Unwired

Virgin Trains, eh? It's been a while, but this week I had occasion to delight in their services again. Since I last travelled they've been plastered with WiFi stickers. HotSpot (they shout): fast, reliable, wireless internet. Log on now.

Love to mate. But not at £4 an hour. And not when you're already stiffing me (well, my company) £142.50 for a single ticket to London. Our local cafe, which charges £1.99 for a cup of coffee, can offer me free WiFi for as long as I continue drinking. The least you could do is match this with free WiFi as long as I'm travelling. I guess you don't get to be a millionaire by giving shit away, huh?

What I was really there for

My heart wasn't in that drinks reception at the awards ceremony last night. I'm not a huge one for small talk with strangers. I drained my Peroni as fast as I deemed polite, bid a professional farewell to Mr Commended with whom I'd struck up that brief conversation, and left.

As I walked out through reception, the real reason for me being there was made plain. The universal reason, I mean. The Serendipity.

For there at reception, a small wheeled travelling bag at her feet, stood a young lady holding a single sheet of A4 and wearing a worried expression. The security man at the reception desk called out, "does anyone know where Handforth is?"

And I, of course, do.

What's more, I know how hard it is to reach Handforth from Oxford Road by public transport. "How much would a taxi cost from here?" enquired plod. I reckoned on about thirty quid, given that my regular journey from home to Piccadilly was around a tenner. Young Lady turned her deepening worried expression on me. "I 'ave come from ze airport," she announced in a charming French accent. "Ze bus driver said it was ze right one for 'Andforth."

What choice did I have? Beyond seeking out the bus driver and beating him to a bloody pulp, I mean. I offered her a lift. It was the least I could do. Some small recompense for being dumped 11 miles north of her real destination by a bus driver who couldn't have given the faintest toss where she needed to be. A way of showing her that not all British men are ignorant oafs.

The young lady - I never did ask her name - put aside any worries she may have fleetingly had about accepting lifts from strangers and picked up her suitcase. The plod on reception tried to reassure her. "He's alright," he said, "he's come from the BBC." Which clearly is no reassurance whatsoever, as I was only visiting.

The journey to the Pinewood hotel in Handforth passed pleasantly enough, with me pointing out local landmarks en route and her explaining that she was from Lille, worked for Tate & Lyle, and was here inspecting food ingredients (or something). I thought it best not to make any quips about EU food regulations. You know. Cucumbers, bananas, that sort of thing. As we drove down the Kingsway a plane overflew us on its final approach and I pointed out how close she had been to Handforth while still at the airport. How we laughed. Who says the French have no sense of irony? No-one. That's the Americans.

"You 'ave no idea 'ow you 'ave 'elped me," she enthused as we pulled up at reception. The right one this time. I smiled. No worries, my dear. It's all good for my karma.

Waving goodbye

I've always tried, with my daughters, to follow the example my own Dad set. Nothing was too much trouble for him. He'd always be there with the offer of a helping hand, or a lift to take me wherever I needed to go. So there I was, at 2.30am, knocking on Natalie's door telling her it was time to get up and go to the airport to catch the first leg of her three-flight journey to this year's field trip in Belize.

Belize? Flippin' 'eck! The most exotic educational trip I declined as a student (I never went on any school trips) was to northern France. Mind you, she has been through the mill a bit these past few months what with Hep-C, rabies and typhoid injections and anti-malaria pills she's felt pretty sick a lot of the time, so I hope the trip is worth it. I'm sure it will be. Trip of a lifetime, probably, but before the excitement comes many hours of flying. 6am flight to Amsterdam, then the 10.45 transatlantic leg to Houston (10 hours flying) and a final 90-minute flight to Belize. They're on Central Standard Time there, 7 hours behind the UK, so when she lands at 4.45pm local time her body will think it's 11.45pm, and she'll have been awake for 22 hours. I have no idea how much more journeying there is at the tropical end between the airport and the resort.

Check-in for the Amsterdam flight didn't open until 4am but the trip organiser had insisted everyone be at the airport by 3am. I know. What can you do? At least, when we walked into the departures hall at 3.05, a small group of her mates had already gathered near the desk. So we hugged, I waved goodbye, and left her in St. Christopher's (and KLM's) capable hands.

Wales - day 3

The Tudor Lodge operate a do-it-yourself continental breakfast scheme in their well-appointed basement dining room, which we took full advantage of before departing to head back to Manchester. In view of the incoming weather, we had planned only a couple of stops, the first of which was Betws-y-coed - another place I haven't visited for many years.

It now glories in having its own visitor centre and a wealth of touristy shops, but in the heavy rain nowhere looks at its best, and our desultory trudging was soon curtailed by a wish to retreat to the relative dryness of the car. We headed for Conw(a)y, where thankfully the rain left us alone for an hour or so as we parked, enjoyed a pint, walked along the seafront for a short distance and then happened across a brace of fish & chip restaurants.

With little to choose - apparently - between them, we took the advice of a local shopkeeper who happened to be loitering on his doorstep, and plumped for the one on the corner. His recommendation proved to be sound and we soon found ourselves on the outside of three plates of battered cod, chips and mushy peas. While we were eating the rain started up again, but once again fortune smiled on us and gave us another respite as we walked back to the car.

The last time I had a slow leak, I'd run the tyre for several months before getting it fixed. Determined not to make the same mistake again, we called in at National Tyre on the way home. A familiar concerned expression crossed the face of the tyre repair man and I thought "oh no, here we go again. Surely I can't have left it too late this time - it's only been going down for a couple of days."

But no, it wasn't too late. He was able to plug the rear tyre. No problem. That was the good news. The bad news? BOTH front tyres were severely worn on the inside - one exposing cords - and required immediate replacement, and the tracking adjusted.

Cost of the repair to the rear tyre: £8.81.
Total cost of the visit, including two new tyres, valves, balancing, tracking and disposal: £159.69.

What is it with me and tyres?

Wales - day 2

After a traditional full breakfast it was time to set off back up the coast, albeit at a more leisurely pace than yesterday. Our first stop was Barmouth. I have to admit it's a place that has been the butt of a family joke for close to 40 years. Holidaying with my parents in the late 60s, we had made Dolgellau our base of operations for a week touring the hotspots of North West Wales. Trouble was, in those days, everything closed down at 6pm. Every night for a week, following the evening meal, we'd sit morosely in the guest house lounge and ask the question: "where shall we go this evening, then?" And every night for a week, the answer was: Barmouth. There simply wasn't anywhere else with anything happening.

It's a fairly interesting front as seaside towns go, made even more interesting by this clever dolphin fountain. It comes equipped with a wind sensor, so when the air speed rises above a preset point the fountain shuts off to avoid splashing the passersby. Ain't technology wonderful?

As we wandered around the town staring into the closed shop windows (40 years on and still, to a large extent, Wales is closed on a Sunday) we came across another example of shop sign shenanigans.

Fortunately (this time) the "Arousal" cafe was also closed, so as that underlined the slimness of the chances of any further arousal in Barmouth we returned to the car and headed for Portmeirion.

Internet resources describing the Italianate folly village are rife, so I won't waste your time with a potted précis here. Look it up for yourselves. This was my third or fourth visit and in the intervening 20 or so years the only real change I could detect was a distinct lack of any Prisoner memorabilia. Maybe we simply didn't take the right turning, but it certainly wasn't as prolific as on my last visit, when you couldn't turn round without tripping over a penny-farthing.

Maybe the sad but simple explanation is that the Prisoner has a greatly reduced profile compared with twenty years ago, and perhaps the village felt it was faintly ridiculous to keep trading on the fading cachet of a 40-year-old TV series, no matter how iconic.

After Portmeirion we drove to Porthmadog where we were staying. Once again after the childhood weeks spent on Black Rock Sands, I hadn't been back for many years. The most obvious change was to the name of the famous narrow-gauge railway. No longer the Blaenau Ffestiniog railway but now the Rheilffordd Ffestiniog Railway and - an even more obvious mark of the passage of time - it has its own website. Last time I visited the train only ran as far as Dduallt, and the enthusiasts' dream of reopening the line all the way to Blaenau Ffestiniog was just that: a dream. According to Wikipedia that dream was finally realised in 1982 - ironically not that long after my last visit - but unfortunately as the line is only open for a couple of days a week at this time of year, we were unable to experience it.

After a brief walk around Porthmadog, another stop to pump up the left rear tyre, which had developed a slow leak before leaving home, and a swift pint, we checked in to our residence for the night - the Tudor Lodge - and asked the proprietor for details of preferred local eateries. Sadly the most highly recommended was still closed, but we were delighted to hear of a very good Indian only a few minutes walk away, so we set off for A Passage to India where we enjoyed an excellent curry before retiring to our (much more comfortable) beds.

Who put the "con" in congestion charge?

Here we go then. Our voting packs for the "TIF" proposals (aka the Manchester congestion charging scheme) arrived this morning. We have until December 11 to vote, but ours will be in the post tomorrow.

Various polls on local radio have suggested that a majority of voters will be voting No, but will that really make a difference? Scaremongering tactics among the yes campaigners would have it that this is a one-off chance; all or nothing; say yes now or lose all that lovely transport investment. I don't believe that for one minute. Firstly, I wouldn't put it past them to bring the scheme back under another guise in the event of a "no" result. I'm sure our councillors are quite capable of learning that trick from the EU. The new EU constitution has gone through on the nod, despite being virtually identical to the previous attempt and there being no UK referendum. So watch out for Manchester councils to reinvent the scheme, claim it has nothing to do with the old scheme and therefore doesn't warrant a new vote, and do it anyway.

Secondly, if congestion really IS that bad (it isn't. Industry watchers say that city centre traffic levels have remained virtually unchanged for the past ten years) then everyone will be up in arms in a little while and the money will be found from somewhere. It always is. Usually from the motorists. We all have bottomless pockets, you know.

I don't mind telling you it'll be a NO from me. The alternative is to force Nikki to take the bus to and from work every day - changing her 25 minute round trip into 2 hours - or incur the full daily charge of £5 to give her a lift. That's £1200 a year right out of our increasingly empty pockets. No thanks.

VISIT 2008

After a light breakfast (previous experience of shows like this led me to suspect I'd be able to graze all day) we set off for the short coach trip to the Augsburg Messe where the conference was being held.

Arriving at the hall I battled through the throng of smokers - a crowd never numbering less than a hundred who restricted access throughout the day forcing everyone to run the gamut of secondary smoke and half-stubbed dog ends to get into the building - and registered at the main desk, collecting my conference map, schedule and badge.

The event had been divided into two main areas: Hall 7 where the presentations and expert talks were held, and the main arena housing the partners' and suppliers' stands, the 360 presentation theatre and the restaurant. I spent most of the morning listening to presentations, including one from the CTO, and broke these up with a brief stop at the restaurant for some lunch and to sit in on the 1pm showing of the 360 presentation - a multi-media show incorporating actors and sfx to showcase the history of Fujitsu-Siemens and their latest infrastructure offerings.

Finally at around half past three it was time for my factory tour. Very similar to the one I'd enjoyed on my aforementioned visit to EMC, with a similar set of production lines, automated fabrication machinery, automatic and manual testing, and palettes full of equipment awaiting shipping. Then it was back to the hotel for another free bar (definitely a theme of the event) and the "gala dinner" complete with speech. Short speech, thankfully. I declined the offer of a trip into town, and headed back to my room while the majority of my fellow diners headed for "Peaches" many of them, apparently, not returning until around 4am.

Illusions newly shattered

When I was offered the chance to attend Fujitsu-Siemens Computers "VISIT 2008" event in Augsburg a couple of months back, I jumped at it. Jollies like this are few and far between these days and my memory of such events in the past is uniformly good.

When I learned UK delegates were to be flown to Munich by private jet from Stansted my excitement leapt up a notch. Memories of our most excellent trip a few years ago to visit EMC's factory in Cork were uppermost in my mind: the 8-seater Gulfstream, the stretch limo, the feeling of ultimate luxury. So it was with great expectations that I set off from home just before 8am to ensure I arrived at the Inflite terminal in good time.

The bloom left the rose slightly when I drove past the gate guard on my arrival. "Make sure you don't leave any gaps when you park up," he advised. "We have to get 100 cars in here today."

Sure enough, for my second experience of private jet travel, it wasn't at all what I'd expected. Gone was the 8-seater executive jet; the leather; the gleaming, polished walnut. Gone were the dainty sandwiches with their crusts cut off, served on crested china plates, fresh coffee in china cups. In their place a 30-year-old Boeing 737-200, its seats configured in the worst charter airline style. I swear there wasn't more than nine inches between me and the seat back in front of me, occupied (as they always are) by a man incapable of sitting still for more than five minutes at a stretch. I couldn't even deploy my tray table without breathing in.

The meal, when it came, was the ubiquitous mystery chicken beloved of airlines the world over, served in plastic, along with a schizophrenic dessert that wasn't sure whether it was apple pie or apple crumble. I couldn't tell you what the coffee was like: I didn't dare try it. Having missed my chance of a pee at the airport after consuming a complementary coffee in the lounge, and with a tray table that wouldn't rest less than 25° from the horizontal, it was too risky on all counts.

Touching down at Munich I finally remembered the mantra of seasoned travellers - never pass up a chance for a pee - and leapt for the gents' as we were waiting at the baggage carousel. After an uneventful (but long!) transfer we arrived at the Hotel Dorint in Augsburg, about 70km NW of Munich.

My room - a slightly more upmarket version of hotel rooms the world over - was very pleasant. The hotel is in a cylindrical building of about 35 floors, only the bottom 11 of which are the hotel. The rooms, arranged radially around the central lifts, are wedge shaped, with a walk-in shower nearest the centre, widening into a well-appointed bathroom which then widens further into the main part of the room. Each room has a semilunar balcony which gives the building the appearance of a series of bubbles on a stick (I've since discovered the hotel is known locally as the "corn cob").

With a free bar starting at 7pm and a late arrival owing to traffic and a massive construction project on the autobahn out of Munich there was just time to phone home and confirm my safe arrival before heading downstairs and seeking out some fellow Northerners with whom to sample the local Bavarian ale.

People are our greatest assets

I can't hear that phrase without a feeling of creeping cynicism. It's a mantra that HR departments and directors always trot out when they want to impress the workforce with how well we're being treated. Like the BBC hype surrounding their execrable new drama Bonekickers however, the message does not reflect the medium.

I arrived at work this morning - the first time I've been into the office for some weeks - to find a corporate email in my box. It was about business travel. Some poor graduate trainee has been given the task of analysing the business mileage data for the last year, and the message is that the top 10 drivers are responsible for 41% of total mileage claims and spend 62.5 days per year in their cars.

These incredible statistics, along with averages for the rest of us, are used to promote the message that we should all be more careful at deciding whether we drive or not, and consider alternatives such as telephones (no! really?), voice conferences, video conferences or instant messaging. So what drives the corporate need to achieve a reduction in miles driven? Is it concern for those poor employees, trapped in their cars for nearly 9 weeks of the year? Is it perhaps a recognition that we need a better work-life balance? Are they trying to reduce stress levels among the employee population? Or maybe it's a simple case of wanting to save money?

No. None of these things. They've pledged to reduce the corporate carbon footprint, and this is one of the most significant contributors.

Give me strength.

Feeling congested

So it looks as though Manchester will be getting a congestion charge scheme after all. Not until 2012 or thereabouts, but with the amount of bribery subsidy on offer from the government, it's looking likely. The ten local councils all have to vote on it too, but since 7 out of 10 have already declared themselves in favour, there's no hope there either.

No word yet on what the scheme will mean for residents, although a local pundit on the radio today suggested that only 30% of the local population would end up paying. By this I think he meant many people will be able to "avoid" the charge by using public transport (which until they extend the tram system both South and East won't be an option for either of us, and unless they install guards on every tram to protect commuters carrying laptops from marauding hoodies I wouldn't use even if the routes were in place) or travelling outside the charge hours (7.00 to 9.30 in the morning and 4.30 to 6.30 in the evening - again not really an option for us).

We live inside the M60 orbital, so presumably leaving this area in the morning and heading out of town won't incur a charge, but if I were to be working at home and giving Nikki a lift to work, I suspect I'd incur a £2 fee per day simply for returning home from Northenden, and if I'm going into the office too, I'll pick up a charge when I leave the orbital and head into town from the other side. Sheesh.

An opposition pundit pointed out that drivers already raise £45 billion of revenue a year in one way or another, and this is just another tax on the poor motorist. With the prospect of a change in government in a couple of years' time, maybe this will all be scrapped. Or maybe by the time it's implemented everyone will be so hacked off with the cost of driving there'll be a mass non-payment protest like there was with the poll tax. A lad(*) can dream.

*Use of the word 'lad' not meant to imply age restriction. No warranty implied or given. Interpretation subject to status. Terms and conditions apply.

Drip, drip, drop

By the early evening yesterday, with no sign of the rain letting up, we were up to four buckets in the bedroom and it was beginning to look like we'd be sleeping in the spare room. Too much noise from the plipping and the plopping to do anything else.

We did have half a plan to put the laundry, some dust sheets and some towels under it all in the hope that it would quieten things down enough for us to get to sleep, but by bedtime as it turned out the rain had stopped and so, eventually, did the drips. Must remember to take the roofer's number with me to work tomorrow.

Paid a flying visit to my Mum today, just to buck her up a bit. She's still feeling very sorry for herself but the good news is the infection is getting better, the wound is not weeping any more and she's off the injected antibiotics. The bad news is she's rubbed her other heel raw with having to have her feet propped up all the time, so she's now bandaged up on both legs. She looks like half a mummy. We had a good laugh about that. She's still very weak and I'm more than a little pissed off that the hospital sent her home and expected her to cope on her own without arranging any help. I'll be calling Social Services tomorrow to see if they can do anything about helping her out with meals and general chores.

The other bad news was posted on the digital signs over the M1 southbound. Carriageway widening is about to start from junctions 28 to 25 and the sign says "Roadworks from Jan 27 until October 2010. Delays expected." October 2010?!?! Deep joy.

Christmas Do. (part 1)

First works Christmas do of the year this evening - or I should say yesterday evening given that it's now past midnight - and it had to be in Reading.

Most of the guys in the Technical Group are based darn sarf, so that's where the meal was booked, even though the CTO sportingly tried to suggest somewhere more middling like Birmingham or Solihull. We didn't have anyone in the group who knew a decent curry house round there, so we gave up and resigned ourselves to a long journey.

I wouldn't have gone normally, but the CTO had arranged a meeting for the afternoon (which meant we could claim expenses for the travelling) and I also had a four-hour meeting at 10am which I *could* have attended as a voice conference, but in this case provided another excuse to go along to the meal.

We had about ten attendees from the North, and everyone but me arranged to stay over. I like my own bed too much though, and (thought) I had another Christmas lunch to attend tomorrow...err...today, so I wanted to be back in plenty of time.

The Technical Group meeting broke up around 5pm giving us 90 minutes to drive the 15 miles from Bracknell to Reading, park, and congregate at the nearest pub, which the organiser said was Branningham's. It was pissing down as we left Bracknell. I'd offered a lift to one of the other guys and we passed a pleasant 45 minutes in the rush-hour traffic catching up with what we'd each been doing since we last worked together. After we'd parked, we discovered neither of us really knew where this place was - either the curry house or the pub - so we wandered aimless through the pouring rain towards the Oracle shopping centre - the only landmark we'd been told about. Two nice young ladies pointed Branningham's out to us, but it wasn't much use. The place was a nightclub, not a bar, and didn't open until 9pm.

We spotted the Slug & Lettuce across the water and headed for that, me on the phone to the organiser to explain the situation and arrange the Slug as the alternative rendezvous. I downed a gin & tonic prior to dinner (still conscious of the diet even though the rest of the evening would be a disaster as far as that went!) and having all assembled and wet our whistles, we headed for the restaurant - the Bengal Reef. My passenger and I agreed we would never have found it - on the first floor of a separate mall round the back of the main precinct and down a narrow street that looked more like a service road. Once inside though, the restaurant looked very nice. We were shown to our tables - a 16-seater and a 10-seater - and perused the menus while sipping on bottles of Cobra.

Suffice to say the meal was equal to anything Manchester has to offer, but at 9pm with the prospect of a 200-mile journey ahead of me, I made my excuses and left. The rain continued unabated pretty much for the whole trip home, but at least the roads were clear and I arrived back soon after midnight, tired but buoyed up by the good food and company.

Having started the Christmas celebrations with our mulled wine party at the start of the week, this had been a perfect next step!

A road less travelled

If you knew what I was about to tell you, and you knew what it meant, you’d be sitting down in preparation for the shock. The bridge at J7 of the M56 is being mended.

Doesn’t sound like much does it? But this bridge has been a designated “weak bridge” for the whole of living memory, or so it seems. In fact I’ll have to do some Internet research on it(*), because I simply can’t remember when it was first covered in cones, or subject to some sort of weight restriction. Let me put it this way, I’ve been assigned to my current “project” since November 2001 and the bridge has certainly been restricted to a single lane for the whole of that time. Prior to that in reverse chronological order it has been variously coned off to close the left-hand lane; coned off to close the right-hand lane; painted with cross-hatching to ensure traffic only travelled a single track along the centre of the bridge; had warning signs in place; and at various times for varying lengths of time it’s been closed altogether while the engineers do structural tests, measuring and monitoring.

I reckon it must be at least ten years.

When I drove to Solihull last Friday, men were hard at work and had dug up half the width of the bridge down to the main framework. At last! What the flippin’ ’eck has taken so long?

(*)Hmph! Nothing interesting at all apart from some Lymm residents moaning in 2005. It's been going on a lot longer than that.

Friday Five and the end of the Outlaws

After the events of the week, the outlaws' visit finished up like every other: with us sitting round on Friday morning drinking coffee and whiling away the hours until it was time to take them to the airport. This year's flights have been at much more civilised times than usual and today we only had to be at the airport by 11am. With hugs, kisses, and promises to do it all again next year (well, not quite all of it, we hope!) they disappeared behind the doors of the departure hall, leaving us to go shopping and return to normal mundanity.

The rest of the day was taken up with laundry, changing the bed, helping a neighbour fix up their new PC and picking Blythe up for the weekend. And after a week of high living it was good to get back to the simplicity of cheesy tea and an early evening DVD (Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer!)


1. What's your favorite cereal?
Porridge. There was a time when I had a bowl of porridge every day for almost two years. Winter and summer. I also like those little round nutty clusters that you don't see very often here but are common in the US. I used to think they were granola, but I know now that's different.

2. What is too gross to eat in the morning?
Kippers. Never understood that as a breakfast food.

3. What time do you go to bed?
About 10.30 to 11pm in the week, but if we've been watching TV beforehand I may well already have had an hour's sleep on the sofa by then! Weekends tends to be a little later. Very occasionally I'll stop up 'til 1am or so if I'm working on something like the book club website or the photos for the Chorlton Players.

4. Where do you put your keys?
Coat pocket.

5. What vegetables do you love?
Roast parsnips and any kind of potato. Onions. Celery. Red cabbage. Fresh peas straight from the pod, eaten raw.

Good old British engineering

The Channel Tunnel Rail Link opened today. It links St.Pancras station in London with the UK side of the tunnel.

A marvel of engineering you might think, to allow a train to travel at 186mph, with short bursts of speed over 200mph.

I'm not so excited. The French have had their High-Speed Rail link in place between Paris and the coast since the tunnel opened in 1994, so this "good old British engineering" is only 13 years late. At a cost of almost £6 billion its nett effect is to shave 20 minutes off the journey time between London and Paris.

Is that all? Well worth it. Ah, but, you see you're not looking at the whole picture. Those twenty minutes mean the rail option is now competitive with the flight option, so from the rail company's perspective it really is worth it, since they expect passenger numbers to grow significantly.

Tell that to the commuters in Kent. The HS1 lines pass through the lovely Kent countryside, but they don't actually stop to pick anyone up, so those locals get all the noise and none of the benefit. Well, stopping would reduce the average speed wouldn't it, and defeat the object?

Ephemera

My stay at Burnham Beeches concluded this morning with breakfast. I was shown to a table for one set in the window, looking out over the front lawn. These lonely breakfasts are a feature of working away that many must be familiar with. You get used to it after a while and I've never been uncomfortable with my own company, so I shared a few pleasantries with the jolly waiter, ordered coffee and toast, and went off to fill my plate.

By the time I returned, the lady who had been breakfasting alone on the other side of the bay window had finished and left. The waiter was in the middle of resetting the table. With a practiced flick and a polish of clean cutlery all trace of the previous occupant was removed. I downed my juice in one and turned my attention to the plate of eggs, beans and hash browns.

A few minutes later, having checked out, I walked around the front of the hotel on my way to the car park. Glancing in through the bay window I noticed my table had been expertly reset now too and it was I who no longer had a trace. The ephemeral nature of hotel breakfast hit me. The good natured production line that greets, welcomes, explains the routine to the unfamiliar, takes the order, serves the toast and coffee, replenishes the cup if required, bids good day and then efficiently erases the event in preparation for the next visitor. Hour after hour, day after day, plate after plate. No-one was ever remembered for the hotel breakfasts they ate.

The other word that occurred to me as I drove away, along with 'ephemeral' was 'unhealthy.' This is something so deep-seated in my psyche that I'm sure it would take a huge effort of will to break. Faced with a table laden with a fabulous array of healthy food, fruits without number, cold meats and cheeses, crusty bread and fruit juice, yoghurt and prunes, what do I choose? A large dollop of scrambled eggs, an even larger dollop of baked beans and some hash browns. Oh and a rather nice herby sausage. And toast and marmalade. And coffee. What do I normally eat for breakfast? Either nothing, or a bowl of cereal. Just the one bowl. No cooked food and no toast to follow. But stand me in a hotel dining room in front of a row of heated trays containing breakfast items and all conscious thought leaves my head. On a kind of culinary autopilot I lurch from tray to tray spooning this and ladling that until my plate is full.

I'd like to think that if I worked away from home often enough I'd get bored with it, or a subliminal message would filter through that I don't always have to fill my plate (or my belly) at every visit. Hasn't happened yet though.

All Miked up

I've had many experiences that prove "it's a small world" and this afternoon was another such. I spent the day in Sheffield and left the office around 3.30pm to catch the early train home.

This is a train that is regularly standing at the station 15-20 minutes before its departure time, so I was waiting on the platform for the doors to be opened when a man walked past me and looked up and down the track as if expecting a different train to be there. As he glanced to left and right I caught sight of him in profile and immediately thought I recognised him, but it wasn't until he turned right around and faced in my direction that I could be sure.

I'd worked with him over twenty years ago in VME support and hadn't seen him since, but it was definitely him. "How's it going, Mike?" I asked casually.

He looked over towards me. There was a moment or two's hesitation and then he broke into a smile of recognition. "Hello!" he said, grinning broadly. "How are you?" We shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, and struck up a conversation. After about five minutes he said, "John Beresford, isn't it." To be fair, I've changed a lot more in those twenty years than he has.

If I was any good at complex mathematics I could, I expect, calculate the probability of meeting someone at random at any given public transport terminus in the UK on any given afternoon. I don't think it would be very high, but no matter how likely it would prove to be it still seems strange when it happens.

Since he too was waiting for the Manchester train we boarded together and spent the hour-long journey catching up. Is it just an accident, or is "fate" sending me these people who have become disillusioned with the computing industry and opted for jobs with less stress? It wasn't long ago that I'd heard news of the guy who had retrained as a long-distance lorry driver and now here was another example of someone who'd turned his back on the frantic pace of life as an IT consultant and was enjoying himself immensely by working as ... a car delivery agent.

Ever wondered how that particular car you ordered from the dealer, who told you it was in the Oxted branch, gets delivered to your local dealership? Someone like Mike drives it there, that's how. Self-employed and working only those hours or days he wants to, he phones his agency and they tell him where to go to pick up a car, and where to deliver it. And then, sometimes, where to go for the next one, and where to drive that. In between, he's on his own, so Mike had pretty much committed the entire rail and bus network of the UK to memory, but also carried with him a random sample of OS maps, a flask of tea, and a supply of fruit.

He was as happy as Larry. A relatively lonely existence it's true, and long hours (he often doesn't get home until midnight), but on the plus side he gets to drive a lot of brand new very fancy motors, sees the country from the open road (poop! poop!) and enjoys a lot of healthy exercise walking between depots and train/bus stations.

We exchanged anecdotes about people we'd worked with in the past that one or other of us had recent news of, shared memories of those we knew who had passed on, and generally caught up. A more pleasant way to pass a train journey I can't imagine, and certainly preferable to having my head buried in my book for an hour. I don't suppose I'll ever see him again but I'm glad I did. It's good to be reminded that there is life outside of IT.

Snaking over the Snake

I've been working in Sheffield a lot since returning from leave. After a week, I got bored with using the train. I was never a train person to begin with, but I've been converted to the benefits over long distances. Sheffield's pretty local though, so this week I thought I'd give driving another chance.

What brought me to this conclusion was the time it was taking on the train. Ten minutes to drive to the station and park, a half-hour wait for a train, something like a 55 minute journey and another 5 minute walk at the other end. About 1 hour 40 all told. I was convinced driving would be quicker *and* more convenient.

So Monday morning I set off, dropped Nikki at work around 8.20 and headed round the M60 to the M67. I expected the main queues to be coming the other way - into Manchester - so I wasn't prepared for the slow traffic heading into Glossop, or the long line of cars stuck behind the articulated lorry which was negotiating the Woodhead Road on its way to the M1. I didn't have an opportunity to pass it until after the Flouch roundabout and by then it was only 5 minutes or so before I hit the tail-end of the rush-hour traffic heading into Sheffield.

Not only was the journey painfully slow, I found the closest car park to the office was a 15 minute walk away. I was not best pleased when I finally arrived at my desk at 10.40. Total journey time 2 hours 20: a full half an hour longer than the train and about a hundred times more stressful.

I couldn't even claim to be saving the company any money doing the journey that way. The car park in Sheffield is almost as expensive as the station car park in Manchester, and the train ticket only a pound more than the mileage allowance. I decided Monday would be my last journey by car, but going home I took the more scenic route via the Snake Pass and Ladybower reservoir. The road was much quieter going back and the journey only a few minutes longer than the train. My morning determination was swayed by the easier return journey and I made up my mind to try again one more time, using the Snake Pass both ways.

I needn't have bothered. Once again the Glossop-bound traffic snarled up the M67 interchange and once I'd cleared Glossop I found I was stuck again behind a slow-moving lorry, this time with NO passing places. The journey over to Sheffield this morning was marginally better than Monday at 1 hour 55, but still no contest with the train. Added to that, with the research into the timetable that Nikki has done, I can now arrive at the station either end minutes before the train departs, so the door-to-door journey by train has been shortened to about 1 hour 20 minutes.

Lift your arms!

It never fails to surprise me how linear people can be. Like when they come up against a door marked "Pull" they'll always pull it, even if it's lodged ajar so it's clear it swings both ways, and it would be much easier to push it. Or encountering double doors where there's a group of people struggling to get through just one side, they'll never think of opening the other side to allow everyone through more quickly.

I was reminded of this on the 7.05 to Euston this morning (yes! Again!) when a young guy embarked at Stockport and tried to sit down next to me. He was hampered both by his large flight-case-style briefcase and the fact that the arm of the chair on the aisle side was in the down position. He contorted himself to climb over the arm, repeated the manoeuvre in reverse to stow his coat in the overhead rack and then again to sit back down.

What do you say? It's easy to come over a bit patronising in these circumstances, but how can he not have noticed that the arms are hinged, and can be lifted back into an upright position, allowing unfettered ingress and egress.

I took pity on him. "That's a lot easier if you lift the arm up," I said in my most earnest and non-patronising voice. I think he appreciated my help. Especially when, a couple of minutes later, I had to ask him to stand up again so I could get to the shop for a spot of breakfast.

Three rants for Thursday

I was sent to Coventry today. I mean literally, not figuratively. The solution architects group with whom I work were having an away-day at the Menzies Leofric Hotel. Notwithstanding my recent penchant for train travel, I decided to drive. Since the hotel is smack bang in the centre of Coventry I went armed with a turn-by-turn route, courtesy of the AA.

As usual, things went just fine until I was about half a mile from my destination. At this point, the route turns its back on such directions as "take the second exit on the A429" and resorts to using local street names instead. Only trouble is, only about one in five of the streets has a friggin' sign.

"At the traffic lights, turn left onto Little Park Street," it says. Yep, there are the lights but...no street sign. So I turn left anyway and about two minutes later realise that I'm hopelessly lost as the street layout doesn't match the rest of the instructions AT ALL. Backtracking to the last point where my position matched the instructions isn't that easy either, because of the hellish one-way system and series of dual carriageways, but eventually I'm back at the lights. They're red, so I can cast around for a sign that perhaps was tucked away somewhere out of obvious view. High up on a building, maybe? Or slightly further round the corner than usual? No. And the lights have changed, so I carry on straight ahead, looking for Little Park Street.

After three sets of traffic lights, I hit a roundabout and realise I must have gone too far, so I backtrack (again) and consult instead the Googlemaps detailed local map. Having circled the area twice now, I recognise the layout of the streets and spot right away that Little Park Street was, in fact, the left turn at the THIRD set of lights. You guessed that it still didn't have a street sign, right?

Why are we so bad at this in the UK? Probably because locals all know the street names anyway, so they don't kick up a fuss, and travellers are either one-offs (so it's not worth the hassle of finding out who to complain to) or regulars (in which case they learn where everything is). At least I didn't get as badly lost as those who relied on their sat nav systems, apparently.

Once I'd arrived at the hotel, I found two more of my "favourite" bugbears. Visiting the gents' during the first comfort break of the day, I discovered the management had decided to install those evil hot air hand dryers with the automatic sensors. Nothing so mundane as a simple button to press here, mate. Oh no. We will detect your hands in the vicinity of the dryer and burst into life automagically. Except the sensors are positioned so that you have to bark your knuckles up against the wall to get the damn thing started at all, and then there's not enough room to move your hands around to dry them properly. Or if you do, they move out of sensor range and the dryer dies. Arrgh!

Once the business of the day had been concluded, I retired to my room to freshen up for the evening meal, and call Nikki. The telephone cord was so badly twisted it was almost in knots, and picking up the handset resulted in the entire phone leaping into the air and crashing off the desk. I dangled the handset for a few seconds to let the cord unravel - but how do they get into this state in the first place? You pick the phone up, make a call, and put it back again. What part of that involves twisting it around a few times? To unravel the cord on this occasion the handset made at least a dozen complete revolutions. Why? How? Some people must do weird stuff when they're on the phone.