Not a trainblog
This would have been a trainblog written on my return from Suzie and Andy’s wedding over the weekend but there was little room to write on the journey back and so this has had a little time to mature (or fester).
Well hello there...
After a quick trip to the doctor’s on blood pressure business (160/86 – meds tweaked to up the Lisinopril dosage slightly) I headed for Waverley last Friday lunchtime to catch a train down to Leeds for my cousin Andy’s wedding. I wasn’t at the ceremony itself but was at the meal and the party in the evening. As always at such events the pleasure was not just in the wedding itself but also in the opportunity to catch up with aunts and cousins.
The journey itself, at least going down, was straightforward and hassle-free. I have to say, though, that on both outward and return trips I was in the “quiet” coach where electronic equipment is supposed to be at a minimum to avoid disturbing one’s fellow passengers. What a joke! Both trips featured fellow passengers with loud and insistent voices either conversing (or holding forth) or pointing out passing landmarks: “Look! The sea!”. In the end I had to put on the MP3 player in order to get some peace and quiet.
Conversely, at the wedding reception, I would have enjoyed conversation but this was made next to impossible most of the time by the soundsystem and band. I was chatting outside the hall for a while but was accused of being a “stick in the mud” by my mum who was busy dancing the night away with my Aunty Pat who was herself working her way through some cans of Guinness. I enjoyed the night, although I was dismayed by the number of people smoking (or in the case of the Geordies, smerking.
On Saturday, while getting a taxi back to the station I was looking around Leeds briefly as the students came back to town. According to the cab driver the city is weathering the current economic conditions well – or at least better than its immediate neighbours. There were, though, several substantial gap sites where new developments had been planned but abruptly cancelled.
autumn sunlight
The journey homeward was broken at Newcastle because of maintenance works on the line and coaches had been laid on for the Newcastle-Edinburgh leg. Looking out the window as the coach headed out of Newcastle on the route of an old Roman road (now the A186) I spotted the Solomon’s Head halal punjabi restaurant immediately next to a protruding chunk of Hadrian’s Wall and reflected on the diversity and multiculturalism of Newcastle and Leeds. My initial thoughts were that Scotland is obviously less diverse than the major English cities.
I was thinking of this as something which had happened since I first passed through Leeds in the late nineteen sixties on the way to my Gran’s in Anfield Plain, County Durham, but then became conscious of the significance of those Roman ruins which, all those centuries ago, would have been garrisoned by legionaries from all over the Roman empire.
A couple of things caught my eye in the press over the weekend. The first was a lengthy piece in The Economist about the future of the internet. I’m not entirely convinced by the piece itself but it did occur to me to note the irony that those who talk most about the necessity and virtues of unfettered markets are the quickest to try and put an end to an unfettered market (such as that brought into being by the internet) when one emerges.
The second was a piece by Charlie Brooker in The Guardian. I do not agree with the initial premise of the piece which seems to me to be a device to introduce his comments towards the end re the internet as a hinderance rather than an aid to productivity. That I do agree with. The notion that you can get anything done with a world of distraction at your fingertips is an obvious nonsense.
Finally, I am delighted to say that over the past week and a half I have been a regular in the refurbished gym at work and am at base-camp on the long climb back to fitness.
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