There are lots of great things about the railway, but the industry’s use of language is not one of them. I have often been amazed by the linguistic tangles conductors often find themselves in when they try to “talk posh” during announcements. Clearly they are not trained about the importance of plain English. This problem […]
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Commuting
Steam — the Museum of the Great Western Railway
The second leg of my trip took me away from nature. I decided to go out of my way to visit Steam — the Museum of the Great Western Railway. I am not an extreme railway enthusiast, although I do find railways quite interesting. I only knew that Steam existed when I happened to pass […]
Why filling up the car is like using teletext
I have problems with my nozzle. When I am filling up the car, I can never get it quite right. When visiting the petrol station in the past, I usually just filled the tank right up. But in the light of fuel price-geddon that has gripped the nation this year, I have switched to aiming […]
Becoming a car owner
A little milestone was passed this week when I bought my first car. I learnt to drive five years ago. I wasn’t the sort of person that started lessons as soon as I turned 17. I saw no need, and waited until I was 20. After passing my test, I don’t think I drove for […]
Prioritising podcasts
I have realised that I’m easily entertained. I have a pile of CDs that I bought back in October but still haven’t got round to listening to. There are a couple of DVDs that I bought before Christmas that I still haven’t watched. And I’m struggling to play all the games I’ve bought in the […]
The future of this blog
The observant among you may have spotted that it is a month since I wrote a post for this blog. It is interesting that I have not even found the motivation to write about the General Election. This is not a conscious decision — I genuinely have not been moved enough to put finger to […]
Merry Christmas — looking back and forward
I would like to wish everyone who still reads this a very merry Christmas. As time has gone on, my updates have become increasingly sporadic. I am surprised and touched that people keep coming back to read and comment on what I have written. Looking back, I have actually written almost a hundred articles for […]
The Edinburgh Twestival
I had a great time yesterday at the Edinburgh Twestival, an opportunity to meet other local users of Twitter while at the same time raising money for charity: water. A comment I heard a lot from other people was that the event wasn’t quite what they expected. It certainly wasn’t a total geekfest as some […]
Spare part
I see that the BBC’s iPM blog is asking for the human stories behind the current unemployment figures. Well, I am a human face of two recent news stories. As readers are no doubt sick of reading by now, one of those stories was the loss of around 27,000 jobs at Woolworths. The other is […]
Losing the blogging mojo
It’s not great. Technically, I’m still a bum — but I don’t have the time to blog? Something is wrong. I guess this is all to do with that theory. If you have a demanding full-time job, go to night college, look after kids and do all the shopping and you have to do something, […]