Andy Kirkham

The Good Ship Lifestyle - Chumbawamba in their pomp

A Chloris by Reynaldo Hahn

I'm going to seem a bit of a yokel, but I'm visiting London tomorrow for the first time in a few years and I want to sort out ticketing options. I'm used to using a physical one-day travel card, priced according to the number of zones, but according to this page https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/new-fares there is now a standard fare of £14.40 irrespective of the number of zones. I just want to check this is correct and not an error. I presume the most economical option as I'm not proposing to visit the outer zones, is to use the contactless card, is that correct?

The other day in Cheltenham Road, Bristol (near the arches that carry the Severn Beach line between Montpelier and Redland) , I noticed that a Roosters Piri Piri had newly opened up right next door to the existing Pepe's Piri Piri. What on earth is the business logic behind such a move? Is it pure idiocy, or is there method in the madness? Have they discerned unlimited apetite for Piri Piri chicken among the residents of Redland and Bishopston? Has anyone any other examples of such mutually injurious competition?

The carriages on the modernized Subway had an antiseptic smell like Germolene.

Now a Wetherspoons

Scenes near West Kilbride on the Largs line

And a bucket.

I think the 82XXX were the only non-GWR tank engines to be painted BR green.

Just heard that Julie Boston, enthusiastic and outspoken campaigner for the Severn Beach line, has passed away at the age of 88 https://fosbr.org.uk/julie-boston-1934-2022/

I'd be hard pressed to tell the dfference between Stymie and Profil in their respective bold, italic forms. I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number of the examples shown in the Stymie Bold Italic group aren't actually Profil. Whichever it is, in the sixties it seemed a signifier of modernty and optimism, whereas if I see it now it seems to connote loss and decay

Perhaps Stymie Bold Italic , which has its own Flickr group

This thread began eleven years ago with a reflection on the view around the foot of the Temple Meads incline. Well, that view has just undergone a dramatic change as the long-derelict Grosvenor Hotel burned down the other night. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-63310801

He was also a competent watercolour artist who produced views of the pre-grouping scene, which often seemed to have been based on imagination and scholarship, representing scenes for which photographs were lacking (in the same vein as the late Eric Leslie). Several are in the collection of the National Museums of Wales https://museum.wales/collections/online/?field0=string&value0=briwnant&field1=with_images&value1=1

I served on a jury in Glasgow The mistake I made was to wear a suit. None of the other jurors had made any effort to dress up, so they unanimously elected me as foreman, a role for which I don't feel I have a great aptitude. The defendant was accused of assaulting somebody in a supermarket; the evidence against him seemed incontestable, but it was announced that he was lodging a "Special defence of Incrimination". This entailed calling one of the defendant's mates as a witness, who would then take the stand and declaim the script in which he had been tutored - that he declined to say anything lest he incriminate himself. This was patently a desperate ruse to muddy the waters in what would otherwise have been an open-and-shut case; we were meant to infer that the confederate's silence was to conceal the fact that he was the culprit; in reality it was to conceal the fact that he had no involvement whatsoever in the incident. Presumably there is some rule that prevents the Prosecution from drawing the jury's attention to the manifest flimsiness of this defence, and that its very employment was in itself a strong indication of the defendant's guilt. The jury was not fooled; my duties as foreman were not demanding as we unanimously decided on a Guilty verdict. However I have to confess that we pretended we needed more time in order to get a free lunch and not have to go back to work in the afternoon. When I declared the Guilty verdict, a cry was heard from the public gallery "Innocent ye b*st*rds!". All fifteen of us left the court together and stayed together as far as Bridge Street Subway station. It doubtless reveals my innocence that I felt a sense of shock when, during one of the intervals, I observed the prosecution and the defence barristers chatting and joking together. I had unconsciously supposed that they would be perpetually at daggers drawn.

Which were those two routes, Mike? Was one of them Carmarthen-Aberystwyth?

Perhaps this is why the Class 21s were early on judged to be so useless they needed to be re-engined, while the class 22s with the same engine but lighter duties were left as they were.

I expect many of us can remember when the BBC had a strict policy of not mentioning brand names. I think I recall a scene of a soap opera set in a local shop with cartons of washing powder stacked on the shelf, each one with a strip of tape stuck across the product's name. When Monty Python broke this taboo it seemed extraordinarily daring.

One thing that has alway intrigued me about TTSS: I don't think Control is ever referred other than by that name. Are we to understand that even his closest colleagues didn't know what his real name was?

I was disconcerted in Smiley's People by having an different actor play Peter Guillam who didn't remotely resemble the one in TTSS. But even more disconcerting was how Bernard Hepton played Toby Esterhazy in both series as if he was a different actor. He had a posh English accent in TTSS and a Hungarian (or generic foreign) one in SP. From what I recollect of the movie, my main complaint would be that the plot was necessarily so compressed that there wasn't time to become familiar with the various suspects.

I knew of the loco General Lord Robertson, but i had no idea that the eponymous General was the same person as Sir Brian Robertson of the BTC.

A good while ago I was induced to sign up for a GWR account by such goodies (as displayed below) as Promotional Offers and Exclusive pre-sale tickets (not sure what the latter are) But, I don't believe I've ever received so much as an email from them (yes I've looked in my Spam folder). Has anyone else? Honestly, however, I don't have high hopes. "Promotional Offers" are never about cheap train tickets; they're only ever for two-for-one entry to theme parks I've no wish to visit.

The film of (James Joyce's) Ulysses, famously set on June 16th 1904, made little attempt to disguise that it was filmed in 1960's Dublin, modern traffic being clearly in evidence. I've no idea whether this was due to an artistic choice by the director or just a deficiency of the budget.

Yes, the Chalford service was the only one I can think of where WR auto trains ran on a double track route into the sixties. It was much photographed and I wouldn't be surprised if a photo taken on that route was used as the basis of this picture, with the background filled in from the artist's imagination.