the public eye quite as much as they are here; I’m not convinced, for example, that Jade Goody would have been able to forge quite so successful a career in France as she has in the UK out of being ignorant.
Either way, the sun-drenched veranda is still calling me as I sit here in the tail end of the wettest summer on record.
Friday, September 05, 2008
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