The first thing to be published about the ceremonies is that the Opening Ceremony will start with a bell and it will also be used in the Closing Ceremony.

But it won’t be any bell!

It will be a bell cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, just a few miles away from the Olympic site. It is the oldest manufacturing company in the UK and can trace itself back to the fifteenth century.

The psaper gives a detsiled analysis of what his policies will mean and I suspect David Cameron, Angela Merkel and anybody in France, who earns more than the average wage won’t like it. A lot of his proposals would also be against the rules of the single market.

Having read what Hollande said, I think it will be good for Britain and especially London and the City, as his proposed rules will drive entrepreneurs from France.  Not that they have had many since Mitterand.

One thing I suspect that he won’t like is foreigners, who keep a house in France.  I suspect thery’ll be taxed heavily and a pleasure will suddenly have become a nightmare.

but type in “credit union Hackney” into Google and you get this message.

Hackney Credit Union has ceased trading and the branch has closed.

So not a good start!

Type in “find credit union hackney” and you get some assorted credit check and loan adverts.

You do get this page from Hackney Council, which tells you about credit unions. But it doesn’t give the branches in the borough.

So unless you know about credit unions and where one is located, you haven’t really got much help.

If we want to get more people to use credit unions, then they must get control of the Internet.  Especially typing “find credit union” should not get a loan shark.

Credit unions are much more successful in the US, but then they are much bigger with probably more branches. Look at the web site of the Credit Union of Southern California.  IT certainly doesn’t look to be a small organisation. Where is the Londonwide credit union?

Could it be that the banks have got their friends in Government to effectively ban them?

But if he fails, we’ll have a worthless bank on our hands, which will probably be closed with the loss of many jobs.

I actually think that it should have been liquidated, but that would have been a disaster for all the  small shareholders out there. Gordon Brown couldn’t afford all those lost votes in Scotland. Or in England too!

I was looking from the Northbound platform, just by the exit and the stairs that lead up to the street. When the station was designed, they decided to put protective railing to stop you failing on the line, but these do not obscure the view down the tunnel as the train approaches.

I couldn’t actually see much of the site as it is surrounded by blue fencing. But it strikes me that if they do any serious digging from here, that because the site is so close to the Thames, any serious engineer would take the spoil out that way. If Thames Water don’t do that it will probably cost them a lot more, as lorry journeys through a city like London are always delayed by traffic and only carry a few tonnes, whereas a proper barge can carry many times more. If we look at the Olympic site, a lot of materials like concrete and spoil were moved in and out by rail.  Also go to Pudding Mill Lane and look at the portal for CrossRail, which is for two much larger tunnels, where the spoil will probably be removed by train.  So opponents of the use of the Chambers Wharf site, who say there will be thousands of lorry journeys are not talking engineering sense. The site is also quite large and the hole is only going to be under thirty metres wide, so there should be quite a lot of space for machinery to move the spoil to the river.

I have no direct interest in whether the sewer is built, but I have a friend, who used to live in an area of London, that flooded badly every ten or so years. The sewer will hopefully stop all that.

Although I should say, that as someone who has spent a lot of time around project management and managers, I will say that what gets built in the end, will be quite unlike what was originally proposed. That’s what good project management is about.  It makes a project better, cheaper and less disruptive. Hopefully, because of the sensitivity of this project, Thames Water will follow the example of Transport for London on the East London Line and hire the best people and contractors to build the sewer.

I was upset though to see the bench that had held Doctor Salter’s statue is now bare. A picture of it is in this set of pictures.

Three Months Junk Mail

It went in the recycling this morning. But why should Hackney Council and my Council Tax pay to dispose of assorted rubbish from fast food shops, catalogue retailers and other junk mailers?

The New Island Platform at Cambridge

The only way to and from the far platforms and the one where the picture was taken is by the bridge at the end, which either means a climb and a descent of stairs or two lift rides. One of the problems of overhead lines is that the bridge needs to be high with a lot of steps.  In fact at Cambridge a subway as at Stratford would be better, but that would have increased the cost substantially.

But surely, in this day and age something better can be designed, that was quick and easy to install and could be installed at many stations.

The bus was quite smart with leather seats and wi-fi.

But the busway has a lot of design faults.

1. There is no information on the busway at  the station.
2. It would be logical if all buses went via the main bus station at Dummer Street and the rail station.  I assumed this.  When I found myself dumped in the centre, I decided to have lunch and then had to queue up for another bus for the station. I’d have preferred to go straight to the station.
3. There is no timing on the bus maps, so you have no idea when you might want to ask someone to pick you up.
4. The bus displays at the stops, don’t say whether they go to the rail station.  They don’t list the  intermediate stops too, as trains do.
5. As they are new modern buses, why can’t they announce the stops like all London ones do?
6. The bus map is poor and lacks detail. It does have a text system to find the next bus, but you have to type in 8 letters.  How come London can handle all of the metropolis with just 5 digits! Perhaps people in Cambridge like to have their fingers tested, whereas those in London can only manage 5 digits!

It all smacks of a design that wasn’t put together by the best designer. It is attention to detail, that makes tranportation systems good. London and Sheffield have informastion systems that are so much better.

Note the powerpoints for mobile devices like iPhones.

Sadly, I only got a refurbished Class 317 on the way back and I couldn’t face forward as that irritated my back, which the 379 didn’t!

On the 31st I’m going to Ipswich for the football and now, I’ll take a train to Cambridge early, have a late gluten-free lunch in the City before taking a train to Ipswich.  I’ll come home direct.