As a fairly heavy user of trains, I was interested to hear on the radio this morning that Scotland’s trains are all going to be re-painted in a standardised Scotland-wide livery.

It sounds reasonably sensible to me. I never got why trains from the west used that old-fashioned maroon and beige colour scheme, particularly when (presumably for expediency’s sake) those trains were often used in other parts of the country. Mind you, it will be a shame in a way to lose the distinctive liveries of each franchise.

It does come just a few years after First Group decked out the old Scotrail trains in their own new colour scheme. Impressively, several trains and stations were made over overnight with the old stylised map of Scotland (I presume that is what it was supposed to be) being replaced with First logos left, right and centre.

(Incidentally, the First livery is a vast improvement on the old National Express Scotrail livery. Whoever decided that deep purple goes with peely-wally shades of orange and bluey-green must have been colour blind.)

At least the paint jobs will only be done when a train was due to be painted anyway. And it’s claimed that it will save money in the long run because if and when First Group lose their franchise the livery will remain the same. Having said that, what happens when Transport Scotland decides it’s time for a visual refresh as everyone feels like from time to time? I doubt much will actually be saved.

The reason this is a news story is that George Foulkes has been complaining about the new livery. You see, it depicts a Saltire. And because the SNP are in government this is a bad thing. Apparently it’s all part of an attempt to “brainwash people into independence”

The thing is, Labour also often used national symbols and there is nothing at all wrong with that. At least, you would expect it — particularly when Scotland has such a strong national identity. National symbols are perfect tools for governments to use in their materials / brands / propaganda / what-have-you. As Anseo over at Ideas of Civilisation points out:

What about when McConnell as First Minister had the Saltire adopted as the symbol for promoting Scotland - was this part of the plot?

How about the One Scot (Many Cultures) logo inspired by the saltire, started under the last administration…since that wasn`t under the SNP administration does this not count?

George Foulkes’s argument is further diminished by the fact that Transport Scotland have pointed out that the plans for this revamp began when Labour were still in power. Whoops.

As Ideas of Civilisation points out, this ought not to be an issue. George Foulkes is just frothing at the mouth for no good reason, as seems to be happening quite regularly nowadays.

Anyway, am I the only one who thinks the new design looks nothing like the Saltire? I mean obviously I saw what the design was getting at because I was told it was based on the Saltire. But it looks to me more like two arrowheads pointing at each other.

I mean, if that’s meant to be the Cross of St. Andrew, it’s not because it doesn’t cross. I know that there is a gap between the two carriages that messes it up a bit, but if you continue the lines across they don’t meet. Also, that shade of blue does not look like the official shade of blue of the Flag of Scotland which is Pantone 300. In fact, it looks suspiciously like First Group’s purple. I guess that saves on costs.

Anyway, given that I have now unilaterally established that the train looks nothing like the Saltire, I do wonder what George Foulkes is on about. I find it odd that the sight of something that vaguely looks like the Saltire would “brainwash” him into becoming a nationalist.

George Foulkes’s tie looks vaguely like the Saltire actually… Oh dear… He’s been brainwashed by his own tie!

Tonight is Burns Night — a fact that my dangerously nationalist self keeps on forgetting. I had forgotten once again until James Higham left this in a comment:

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the Puddin-race! Aboon them a’ ye tak your place, Painch, tripe, or thairm: Weel are ye wordy of a grace As lang’s my arm.

Which I assume is some Burns. I recognise the second line, but none of the rest. Which probably proves something about how much of a philistine or traitor I am. But I don’t care.

Anyway, it just so happens that last night I went on one of my (very) occasional trips to the Scots Wikipedia.

Guid tae see ye at the Scots Wikipædia, the first encyclopædia in the Scots leid!

Noble though it may be, it does make me giggle a little bit whenever I read these attempts to take what is essentially slang very seriously. I must try and pick up some of those weighty documents that the Scottish Parliament apparently publishes in Scots. It would make some of those train journeys pass by quicker.

For the most part, English Wikipedia is written in a very formal manner. Scots Wikipedia is like reading Oor Wullie explain quadratic calculations. Here, for instance, is part of the article on naitural philosophy:

Pheesicists studies a braid reenge o pheesical phenomenae, frae the sub-nuclear pairticles that maks up aw ordinar maiter (pairticle pheesics) tae the maiteral Universe as a hail (cosmologie).

I also like this message that appears at the top of some pages (such as this one about Commissioners tae the Scots Pairlament):

The “Scots” that wis uised in this airticle wisna written by a native speaker. Gin ye can, please sort it.

I guess the slightly slap-dash, antiquated nature of the language part of the charm for some people. One of my maths teachers used to drop in loads of baffling slang words which were presumably meant to be Scots, but I’m certain she just made them up on the spot.

I also know that, for instance, Kirkcaldy has several different spellings in Scots. The Scots Wikipedia article spells it Kirkcaudy, which is redirected from Kirkcawddy — but, of course, you and I know it as Kirkcaldy!

The famous (in Kirkcaldy) poem, ‘The Boy in the Train‘ uses a yet another different spelling of Kirkcaldy (the collogue page at Wikipedia touches on this).

When the train station was rebuilt in the early 1990s the whole waiting area was decked out in linoleum — Kirkcaldy’s greatest export, and the cause of that famous “queer-like smell”. The smell can linger in the east of the town, particularly when it’s raining. It’s the kind of smell that, a bit like coffee, is really foul when you are a child but eventually you become fond of it as you grow older. I imagine if I ever move out of Kirkcaldy I’ll want to occasionally visit to catch the smell again.

In the linoleum-covered waiting area of the train station, the poem that makes reference to this smell takes pride of place above the stairs. Appropriately enough, the poem itself is cut in linoleum as well. I stand in the waiting area and try to decipher the poem when it is raining and I can’t stand outside on the platform. It seems as though when it’s raining in Kirkcaldy you just can’t escape linoleum!

From my memory, the version of the poem hanging on the wall in the station uses more than one different spelling of Kirkcaldy, but I could be wrong. I’ll have to take a look at it tomorrow. But it does seem as though Mary Campbell-Smith, judging by the rhymes she tried to pull off, thought that Kirkcaldy was pronounced “Kirkcaddy”. I suppose it’s an improvement on many non-natives’ attempts to pronounce the ‘l’ which is actually silent.

Best just to stick to ‘The Lang Toun’ really…

Other interesting Wikipedia projects

• Kernewek, currently standing at 1,233 articles.
• Anglo-Saxon, with 744 articles.
• The inevitable Klingon, with a surprisingly low 62 articles.
• Full list of Wikipedias

I am shattered. I feel like I’ve been working hard for a full week, but I totally haven’t. I only went into Edinburgh twice this week and I didn’t even do very much while I was there. (Of course, revision didn’t happen.)

The only thing that I can think of is the fact that I had to run (quite a long way) to catch the train on Wednesday, even though I was kicking around at a friend’s until about 8pm. So I could have left at any time and caught the train in a leisurely manner. But I badly underestimated the amount of time it took to walk to the station. It’s just as well I started running when I did, because the I literally could not have been any later. And if I had missed that train I’d have had to have waited a full hour for the next one, which would not have made me very happy.

I went in again today and did nothing too strenuous. I guess I feel so tired because for the past three weeks the most active thing I have done is scratch my arse. I have been sleeping for about nine to ten hours per night, and when I wake up I feel really heavy and stiff, almost as though I’ve been sleeping with a pile of books pushing down on top of me. Weird.

All of this is a round-about way of telling you that in the coming weeks there could well be light blogging for the next few weeks due to the upcoming exams. Although now that I’ve said that I will probably be blogging more than ever… Procrastination and all that.

Okay, that was a really boring post, so to make up for that, I want to ask about fizzy drinks. It’s usually a bad idea for me to have any, because they often make me feel ill. But I was intrigued by the new Coca-Cola with Lime, so I had some earlier on. Can anybody actually taste any lime? It just tastes like normal coke to me. The only difference is the garish bottle.

I am probably your typical lazy student, although I’ve always been an awful morning person so it’s not really anything to do with being a stinky student. So when I have an earlyish lecture, it is a right chore, especially because I have to get up extra early because I have to take the train in. If I’m willing to take a risk and take the last possible train without being horrendously late, some days I have to be out of the door before 8:45.

I’ve noted a few times before that I find it hard to understand why some of Radio 4’s listeners get so enraged by the smallest change to its output. Like the ditching of The UK Theme. But over time I have learned that you can — and sometimes do — rely on Radio 4 like clockwork.

I am terrible in the mornings. If I have an early start (and by ‘early’ I mean earlier than 11), you can forget it. I’ll set the alarm, and it will wake me up, oh yes. But I’ll only switch it off and go back to sleep again. I’m not one of these people who wakes up and is all of a sudden alert and can’t get back to sleep again — I wish I could do that; I’m so jealous. Instead, if it’s before 9 o’clock, I’ll switch over to Radio 4 and shove my head under the duvet. Usually I’ll fall back fast asleep.

This is exactly what I did last week. I was fast asleep. I have absolutely no recollection of anything that was on the radio between 7:45 (when my alarm went off) and 8:25. But the utterance of one simple sentence changes all that.

And now here’s Gary with the sport.

Those words, spoken every day at 8:25, are like claxons going off directly next to my ear. It is a wailing siren; a signal that I really have to jump out of bed right now and head off to catch the train. Thank goodness for Radio 4. If they ever move the sport, I will be the first to get out my collection of green pens and fire off an irate letter to the controller of Radio 4.

According to this article on BBC News, the railways are actually in pretty good shape. Round here the trains seem to get posher all the time. I used to think those Turbostar Class 170 ones were quite luxurious as trains go (certainly compared to the crummy Class 156s).

Then last week I went into a train that looks like a normal Class 170, apart from the fact that it has red seats instead of the normal First ScotRail blue. I’ve been on one of them a few times before, but I’ve never walked through the First Class section. I thought I was on a different planet. The seats were so big, like thrones. You could only fit three in a row. And there’s some kind of funny reception area (it’s always closed whenever I see it though). I guess it must be some kind of Virgin-style shop.

Well there are the impressive bits. Now here’s something that doesn’t anger so much as confuse me. Whenever I catch the 0844 (unfortunately not fancy Class 170s, but the Class 158s with the grey plastic seats and the carpets that always smell of curry-vomit) it ends up being extremely late — without fail. I am not talking about a train occasionally being three or four minutes late here. I cannot remember the last time this train wasn’t about fifteen minutes late (though I should note that I only catch these trains on Tuesdays and Fridays). And this is supposed to be the fast train. For a journey that’s only supposed to last about thirty-five minutes, that’s pretty ridiculous.

The thing is, it never seems to be running late, as far as I can tell, until we head towards the big old bottleneck at Haymarket. Then the train just sort of stops. “Awaiting a platform,” as the conductor always says. One time we even ended up on the other platform at Haymarket, the one that Fife trains just don’t go to. After sitting for ages at Haymarket station we get going again. Then we stop again outside Edinburgh. “Awaiting a platform” again. Eventually we trundle on in to platform 21, which I always saw as the “shit, all the other platforms are full, so I guess we have to use this” platform.

As I say, the whole process usually takes about 15 minutes. Every time. Now I don’t really mind this too much, because the train arrives about twenty-five minutes before I need it to anyway, but other passengers are clearly irritated by it. I just don’t understand why it happens though. I mean, they have timetables, right? So where does it all go wrong? Did they just mess up the timetable and have about five trains trying to go through Haymarket at once or what?

* I cannot believe I am now referring to trains as ‘Class xxx’. I need to get out of this.