Pedants Anonymous Go Large

I’m sorry, I forgot in all the excitement of coming home that I had meant to blog this from Bratislava.

I understand no Slovakian at all (apart from ‘Pivo’, thanks John), but I feel sure that somewhere among that forest of diacritics, a comma has gone astray:

But fortunately all is not lost, for the pedants’ army is everywhere and its crack green ink brigade has spotted and rectified the error:

Meanwhile, who knew the District line went this far east?

Passing the Time of Day, London Style

Spot the regular being served in the queue at the Vauxhall news-stand:

“Four-pounds-please-thankyou”

“Two-pounds-seventy-please-thankyou”

“Hi-how-are-you-eighty-pence-please-thankyou-have-a-nice-weekend”

“Three-pounds-please-thankyou”

Rest assured that I managed to squeeze in a ‘fine-thanks-and-you-too’ in response, without of course either breaking stride or interrupting the vital flow of commerce. And that’s exactly as it should be – the niceties attended to with no actual waste of time.

have-a-good-weekend-one-and-all-thankyou.

Playing Chicken

I know I’ve said this before but I’m saying it again, only this time louder:

RIGHT! LISTEN UP RAT-BIRDS OF LONDON! THIS ONE’S FOR YOU! Those grey flappy feathery things on sides of your bodies? They’re wings. You use them for flying with. Remember flying? Up there in the air, above the traffic, out of the way of the bikes? Yeah, flying. Not waddling. So when you hear an approaching clanking rattling noise and see something cycling towards you on the road, wearing a great deal of scary yellow, you should use those grey flappy things (if they still work) to take off and get out of the way. You should NOT continue calmly pecking on whatever it is you eat on the road (your fellow pigeons?) before wandering lazily into the path of the approaching cyclist. Nor should you wait until the very last minute and then take off straight towards the cyclist because that makes the cyclist swear mightily and swerve into the path of the oncoming traffic. No, just see the cyclist, stop pecking, and fly away. All the other birds seem to manage it – why can’t you?

Meanwhile, where can I get a ‘I brake and serve wildly for pigeons’ sticker for the back of my bike?

Grooh

There’s nothing quite like waking up with a streaming cold to take the edge off one’s day off, is there? I swear to God a cold knocks at least ten points from your IQ. So not only are there no commuting-related tales today, but I haven’t even the energy to craft a witty yet amusingly rueful post about how I had to be rescued from the supermarket by the other half after having turned up at the checkout and only then discovering that the reason my wallet had felt a little strange was because it didn’t have any of my cards in it. You’ll just have to imagine it for yourselves. However, I would like to say that Tesco’s checkout ladies are very very nice indeed. And understanding. And hopefully don’t all have blogs of their own.

Normal service resumes tomorrow.

To the Cyclists of London: an Apology

It has been brought to my attention that my last post may have inadvertantly implied that you were all a bunch of fair-weather sissies who might have been put off from cycling by a few drops of rain, gusts of wind and the odd tornado. If so, I was wrong. For today – while missing the tornadoes – had plenty of rain and wind on offer and yet suddenly there you all are: taking up all the spacess in the Vauxhall underpass bike racks, queueing to cross the junction at the crossing and steaming down the Kennington Road in packs like so many bright yellow hi-vis wildebeest on the annual Serengeti migration. Clearly you all took a day to rest your legs after Sunday’s exertions and have come out to play once more. I don’t know where you all came from, but I hope you stick around. It can only get colder and wetter and darker from here on in, and I appreciate having the company.

It’s just … the second rack in on the Vauxhall Cross end of the underpass, after the bit where the tramp sleeps? It’s mine. I’d appreciate if you’d remember that. Thanks.

Slippery When Wet

Well, what a difference a day makes. Whatever Faustian pact Ken made with the weather gods yesterday to guarantee a golden September day for the London Freewheel was clearly temporary in nature. I did at least miss the drenching downpour (and all the tornadoes) on my cycle in, but still had to contend with a steady soaking drizzle complete with headwind. And where were all those new-minted extra cyclists on this grey and miserable morning? Clearly it’s going to take more than a one-day cycling extravaganza to tempt them out on the streets for the rest of the year. TfL are going to have to come good on their ‘the average cyclist only gets rained on 11 times a year’ promise as well. I’m still waiting for that one.

However, once I’d got in to work and wrung out my socks, I realised I was one of the lucky ones. My train at least was not delayed or cancelled. And I hadn’t had to try and change at Clapham Junction where SWT were apparently playing ‘guess which platform your train is leaving from’ to the entertainment of the morning commuters. According to one news site the excuse this morning was ’slippery rails’. For after all: rain, wind and leaf-fall in September – who’d a thought it? Me, I blame global warming.

Slow Bicycle Race

Wouldn’t it be great, I said back in July, if they just closed the roads in London to cars and let the cyclists come out and play. And – such is the awesome power of the blog – they did. Well, sort of. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but it was something. 38,000 cyclists signed up to the Hovis London Freewheel – and from the look of the crowd, either a fair few extra unregistered cyclists joined in, or cyclists are an unconformist bunch who don’t like wearing official red bibs. Either way, the central route was absolutely packed with every type of cyclist imaginable from the cycling club veterans in lycra to little girls on tiny pink bikes via hard-bitten couriers, unicyclists and even someone towing a sound system.

I’d signed up as a volunteer cycling marshall which involved cycling 4 miles to Clapham Common (I think the A-Z should have contour lines; nobody told me there were hills in South London), finding someone who knew what was going on (that was the tricky bit), getting my hi-vis yellow official marshall vest, gathering my group of red-bibbed cycling ducklings and leading them the six miles down to the official entry point (without too many of them humiliatingly overtaking me), regrouping with the other half, cycling the however-many miles it was around the route (among the many things the singularly irritating website doesn’t make clear is the length of the route), lending someone my adjustable spanner, trying in vain to find someone who knew what was going on for the return journey as I was supposed to be leading another group of ducklings back, settling for leading the other half back at my alloted time, cycling the six miles back to Clapham Common (where someone had spent the entire day making the hill longer and steeper), returning my borrowed helmet (they wouldn’t let me marshall without it), picking up my free goody bag (a bag), cycling home and collapsing in a heap.

Phew.

It was fun. But I got the impression that they hadn’t really thought through the whole cyclist marshall thing. The fact that my ‘how to get there’ instructions included phrases like ‘take the tube to Clapham Common’ and ‘a five minute walk to the hub’ should probably have tipped me off about that. Here’s hoping it’s bigger and better – or just a real free-for-all – next year.

I took some very shaky one-handed pictures on the road, but there’s more here

Ryan Air – the ‘On Time Airline’…

… your luggage’s mileage may vary.

So, I’m back, sort of, although I think my liver may still be awol having had a bit of a workout over the last 6 days. Ryan Air got us home bang on time (complete with little self-congratulatory recorded fanfare and canned cheering – the people actually on the plane being too busy recovering from the pilot’s rather cavalier landing technique to join in) despite being a bit late getting us all on board. I thought their approach to loading the plane was a little bizzare: herding us all into the gate area until every last passenger had arrived, and only then opening the doors out to the plane, all the while cajoling us to be as quick as we could because they had a very tight landing slot to make at Stansted. Fortunately my commuting instincts kicked in and I nabbed myself a good seat by the emergency exit where I could sit and watch the luggage being loaded into the hold.

Inside all was hurry and hustle to get away; outside, a lone man in braces was thoughtfully putting one bag on the conveyor belt at a time, with two full cart-loads of luggage to go. As the stewards mimed their way through the safety demonstration, braces man was still placing each case with due care and deliberation. As the plane was ready to depart he still had a cartload to go, and a higher official intervened. Arm waving ensued. Then braces man shrugged and got into his little tractor and towed the remaining luggage out of sight under the wing. Not long afterwards, we were taxi-ing away. And I was very happy to see my little black suitcase first off the conveyor at the other end. Dirty laundry or no, it was my dirty laundry and I wanted it home. But as for the rest, who knows. Given that Ryan Air charge you 10 quid to check luggage, I hope it all got on the plane, for surely even Ryan Air wouldn’t just leave it behind to make their landing slot. Would they?

Bus Racing

So – Slovakia, land of beer, charming old cities and the aggressively timed bus ticket. Here we are perched high on a hill over Bratislava with a great view of the Danube, but not much in the way of local facilities. Getting into town requires taking a bus or a trolley bus, and when it comes to purchasing a ticket you have a choice: you can spend 14 crowns on a 10 minute ticket, or 18 crowns on a 30 minute ticket. The girls in reception assured us 10 minutes would be all we needed. It is not quite clear what the penalties are for travelling beyond the time validity of the ticket but if the fierceness of the ladies at breakfast were anything to go by when I asked for yoghurt without muesli, I suspect this is not a culture that takes rule-infringement lightly.

Once on the bus you punch your ticket and the clock starts. A helpful digital clock in the aisle counts down the minutes until sudden death, dismemberment or possibly just life imprisonment. Meanwhile the bus behaves as buses do everywhere. It meanders. It stops for passengers, or traffic lights, or just for a rest. The printed timetable proves to have been optimistic in its seven-minute estimate for our journey time. We made it with a minute to spare, this time. Next time I think we’ll spring the extra 4 crowns (about 10p) and get a 30 minute one and be able to relax and enjoy the ride.

Disgruntled Commuter goes Large

I am off on my travels again today for a week in Bratislava. Most of my days will probably be spent in windowless conference rooms, but the evenings should be lively … googling ‘birdwatching in Bratislava’ turned up some interesting links, put it that way. I’m not sure how much internet access I’ll have, so entries might be limited but keep checking in just in case. And I’m flying Ryan Air (anybody else suspect this airline in fact some elaborate plot by climate change campaigners to put people off flying?) so you can be certain there’ll be at least one rant on my return on Saturday.

The very next day I’ll be here, stewarding from Clapham Common (I think, they’re a bit disorganised and haven’t sent me any details yet). Registration is now closed, but if you’ve already signed up I hope you come and look out for me. I’ll be the one on the bike*

*I won’t wear a camouflage hat.