Some solutions and some new problems/ questions. Also details a thank you card for TFL and some photos.
INTRODUCTION
I have solutions/ answers to some problems and a few new problems for you. I was going to be blogging about my activities on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but that will have to wait until tomorrow now.
Each of the three filled in columns contains one large number and several smaller numbers. In each case the big number is the sum of all the smaller numbers – 6 = 3+2+1, 28 = 14 + 7 + 4 + 2 + 1 and 496 = 248 + 124 + 62 + 31 + 16 +8 + 4 + 2 + 1. In each case the smaller numbers listed below the large number turn out to be all of that number’s factors. A number that is equal to the sum of all its factors is called a perfect number. Looking closer still we that 6 = 3 x 2, 28 = 7 x 4 and 496 = 31 x 16. In each case these multiplications consist of a larger number that can be expressed in the form (2 ^ n)-1 and the smaller number is equal to 2 ^ (n-1). Further, the larger multiplier is in each case a prime number. Investigation reveals that the next prime number of the form (2 ^ n)-1 is 127, and the other multiplier must therefore by 64. Multiplying these two numbers gives 8,128. Thus the final panel will consist of 8128, with vertically below it the numbers 4064, 2032, 1016, 508, 254, 127, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1. This was a tough puzzle but it would have been downright vicious had I made the door’s mechanism consist of five panels, these four and the fifth for you to work out – for a bonus can you explain why?
I also asked if anyone could identify to the real life door that I had used as the basis for the “Door of Death”. It is one of the doors to King’s Lynn Town Hall and in reality of course it is not remotely deadly (indeed barring dying of boredom during a council meeting there I can think of no risk of death anywhere in that building).
SOLUTIONS 2: GAYWOOD RIVER QUIZ
This one appeared in my post “The Gaywood River”. The answers are below:
NEW PROBLEMS
I have three problems for you. The first comes from Trivia Hive. Unfortunately I cannot present it to you in their format without giving away the answer, so instead I present in plain text:
In which country is Europe’s only desert located?
a)Italy b)Greece c)Poland d)Spain
Puzzle number two comes by way of the twitter feed of estate agents AbbotFox:
Can you reveal the street name?
My third and final problem comes courtesy of the mathematical website brilliant and sends you on a treasure hunt:
A THANK YOU CARD FOR TFL
I was delighted to receive an email from campaigning organisation sumofus inviting me to sign a thank you card to TFL for having given Uber the boot. I have already shared this invitation on facebook and twitter and ‘pressed’ it to my London transport themed website. I now invite my followers here to add their names to this thank you card:
PHOTOGRAPHS
These photographs were taken in Norwich…
This is on the ‘ceiling’ portion of a covered passage near……the castleThis map is in the office of Haart in Norwich, and I could not resist trying to photograph it from the street.
An important autism related meeting in Dereham plus a few shares and some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
As well as my title piece, which as promised yesterday, is about the meeting in Dereham organised by Autism Anglia and ASD Helping Hands that I attended this morning. Karan and I were a little late arriving as she could not leave before the person who would be looking after her son had arrived and I had arranged a meet up point at The Gatehouse since while I was definitely up for the meeting I was not up for forking out the £11 it would have cost to me travel there and back under my own steam (at some point I will be putting up a post on public transport that will highlight why this particular shortish journey is so extortionate – for the moment suffice to say it has nothing to do with logic, reason, meeting passenger needs or anything else that has any place in the proper running of a public transport system). This meant that although we were able to introduce ourselves we missed most of the other people’s introductions.
THE MEETING
The meeting had been arranged to discuss amendments to an autism strategy document which as it stood was laughably incomplete. Autism Anglia and ASD Helping Hands were effectively doing the kind of outreach stuff that Norfolk County Council should have been doing but weren’t. The County Council’s own meetings about such matters are invariably in Norwich, generally with a requirement that one arrive by 9:30. Before moving on to NAS West Norfolk’s role in the events of this meeting I will mention two things from the preliminary talk that caused hackles to raise. First, Norfolk County Council’s person responsible for co-ordinating matters relating to autism appears to have his fingers in a suspiciously large number of pies, and extending from this seems to be overly averse to scrutiny (as a West Norfolk resident who has the incinerator debacle seared on his memory I am naturally inclined to be mistrustful where Norfolk County Council are concerned – although we eventually won that one and the thing did not get built). Secondly there is the role of Norfolk Steps, who seem to have a monopoly on training provision for parents and carers and to be very reluctant to see that change – one person at the meeting had tried to use their materials to provide training and was told to desist. Another strike against Norfolk Steps from our point of view is that their training is not autism specific.
The key pages of the inadequate document that we were trying to improve were pages 16-19, and there was little we could do about what was on page 16, so as we seated around three tables each table was assigned a page to look at and make additions to. Ours was page 18:
I have already covered a lot of the problems with Norfolk Steps, but there is one extra point – they have recently had their funding reduced, and no longer offer “steps plus” to parents.
There were a few additions to point 5, which started our page. Point 6 was the single most inadequately expressed point in the whole sorry document. For this point to be worth the ink and paper it has to contain chapter and verse – the specific Act of Parliament and the specific clauses contained therein that are of most relevance.
Anne Ebbage of Autism Anglia will be passing all the points raised at this meeting on to the council, and if the final version of this document is not massively changed and enlarged there will be trouble.
This was a very useful and productive meeting, and I hope it will play a role in dragging Norfolk’s approach to autism and autistic people out of the dark ages wherein it seems to have been stuck for some time.
A SEGUE LINK
The first part of this post has been about autism, and so I introduce the remainder of it by way of a link to an interesting piece by The Inked Autist. My views are rather different to those expressed in this post, but I recommend that you read it here.
A BUSY WEEK FOR DPAC
That title is no overstatement – this section contains a link to a post on the DPACwebsite and two embedded videos.
The post, which gives this section of this post its title, can be accessed by clicking the DPAC logo below. Then you can find the two videos, which are both about a protest outside Parliament. The first video was created by Let Me Look TV, the second by Steve Topple of The Canary.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I had planned to include more stuff in this post, but a malfunction has prevented that – I have just lost a large amount of stuff that was in here and have no way of getting back, so here are the photographs.
A magpie near the pick up point in Lynn this morning
Three shots featuring a stretch of the Mid-Norfolk Railway in DerehamOne of the “Ecocity” towers near Swaffham – even in this picture, and still more so in the further edited version the observation room near the centre of the propeller is clearly visible. The original shot from which this picture and the next were both obtained was taken through the window of a moving car.
An account of James and Sons auction, which took place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.
INTRODUCTION
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons had its second ever three day auction. This one had the additional twist that two different venues were being used, our own premises in Fakenham on days 1 and 2 and the Maids Head Hotel, Norwich on day 3.
DAY 1: FAKENHAM
I caught the 7:30 bus from Lynn to Fakenham, thus arriving at James and Sons at just before 8:30AM (this bus doubles as a school bus, so follows a more circuitous route from Lynn to Fakenham than the usual X29 route and therefore takes 15 minutes longer to make the journey than a regular bus). Thus I was able to get the setup done in plenty of time, and the auction got underway at the appointed hour of 10AM. On this day stamps, postal history and first day covers were being sold. There were a couple of room bidders, and thankfully large numbers of online bidders (over 250 by the end of day 3). Although there were not many things going for big amounts of money a lot of stuff did sell, and the auction had started well. I have no pictures from day 1 of this auction, but here are some images of items that will be going under the hammer in our March auction, which will be on the 27th, 28th and 29th of that month.
These first two pictures of lot 1031 in the March auction, which has an interesting story. This item is a grass sledge, designed and built by a craftsman in Sussex for use on the Downs.
The remaining images here are cigarette cards photographed after day 1 of the auction finished and before I went home.
DAY 2: FAKENHAM
The routine was the same as on day 1, but the items under the hammer were different. This day featured photographs, postcards, a few books, records, ephemera, Liebig cards, cigarette cards, cheques and coin first day covers. For most of the day there was no one present at the venue who was not a James and Sons employee, but the internet was very lively for much of the time. I had two moments of good fortune. The first featured…
LOT 864
Here are the official images of this lot:
My opening bid of £10 was unopposed, and here are the photographs I took this morning showing the entire booklet in all its glory:
About 10 minutes later we got to…
LOT 891
Here is the image gallery for this lot:
My opening bid of £8 again went uncontested, and here is a much more comprehensive set of pictures of this lot…
We start with front and back images of the cards in sets of six (the complete set contains 30)
Then we have close ups of some of the more interesting cards – this one is Richard Trevithick’s Pen-y-Darren (that y is pronounced roughly as a “uh” sound), the first commercially operated steam locomotive ever. Steam engine technology predates this by approximately 1800 years – Heron of Alexandria designed a steam operated device for opening temple doors.
The most famous of all the very early locos – Stephenson’s rocket.
This Metropolitan Railway locomotive was designed specifically for operating in tunnels.
Luxury travel on the Brighton Belle
I travelled on this stock when I visited Scotland in 1993.The only other stock in this set of 30 that I have travelled on, the legendary Intercity 125.
Overall this was a better day than we had expected – there were only a few quiet spots.
DAY 3: NORWICH
The fact that we were in Norwich for the final day of this auction meant that the stuff had to be loaded up to be transported over there, which was done at the end of day 2. It also meant that since I was going to have be in Norwich earlier than I could get there using the X29 that I claimed £5.50 in excess travel expenses as the cost of travelling there on the First Eastern Counties X1 is £11 as opposed to £5.50 if I can use the Stagecoach X29 route.
As intended I left my flat at 5:15AM and was on the 5:30 bus from King’s Lynn to Norwich, arriving at the venue at 7:30. I had my laptop with me because James and Sons were one laptop short (two working machines when we needed three). The setup was just about completed before the first viewers started turning up, and there were no issues of any sort.
Here are some photos from that early period:
This item sold for a fair amount of money.The rostrum – the black machine belongs to my employer, and we ran the operator screen (my responsibility) from it, while the white machine is mine, and we ran the auctioneer screen from that.
Only a few of these big stamp lots sold, although both helmets found buyers.
A distant view of the main display area, and visible through the window, the wall of the Cathedral Close.
THE FIRST PART OF THE SALE – COINS & BANKNOTES
There were no headline making prices, but most of these lots sold, some doing very well. We had decided to have a 15 minute break after lot 1,300 (we started the day at lot 1,000). Just before the end of the session we came to some commemorative medallions from the Gigantic Wheel, which was a feature of Earls Court between 1897 and 1906. The first was lot 1,286, which I ignored as being beyond my means. Lot 1287 however, which was only a little inferior in quality was cheaper, and my bid of £10 duly secured it. Here for comparative purposes are first the official images, scanned at 600 dpi and brightened up a bit, and then the two photographs I took today:
For auction purposes I scan each face and then produce a combined image as well as c,lose ups of each face
The photographs from earlier today.
For the record, these medallions are approximately the same size as a Queen Victoria penny.
THE SECOND PART: MILITARIA AND STAMPS
The Militaria sold well. A chess set with German markings achieved barely credible £170. Here is the official image gallery:
Plenty of other things did well as well. The stamps predictably enough did not fare very well, but everything else had done enough that the auction was an unequivocal success.
AFTER THE SALE
I had considered staying on in Norwich to attend a Green Party public meeting at which Richard Murphy would be speaking, but in the end after three demanding days I was too tired to even contemplate not being home until 11PM which is what that would have meant, and so after a visit to Norwich Millennium Library I took the bus home, arriving back in my flat just after 6PM.
This event is taking place at theJohn Innes Centre, which is located close to the University of East Anglia, a little outside town (though there are regular bus services from central Norwich to UAE). Below the flyer I have included a screenshot from google maps.
THE AUTISM AWARENESS CUP 2017
This is taking place on June 4th, at Ingoldisthorpe Social Club. For more information, and/ or to support by the event by liking and sharing its facebook page click the image below:
WITHIN DAYS OF A SUPREME COURT RULING A BUS DRIVER FLOUTS THE LAW
Not long ago a case involving one of Britain’s leading bus companies went to the supreme court, where it was established that bus companies, and by extension bus drivers are legally obliged to grant access to wheelchair bound passengers. Therefore, this story from disabledgoabout an incident in Wakefieldwhere the driver not only refused to allow on a wheelchair bound passenger but then allowed/ encouraged passengers to blame the wheelchair user for the subsequent delay looks even worse than normal.
TRANSPORT IN THE FUTURE
This next piece comes from indy100.com. To read it please click the image below:
THE LATEST ADDITION TO MY WEBSITE
This piece, titled “Big Wheels Old and New”, showcases seven of the lots going under the hammer at James and Sons’ next auction, which feature the Gigantic Wheel that stood at Earls Court between 1895 and 1906, while also mentioning the London Eye. Click on the picture of lot 1286 to view my piece and the picture of lot 1295 below it to view a full auction catalogue:
SAM HARRIS ON TRUMP’S MUSLIM BAN
Earlier today I featured a superb post by Heather Hastie on this subject. Sam Harris, distinguished author of many fine books such as “The End of Faith”, “Letter to a Christian Nation” and “The Moral Landscape” has produced his take on this issue, which you can read here.
A brief account of James and Sons’ October auction with some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
James and Sons’ October Auction took place in the Erpingham Room in the Maids Head Hotel, Norwich on Wednesday. Lots 1-450 were fairly normal James and Sons auction fare, and then lots 451 onwards were a lifetime collection of posters. Thus the plan was to have a break after lot 450.
A DIFFICULT START
We started the day with the internet not working properly. We were able to connect using Wifi, but our card reader requires a cable connection to function properly. Nevertheless, the auction got underway on time, and there were some notable successes early in the auction, especially the militaria.
THE POSTERS
As well as imaging pretty well all of the posters I had described most of them, so it was with interest but little expectation that following a short lunch break that I awaited the outcome of this part of the sale. A few posters sold well, but the majority did not. Slightly frustratingly in the circumstances with so much not finding buyers all four of the railway themed posters I had been considering went way beyond my price range. Here are the fab four in question:
Lot 729 – I had not particularly expected to get this one given that it was laminated and clearly old.Lot 737, which I used as the centrepiece for a post about the Museum of London on my website (this one), this being where the Lord Mayor’s carriage is displayed when not in use – again this was not a great hope.Lot 763, an advert for one-day travelcards – this was the one that I had reckoned I was most likely to get.The double sided laminated poster that was lot 764 also sold for much more than I could have afforded.
The auction done, it was time to load the van back up. This task accomplished I was able to go my own way (the van would be unloaded the following morning, so I would not be needed in Fakenham). I had just enough time before the last bus I could catch home using my dayrider plus to make a trip to the library worthwhile. I got home 13 hours after setting out.
THE FINAL VERDICT
Fortunately enough good things happened during lots 1-450 to more than cover the disappointing outcome of the poster sale, and it was overall a very good sale.
An account of “Autism Positive”, An Amazing (and exhausting!) Day for Autism, in the fine city Norwich.
INTRODUCTION
On Monday the Theatre Royal Norwich, located right in the heart of that fine city, played host to “Autism Postive”, an event organised byAutism Anglia. This post is about my experiences at that event, and has been delayed until today because I was exhausted when I arrived back home on Monday evening and was working yesterday. Before I get into the main meat of the post here is a map of central Norwich (I have put a red square around the theatre to highlight it) and a timetable of what was on besides the various stalls people had at the event.
THE JOURNEY IN
I had decided I needed the extra flexibility given by the First Eastern Counties X1 route (as opposed to the Stagecoach X29 route which stops quite early in the evening), so got the 7:51AM bus (I had arranged a meet-up in the foyer with the other person who would be running the NAS West Norfolk stall at approx 10AM). My journey was slightly affected by traffic, and the bus pulled into Norwich bus station only just before 10AM, but it turned out that the traffic affecting my journey was comparatively minor – it would be another 15 minutes or so before the other person arrived. Here are some photos from the journey in…
King’s Lynn train station
The South Gate, King’s Lynn
A view from the bus, Dereham Market Place.
A church in the middle of Norwich.
THE SETUP
The set up was further delayed by because Autism Anglia had failed to realise that we would be coming, so we had to wait while space was located for our stall to be set up. This is what our stall looked like once the set up was complete…
Here are close ups of some of the stuff we had on display….
Our branch aims.A definition of Autism – regular readers of this blog will know that I prefer the word condition to disorder and hence ASC to ASD.
Theselast two photos are of an interesting acrostic – I photographed it once when it was lying on the table and a second time when it had been pinned up.
EXPLORING THE EVENT
A combination of late arrival and subsequent delays eliminated the possibility of attending Callum Brazzo’s talk, which I understand was a huge success, but once the stall was set up I had an opportunity to take a look at what other stalls there were.
I got some more pictures a little later after a period covering the stall…
A lot of the organisations present had upper age limits, due in part to how funding is allocated.
This home made poster is a classic.
LUNCH
Due to the communication failure mentioned earlier we did not have lunches booked for us as others did, so Karan bought us sandwiches. She then went to a talk given by a friend of hers while I covered the stall for that period. Post lunch there were a couple of sessions I wished to attend, so Karan covered the stall while I did so.
AUTISM AND VOLUNTEERING
I thought that as an autistic person with a lot of experience of volunteering this would be a good session to attend, and I did enjoy it. However, rather than being about autism and volunteering in general, it was touting one particular volunteering organisation who work with autistic people.
Vicki Howling of Volunteering Matters gave the talk, with an assist from one of their volunteers, William Taylor, who talked about his experiences and how valuable it had been to him to become a volunteer.
Here are some pictures from this talk…
The websiteVicki’s contact detailsThe next four pictures are of paintings on the wall of the room.
A pattern on the carpetVicki in position to give her talk.
However, it was the the final session in the main auditorium that I really wanted to attend, titled…
THE AUTISM CHARTER AND
AIMING TO BE AUTISM FRIENDLY
Anne Ebbage from Autism Anglia opened the session before introducing various people from organisations who were already doing good stuff. Here to set the scene is an outline of the Autism Charter and a picture of the Auttism Friendly logo…
Anne had various other slides to accompany her talk…
An important point raised while talking about the information on this slide was the need to change the nature of the conversation when autism is introduced – instead of starting from “what can’t you do?” it should start from “what can you do?”Enter a caption
Although these are no presented in strict chronological order, I start with the person who was actually first to be called in this section, Matthew Piper who is Access Manager at the Theatre Royal Norwich itself, who deserve huge thanks for the job they did in hosting this event and for their willingness to stage ‘relaxed performances’. I have a photo of a leaflet about this which will follow this little bit of text – a leaflet I was more than happy to display on our stall when asked. While a ‘relaxed performance’ means a loss of income ion the immediate term because you can only half sell the auditorium, and of course fewer people being there also means that attendant sales are also reduced it is bad thinking to allow this to influence you against putting them on. Matthew Piper was able to provide evidence of people who have come to a ‘relaxed performance’ and subsequently, having managed this have had the confidence to come to ordinary performances.
The leaflet about relaxed performances.An upcoming relaxed performance.
As well as telling us about what they are doing, the three people from Norwich International Airport were receiving their ‘Autism Friendly Badges’, and a bag full for the rest of their staff. They have an aeroplane that is kept permanently on the ground so that they can give people a sample of the journey through the airport from arriving there to boarding the plane. They told us about a family who have never been able to travel before who having experienced this sample trip through the airport will be going to Lapland this December. I have already linked to the airport’s website, but here is an extra link to their page on special travel assistance.
Having already featured the theatre who were also hosting the event it was time for a cinema to be in the limelight, with Ellie, Acting Manager and also Autism Friendly Screenings Co-ordinator at Cinema City explaining what they do. Cinema City is part of the Picture House group, who were the first cinema company to do autism friendly screenings – the very first was at the Clapham Picture House 10 years ago, while Cinema City have been doing them for two and a half years. What does an autism friendly screening entail?
No adverts or trailers
The lights remain up throughout
The sound is lower than for a standard performance – and can be turned down further at need.
Quiet spaces are provided.
There are two such screenings coming up at Cinema City: The Lion King on Sunday and Finding Dory in November. As well as the website to which I linked earlier, there is also picturehouseblog.
I have saved to the last Tom Blofeld, who runs BeWILDerwood. In addition to making every effort to ensure accessibility for all to this attraction, autistic groups from schools get admitted free during term time. As with Cinema City they have a blog.
Tom Blofeld, special guest Mildred and to the left as you look Anne Ebbage of Autism Anglia.
WINDING UP AND HEADING HOME
When this session finished it was time to get back to the stall for the final stages of the day. Even at this late stage we got plenty of attention, and we spoke to plenty of people through the day, with many leaflets and contact cards going out. The event was a tremendous success, with lots of information and inspiration on display. Once we had taken down our stall I took the opportunity to visit the library before heading home. Here are some photos from that journey home…
Windfarm near Swaffham (two pics)
LEAFLETS
Here are pictures of some of the leaflets that were available at the event…
LINKS
I have included many links within the text, but these do not belong there, although ebing autism related they do belong in a large post that has been autism related.
A SURVEY
The National Autistic Society have a survey running at the moment which you can see here.
SISTER ACT
Yesterday I saw these two posts, written by sisters (the first, from autism mom, linked to the second), and having read and enjoyed them yesterday, I share them to finish this post…
Some stuff about autism, some important links and some photographs.
INTRODUCTION
Although this post includes some links that are not specific to autism, and of course some photos, enough of it is autism related to warrant the first word of the title.
AN IMPORTANT EVENT ON MONDAY
This Monday an ‘autism positive’ event is taking place at the Theatre Royal in Norwich. I will be present in the dual capacity of autistic adult and branch secretary of NAS West Norfolk. As well as a display with full information about our branch we will be distributing leaflets about efforts to get some adult oriented events and activities going. Apart from the official NAS branding and header which I copied and pasted from the website the leaflets are entirely my work…
This is a screenshot of the whole document – two leaflets to the page.This is a close up of a single leaflet.
Advertising attended to, the second part of this section relates to:
AUTISM AND EMPLOYMENT
First of all, here is the grim truth about autistic people and employment in the UK:
75% of us are unemployed.
Others are employed in low paid and/ or part time work, so that 85% of us are classed as underemployed.
So, what can be done about this? Well, recruitment practices need to change and here is for me the single most important thing that could be done:
Abolish standard interviews, which place one in a position that one will never be in when in the job, making skills testing mandatory instead. Many autistic people however mujch preparation they put in cannot do themselves justice in interviews, while if you have them do the kind of work that they would be doing in the job they will fare much better, and you will learn not whether they can say the right things but whether they can actually do the work.
As a segue into the next section of the post, here is a link to a petition created by an autistic adult (Chris Packham), which calls on the Government to:
My first link in this section comes courtesy of the consumer group Which? who have managed to get the Consumer Rights Act to cover all travel sectors. Please read the full piece here.
I give the last word before the photographs to DPAC, who have prepared some online action to coincide with the Tory conference for the benefit of those who cannot make it to Birmingham but want to be part of the protest. Please click the link below to see how you can be part of…
This post arises from several issues: changes to the bus services in my region, and the way in which the company in question has handled those changes; a campaign that has recently come to my attention to restore rail links to Wisbech, and finally the fact that I have recently been in Sweden and thus privileged to see at first hand how a properly run public transport system works.
PUBLIC TRANSPORT SHOULD MEAN PUBLICLY OWNED TRANSPORT
The more I see of public transport (and as a 41 year old non-driver I see plenty) the more convinced I become that private companies should play no role in running it. Whether you consider the blatant failures such as the current situation involving Southern Rail, the high and increasing prices of tickets across the board or the frequency with public transport in Britain is affected by delays or suspensions of services, it is plain for all to see that private companies cannot do the job.
I regularly see people in Fakenham, where I work, who have missed a connection due to a late running bus. A missed connection means a loss of at least one hour, possibly more due to the infrequency of services.
A NOTE ON INTEGRATION
Those of you who are familiar with my London Transport themed website will have noticed that I am strong believer in integration of services, which is manifested on that site mainly by my suggestions for improvements to existing lines. Ideally all routes would be interconnected.
TWO CASE STUDIES
My first case study concerns…
STAGECOACH BETWEEN KING’S LYNN AND NORWICH
There have been two major changes on this route recently. Firstly, the service between Fakenham and Norwich has been halved (it is now hourly rather than half hourly), albeit with a couple of gaps in the service between Fakenham and King’s Lynn closed to make that a proper hourly service. The effect of the axing of half of the services between Fakenham and Norwich has been that for the first time standing passengers are a regular feature of that route. A week ago today the X8 designation vanished, the whole route now being referred to as X29. While there is a certain logic to taking this step, especially if it means that all Norwich-Fakenham buses go through to Lynn, the way in which it was handled earns Stagecoach a major black mark. Apart from messages on the screens at King’s Lynn bus station (the way I learned about it), this change was given no advance publicity, with the result that those passengers who do not use King’s Lynn bus station were caught on the hop, and even on Friday evening the sight on X29 to King’s Lynn was still capable of causing confusion with certain passengers.
THE TRAIN BETWEEN KING’S LYNN AND LONDON (WITH A SIDELIGHT ON PROPOSALS INVOLVING WISBECH)
The train service between London and King’s Lynn is hourly, and after a non-stop run to Cambridge it splits into two, with four coaches continuing north to King’s Lynn and four returning to King’s Cross. The necessity to be in the front four coaches if going beyond Cambridge can mean standing all the way to that station or even beyond (I have stood from London to Waterbeach at least once). I am aware that the restriction to four coaches beyond Cambridge is due to the shortness the platforms at some the intermediate stations, but there are least two possible solutions, and variations thereon:
In addition to the through services from London run regular (half hourly, or even quarter hourly) shuttle services between Cambridge and King’s Lynn). This (especially with the more frequent services) would mean that not everyone journeying between Cambridge and King’s Lynn or intermediate stations would need to board through trains at Cambridge – I for one would aim to make the return leg of a trip to Cambridge on one of the shuttles rather than a through service.
For points north of Cambridge have an interleaving of shuttle services as above with faster through services calling at only the stations with long platforms (Ely, Downham Market, King’s Lynn), so that services between London and King’s Lynn would consist of hourly through services, with changes at Cambridge, Ely or Downham Market as appropriate for intermediate stations) which would be augmented by shuttle services on the Cambridge-King’s Lynn section.
You will note that I have not even touched on the possibility of lengthening the platforms at Waterbeach, Littleport and Watlington so that eight carriage trains could call at those stations – I have merely mentioned the possibilities that do not require work on the existing infratsructure.
WISBECH RAIL LINKS
I found out about the campaign to bring the railways back to Wisbech via twitter. They have a website which gives considerable detail about their proposals. I conclude this post by aking use of one of more recent bargain basement acquisitions, this what Wisbech’s rail connections looked like in 1947…
An account of yesterday’s auction, complete with photos, a link to a book review and a (well-merited) swipe at Stagecoach.
INTRODUCTION
This is my account of the latest auction held by my employers, James and Sons, which took place yesterday at the Maid’s Head Hotel in Norwich.
THE JOURNEY IN
Stagecoach, who have subsumed Norfolk Green, have very recently and without anything approaching proper communication cut a large number of services. One casualty of this piece of axe wielding is the 6:10 AM from King’s Lynn to Fakenham, which used to become the 6:55 from Fakenham to Norwich, and would see me arrive at the venue around about 8am, as needed. Fortunately, having been alerted to the mayhem while at work on Tuesday I had the foresight to check the timetables posted at King’s Lynn Bus Station and was able to come up with a back-up plan – I bought a single ticket on the X1 to Dereham and Norwich which is run by First Eastern Counties, departing at 5:55am and was in Norwich at the appointed time. This single fare and the single fare back from Fakenham (having travelled from Norwich to Fakenham as a passenger in the company van) amounted to £10 between them (£6 and £4 respectively) instead of £5.50 for a Dayrider Plus, to say nothing of the uncertainty created by the ham-fisted way in which these cuts were made. Surely if significant cuts to services are to be made (and I consider cutting what was the first bus of the morning on a particular route to be significant on its own – and I also know that half of the services that used to run between Fakenham and Norwich have been axed) the announcement should be made long in advance of the cuts happening, and every bus travelling on an affected route should be well stocked with new timetables that accurately reflect the planned reduction in services. Also, especially given the parlous state of public transport services in Norfolk, I consider any cuts to be unacceptable in any case.
THE LAYOUT
With people arriving to view stuff not long after we had got there, there was not a lot of scope laying stuff out artistically, especially given how much of it there was, but a couple of areas were reasonably well done nevertheless…
Part of the toy display – inside that suitcase marked is lot 363 was a large collection of items of rolling stock.A little cluttered, but at least the three smartest hats got due prominence.
THE SALE ITSELF
I am glad to be able to report that there were no IT issues at any stage of the sale. While the coins & tokens, some of the militaria and some of the ephemera sold well, the stamps did not go well, and the vinyls did less well than we would have liked.
Once the auction finished we picked out all the stuff that had sold to bidders not in the room, loaded the van up for the return journey and were able to head back. I was able to catch the 17:38 rather than have the dicey prospect of relying on the 18:35 not having been cut (if they can cut the first bus of the day, why not the last?). However, I was not yet at liberty to relax – there was still the matter of watering a few plants at Hampton Court, Nelson Street. Thus, it was almost exactly 14 hours after I had left my flat that my time was my own again.
MY ROLE AND LOT 450
There are two members of James and Sons staff who can manage the IT during the auction, so we swap duties during the day (auction days are the only time I regularly do front-line customer service). My colleague did an IT session between lots 200 and 300, at which point we had a scheduled break. I then did the first 75 lots after the break, before swapping for 100 lots or so, for a period when a few things I was interested in were coming up, before I then went back to IT duties until the end of the sale.
The first items that I was interested in were five sets of railway postcards, lots 391-5:
These as expected went beyond my possible price range. Next to command attention was lot 403, a book of views of Cambridge:
Again, to no great surprise this rapidly went beyond my price range.
The next items of interest were some antique maps, which I was fully aware I would not be able to afford but enjoyed seeing go under the hammer. This set the stage for the last lot to command my interest, and unlike any of the foregoing it was one that I was determined to get if at all possible. Lot 450, “The Bus We Loved: London’s Affair With the Routemaster”, was not an item that I as someone who runs a London transport themed website could happily countenance going elsewhere. There was a mini bidding war as someone else was also interested, but when I went to £10 that secured the item. For more about the book please visit myreview of it that is on my website.
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS
Yesterday was a very demanding day, both physically and mentally. However, everything went fairly smoothly. Given the Stagecoach schemozzle referred to earlier, the travel element of the day was as good as I could have hoped for.
A grateful acknowledgement to the Lynn News for their coverage of the Autism Awareness Cup accompanied by a minor ethical quibble and also some images from today at work.
INTRODUCTION
At the end of this post I will be sharing some images from work today, but it is mainly about the Lynn News (and, one ethical quibble aside, positive about them).
THANKS FOR THE COVERAGE BUT AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT WOULD BE NICE
Before creating the blog post I had also created a facebook photo album about the event.
Having published the blog post I then produced this email:
For clarification of the intended recipients, here is a second image…
Today the Lynn News produced the following:
You will note that save for the misplaced while between cup winners and Holland every word of this article appears in my blog post. While I thank the Lynn News unreseverdly for printing a story about this event, which will be the first of many, I would have been even more grateful had there been some acknowledgement, and maybe a mention of my blog.
aspiblog 