I rest my case!

Now we have even more reasons to not visit the Land of the Hi-tech Death Penalty!

There is now an immense footbridge there, so you don’t have to walk over the level crossing. It would be a difficult climb for someone like me at 64 with a dodgy heart valve. So does everybody use it? Sometimes level crossings with proper warning systems are much better for most  people, except the stupid and impulsive. At a similar level crossing at Foxton, pedestrian access across the tracks is controlled by locks on the gates controlled by the signalling system. That system has been at Foxton for years, so why wasn’t it installed Elsenham?

Further north, just south of Newmarket there is a level crossing on the Ipswich to Cambridge line at Six Mile Bottom.  It is on a long straight road with a thirty miles per hour limit and the crossing has barriers and flashing lights.  But it still manages to have had a couple of cars hit trains in the last twenty years.

My view has always been that all level crossings should be eliminated on railways, as they have always been a major place for tragic accidents.  And also for suicides, as at Ufton Nervet, where several people died. But to eliminate some level crossings, like say the one at Six Mile Bottom would cost several million pounds.

So as I might be renting the room out during the Olympics, I felt it might not be a bad idea fit a new lock.  I easily removed the faceplace from the lock to get at the screws that held it into the door and managed to price the lock from the door without much effort.

But when I came to fit the new lock, that I’d bought for ten pounds or so, I couldn’t get the faceplate off, as when it had been assembled one of the screwed had been jammed in at an angle. in the end I completely stripped the cross head of the strew, due to the large amount of plastic in whatever metal it was.

A Cheap Crap Lock

So as the picture shows, I will now have to buy a new lock again, just because the one I bought was so crap. The faceplate bent, whilst I was seeing if I could use a bit of brute force and ignorance to free the screw.

Perhaps he’s just being sensible or he has not responded to any journalist, who’s asked what he thinks!

could it be a pointer to something? Or if he says nothing, then he won’t have to refute what he said or change his mind.

Note that a poster says it will open in March 2012.

I didn’t show the most disgusting part of the new station; the smokers surrounding the entrance to the area.

Unless of course Ken wins the London Mayor election and he’ll be a guest of honour, along with a lot of other strange people.

The myth round here is that 4s have a take your own line approach to getting from one end of their route to the other. This was illustrated today as I saw a 4 going towards the Islington Angel on the Essex Road. I did find thought when I got home, that there had been a traffic accident.

There must be many more myths.

Would it not be sensible to create a fake one, that to the untrained eye looked like real one?  These could be issued to officers and would be used in a first instance, as one of the Met’s experts has just said, that when most people see a taser, they calm down and give up.

One new concept, I’ve not come across before is what is called Flybus, which uses a flywheel as a battery.

I am convinced that hybrid buses are the future, as I have three routes that are partly hybrid near me. From a noise point of view they are so much better for customers and bystanders alike and of course they use a lot less fuel

However, may years ago, I met a guy, who in the early-1960s had been an officer on a nuclear submarine in the United States Navy. They had been doing a joint exercise with the Royal Navy and he started the tale by saying that when the two navies work together, if possible all meetings between senior officers are held on Royal Navy ships, as food and drink is better. Especially on November 11th.

After this exercise the submarine went into Portsmouth for a bit of rest and recreation and to replenish supplies, before returning to the United States. The duties of the teller of this tale included getting the provisions. As one can imagine and especially in the early-1960s, lots of things they needed were not available in the naval base at Portsmouth, although they would be now. The only thing for which there wasn’t an obviously an easy substitute was the  fresh orange juice. After all, Portsmouth isn’t exactly Florida. So the helpful men of the Senior Service substituted several hundred bottles of beer.

When he got back to the submarine, he was obviously rather nervous and decided to make a clean breast of it to the Captain. After all several members of the crew, if not all, now knew of the beer, so to ditch it would ruin his relationship with them. The Captain warned him not to do it again, said could he try a few bottles and provided he didn’t see any of the beer or anybody the remotest bit intoxicated, he would let the matter rest.

So where did they hide all of these bottles of beer, as you could imagine that secret space is a bit limited on a submarine?

They hid the bottles in the torpedo tubes.