2017. A personal reflection on the year…

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Diary, Railways, Travel, Uncategorized

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I’m not really sorry to be seeing the back of 2017. To say it’s been a mixed year is an understatement. It started well enough as I spent the first couple of months travelling through South-East Asia. I’d been planning to revisit some old haunts in Indonesia for some time, so – after a holiday in Thailand with my fiancé Dawn and time with friends I headed off solo to catch up with an old friend in Bali before travelling across Java. First stop was Surabaya, where I met Bagus, a Facebook friend and fellow photographer and rail enthusiast. It was my first visit to the city and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it – along with some trips out to the countryside to photograph trains in the landscape. Afterwards, I moved on by rail to Jakarta which I hadn’t visited since 1992. I’ve voluminous notes from the trip which I keep meaning to write up – but I’ve never found the time (yet, but it’s one of my new year resolutions!) Moving on again I stopped off for a week in Singapore to explore the growing metro system and spend time with another Facebook friend – Nicholas Lim, before heading overland to Malaysia and the long train ride from Kota Baru to Kuala Lumpur (another one I’ve yet to write up!) where I explored the expanding metro systems and parlous state of the KTMB suburban network before heading onwards to one of my favourite old haunts – Georgetown on Penang Island, where I enjoyed a bit of R&R.

Moving on again I travelled on a much-changed KTMB network to the Thai Border and  Hat Yai before catching a sleeper train to Bangkok. That trip was aboard some of the new Chinese built sleeping coaches and I managed to blog about it here. You can see all my pictures from the trip in this gallery.

Back in Bangkok there was time for me to explore the expanding metro system before flying back to Brexit Britain, which I wasn’t really looking forward to. My travels through Asia made me all too aware of how backward looking the UK had become and also how out of touch with commercial realities the hard-line Brexit fans who insist we’d be ‘free’ to trade globally really were.

Things didn’t improve on my return. I’d been following the Brexitshambles with increasing incredulity and despair ever since. Politicians from all parties seem incapable of admitting to the public what a disaster Brexit is. The whole country’s been caught up in an internal Tory party squabble over Europe that’s got completely out of hand. The Brexit nutters slogan ‘take back control’ is going to go down as one of the most stupid ever as it’s becoming painfully obvious that we’ve done nothing of the sort. My only hope is that as this truth becomes more evident throughout 2018 we have an outbreak of common-sense and political pragmatism before our relationship with our EU partners and the economy are both wrecked.

Looking beyond Brexit to my commercial work I have to say I’ve really enjoyed the year. I’ve written a series of articles for RAIL magazine, thoroughly enjoyed doing it and I’m looking forward to penning many more. In 2018 I’ll be conducting my biennial rail-tour round the UK which should be fascinating as a lot’s changed since 2016. I’ve had some fascinating photographic commissions too and my role as a Judge for the annual ACoRP awards gave me the opportunity to meet some truly inspiring groups and individuals.

On the personal front life’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. The highlight of the year was Dawn and I getting married on November 11th. It was an event that exceeded both our expectations. The pair of us wanted an informal, inclusive wedding that wasn’t stuffy. We had a fabulous day with family and friends that was a delight. The fact we were asked to cut the wedding cake asap so that the floor was clear for people to dance said it all. So many people have mentioned that they’ve never been to a wedding where the dance-floor was packed all night…

Sadly, the wedding was put into perspective by the sad death of my new sister-in-law, Jo Platt, who died of cancer just a month later. We knew she was terminally ill before the wedding but had no idea the cancer was so aggressive. Dawn and I spent time with her in the days before she passed away. Jo gave us some tasks to do for her which led to what’s the saddest assignment I’ve ever had – to fulfil a dying woman’s wish. Jo asked me to take a scenic shot of a local Surrey beauty spot (Frensham Great Pond) which was special to her and her husband, Darren. Jo wanted it to be given to Darren as a keepsake – but for a week the weather was awful and Jo’s time was running out. Finally, the Gods smiled and we had one glorious Thursday evening where I managed to get a selection of pictures and Jo had the opportunity to choose the one she wanted. We were just in time. Jo passed away peacefully at home the following Monday. I hope I never have another job like that again..

Because of events our honeymoon has been postponed and we’re beginning the New year back home in Yorkshire. Our plans are to make the absolute most of 2018. We’ve a lot of exciting things planned (of which there’ll be more news shortly). I’m determined to get back to blogging, so expect a flurry of blogs on railways, travel, Brexit and of course HS2!

In the meantime, I hope you all have a very Happy New Year and a fabulous 2018. Thanks for stopping by to read my blog and/or visit my photographic website.

Is it any wonder the Green party are bombing in the polls?

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Green Party, Hs2, Mark Keir, Politics

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I’ve just come across this load of nonsense about Hs2 from the Green Party’s Mark Kier in Hillingdon, North London. It’s been posted on YouTube by ‘Occupy News Network’, a ragbag of leftists and anarchists. It’s straight from the ‘make it up as you go along’ school of political commentary.

These are the people who’re backing the futile protest in Harvil Rd, which is hardly ‘Swampy’ or Twyford Down! Apart from occupying a stretch of pavement they appear to have been unable to even delay the HS2 preparation work in the area, never mind actually stop anything!

In his YouTube diatribe, Kier claims (amongst other things) that Hs2 costs £110bn (it doesn’t), it’s funded by Chinese loans (it isn’t) and that it’s “wiped out democracy” (that’ll be why Parliament passed the Hs2 bill by a vote of 452 MPS to 41 then!). He also trots out some tired old canards such as the ‘fact’ Hs2 will be wider than a motorway (it won’t) and that the time saving between London-Birmingham is 20 minutes (it isn’t).

The pointless Harvil Rd protest has attracted several Green Party leaders, who’ve trotted along to grandstand and have their photos taken in ‘solidarity’ with the protesters. They’ve all parroted similar nonsense to Kier, which shows that the problems with the party being both dishonest and ill-informed is systemic. It also suggest that the Green party has retreated back to its protest/pressure group roots rather than trying to maintain the fiction that it has any credibility as a serious political party.

None of this rubbish will stop Hs2 in the slightest of course, but it does help to show why the Green Party has slumped in the polls in recent years. I wouldn’t trust this lot to run a whelk stall, far less a Council or, God forbid – a country.

I love a good petition, I love bad ones even more!

22 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Rail Investment, StopHs2

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I’ve been threatening to blog about the latest daft Stop Hs2 petition for ages now but I’ve never been able to find the time as it’s been busy year on a whole host of fronts. I’ve finally found a few moments and thought, it’s now or never…

First, a bit of history. Back in September the sole surviving ‘national’ Stop Hs2 umbrella group was foolish (and desperate) enough to start a new petition on the Government website. Regular readers will know how I love these petitions as they allow you to mine data. Each signature is allocated to the constituency it comes from so you can discover where the anti Hs2 campaign’s strength lies – and where its weaknesses are. Amongst other things the number of signatures helps show where there are active Stophs2 groups.

The results have been fascinating. Right from the start it was obvious the petition was never going to hit its target, but that didn’t prevent @stophs2 boasting that they’d harvested 10,000 signatures in their first week. It was a boast that was always going to come back and haunt them – as it’s proved…

I decided to drill down the data by analysing each constituency Hs2 passes through and update the results every two days. As the petition quickly faltered I decided to add the monthly scores, which have proved to be interesting – and also the last time anyone signed in each constituency. Predictably phase 1 of Hs2 provides the vast bulk of the signatures as that’s where the campaign was best organised & where all the ‘national’ anti Hs2 groups were based (Hs2aa, AGAHST, 51M and stophs2) but it’s pointless as the Phase 1 Hybrid Bill has Royal Assent and Phase 1’s under construction! Here’s today’s results. I’ve added the number of constituents for comparison.

blog 1

As you can see, the greatest ‘success’ is in Cheryl Gillans constituency, where a ‘massive’  1474 people have signed. But wait, what percentage of all constituents is that? It’s only 1.57% – and that’s in the one place that’s the ‘hotbed’ of Stophs2 with a prominent anti MP! Head North out of the Chilterns and the numbers drop dramatically, with lots of zeros appearing. Head into London and the pictures exactly the same. Even Camden (supposedly the most anti of London boroughs) only reaches 370 signatures (or 0.26%). This suggests to me that in many areas the ‘action group’ network’s collapsed. A search for their websites or perusal of their Facebook or Twitter accounts confirms that suspicion.

Now let’s move on to the next phase of Hs2 – phase 2a to Crewe and on to Manchester. The numbers here are very interesting…

blog 2

The best number here is a measly 324, or 0.38% in Stone, which still has a functioning stophs2 group (of sorts) and an anti MP – Bill Cash. After that the numbers are appalling. Look at the dates when someone last signed.  It’s clear there’s few functioning stophs2 groups on the rest of the route. Stafford’s a waste of time and even Tatton (which includes the dysfunctional Mid-Cheshire Stophs2 group) can’t muster more than 0.32%! head North into metropolitan Manchester and the numbers are laughable! This bodes badly for stophs2 when the phase 2a bill passes 2nd reading & begins its path through Parliament. Now lets have a look at Phase 2 to Leeds…

blog 3

Despite a handful of active stophs2 groups on this section and acres of bluff and bluster about ‘big’ protests, judicial reviews etc, it’s clear that there’s little going on in many constituencies. Rother Valley’s the noticeable exception, but even here the figures aren’t huge (unless you count 1.3% of all constituents as a major problem). Also, this area’s where groups are in direct conflict with MPs who may not be happy about details of the route, but who still support building Hs2.

Let’s look at the headline % figures for each of the 3 groups, which puts things into a different perspective. Phase 1 has 0.30% of all constituents signed up. Phase 2 to Manchester has just 0.10% and the Leeds leg only has 0.17%. In total that’s a tiny 0.34% of all the 6,567,433 constituents!

Here’s another perspective. The Government website contains lots of polls. The headline for Stophs2 is this.

petition. 22 dec. 17.14

Not exactly a million man march, is it? It gets worse. The Hs2 petition’s No 21 in the ratings. It’s beaten by petitions about banning fireworks (108,715) banning balloon & sky lantern releases (43,326) and the sale of animal fur (27,667) – amongst others!

What this crazy petitions revealed is how the anti hs2 campaign’s been a spectacular failure that’s continuing to fail. All the national groups bar one have folded. The one that remains (Stophs2) is toothless. It doesn’t have the money or political influence to keep the campaign going – especially now that spades are in the ground preparing for the construction of phase 1 whilst political attention shifts off their turf to Phase 2a and beyond.

2018 is going to be a very interesting year for Hs2 – but for the anti Hs2 campaign it’s ‘Good-night Vienna’

Nothing sums up the madness of Brexit more than the fuss about ‘blue’ passports.

22 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Blue passports, Brexit, Travel

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I’ve increasing come to believe that my country has taken leave of its collective senses and today’s furore over ‘bringing back’ blue coloured passports sums it up perfectly, because it’s completely and utterly mad – and dishonest to boot. This madness has spread to the very heart of UK politics, so much so that it’s infected the Prime Minister herself, who tweeted this crock of shit.

May

The “iconic” blue passport? Iconic with whom – other than a few folk who can’t even remember the past properly & see it through rose tinted spectacles? We’re happy to trash our economy, deprive Briton’s of the right to live, love or work in 27 EU countries, limit their access to healthcare and all the other rights that we currently enjoy – but that’s OK ‘cos we’ll have blue passports back? It’s the logic of the madhouse.

And do you know the really, really stupid thing about this? We could have had blue passports without leaving the EU – as the Government’s been forced to admit. Not only that, but the old blue passports (for those who remember them) weren’t even blue. They looked almost black.

The only thing these blue passports will symbolise is the witlessness & stupidity that the UK is projecting to the world nowadays…

In the back of Beyond? No, this is Surrey!

03 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Communications, Travel, Uncategorized

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I don’t often have a moan, but today’s an exception. The Platt family and I have decamped to Tilford in Surrey for a few days (for reasons I’ll explain in a blog another time). Leafy Surrey, part of the stockbroker belt, within easy reach of London and part of the affluent South-East is somewhere you’d expect to have excellent wifi and mobile phone coverage, wouldn’t you? The opposite is true. It’s universally crap.

The house where we’re staying is in a mobile phone blackspot. I’m on O2 and can get a signal much of the time. My wife and her parents are on EE and their phones are useless. They can’t get anything. It’s the same story a few miles up the road at my wife’s brothers, only there I can’t get a phone signal either!

As for wifi, what a joke. I’m currently sat in the Barley Mow pub in Tilford, trying to upload pictures to my website, but I might as well be in the Outer Hebrides. The wifi can’t cope. I only came here because I couldn’t upload them at the family home (the signal kept dropping out). It’s not just Tilford either. I’d tried to upload pictures using the wifi in a pub in Farnham earlier. I managed one picture at a time before I lost the connection.

No wonder Britain is becoming a bit of an international joke for the quality of its infrastructure. If I can’t get a decent ‘phone & wifi connection in Surrey for Chrissake! The irony is that back in West Yorkshire I have an excellent communications network and my Virgin wifi is blinding. The upshot is that I couldn’t live here and do my job. Things are better than here in the Far North of Scotland. I’ve travelled by train from Inverness to Wick on a wifi fitted train. I can’t do that here in Surrey either!

Someone, somewhere needs to get a grip…

Another day, another dollar…

27 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by in I love my job, Railways, Travel, Uncategorized

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Days at home are all too rare right now, although I shouldn’t really complain. Monday – Tuesday saw me commuting to London for various jobs, Wednesday had me working out of the ACoRP office in Huddersfield, Thursday was a chance to catch up on some paperwork and picture editing at home. Today I’m back on the rails again, heading to York for another job for RAIL magazine. This afternoon I return to London as Dawn and I are spending a couple of nights in the capital to celebrate my birthday, then have a day with friends to celebrate our forthcoming wedding. I’ve eschewed the traditional stag night. Instead I’ve opened the day up to both sexes and invited friends to meet the pair of us on Saturday as we visit one or two of London’s finest hostelries!
As much as I love travelling, I’m looking forward to having more time at home. The Pennines are beautiful this time of year. Autumn brings crisp mornings, gorgeous light and a fantastic array of colours as the trees shed their leaves. I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy these sights on some weekend walks – if we can fit them in before the wedding!

Glasgow bound…

20 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by in Railway Benefit Fund (RBF), Travel

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We’ve survived days of gales and torrential rain here in the Pennines, now it’s time for something different. Dawn and I are heading for Glasgow to attend the Railway Benefit Fund annual dinner which is being held at the Grand Central Hotel this evening. It’s a great night and an opportunity to help out a very worthy cause. Oh, and also have some fun – even though I will be working.

Expect a few pictures to appear later…

A blustery day…

16 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by in Hurricane Ophelia, Weather

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Well, we may not be directly in the path of Hurricane Ophelia up here in the Pennines but it’s been an interesting day nevertheless. This morning the Calder valley was coated in a colourful semi-opaque red haze that made the place look like something out of the ‘Martian Chronicles’! It really was the most surreal feeling to see the atmosphere charged in such a way. A few hours later it’d cleared and we were back to a glorious summers day, with sunshine, scudding clouds and balmy temperatures hitting 19 degrees C. There was only one problem. The seasonal average for this time of year is 12 degrees C! Soon afterwards, the winds arrived. I’d nipped over to Huddersfield to visit the hotel where Dawn and I are getting married when we got hit by one enormous gust of wind that really rattled the place. Trees outside writhed like they were caught in a maelstrom. The drive back home was entertaining as leaves & twigs scudded across the roads like battalions of scalded cats.

We decided to stop off for a quick one in our local pub before heading home. When we arrived the pub sign hanging outside was doing its best to break off its hinges. Every few minutes you could hear the roar of the wind outside over the conversations & laughter inside. A few minutes after we left the lights went out. A power cut took out streetlights, traffic lights and every house within a mile of where we were. We drove to our local Sainsbury’s about a mile away to pick up some shopping but everything was in blackout. Eventually, the power came back on but the staff couldn’t serve anyone as all the tills were still down. It took them ages to reboot, leaving staff having to add up shopping lists on scraps paper. Believe it or not, Sainsbury’s are still using Windows XP on their tills – despite Microsoft stopping supporting it way back in April 2014! Rebooting XP after a sudden shutdown takes a lifetime.

If this was our experience on the edge of the hurricane, I hate to think what’s happening to people closer in…

StopHs2. Hoist by their own petard!

14 Saturday Oct 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Railways, StopHs2

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You have to laugh! The anti Hs2 campaign’s in the doldrums after a terrible political party conference season, coupled with the fact that, well, they’re pretty much irrelevant nowadays. So, to try and fill space on their website and pretend that something’s happening that isn’t a disaster, Joe Rukin penned this…

Here’s a screengrab.rukin, stockport

Question Time vets its audience and invites them from a wide area. This is hardly representative of Stockport, but let’s just play along with Joe’s spin for a while. ‘Stockport agrees Hs2 is a monumental waste of money’. Really?

Let’s ignore the fact that there’s not a single StopHs2 (in)action group in the whole of Greater Manchester. The nearest one is the ineffectual Mid-Cheshire group, who’ve had to pretend to be from Manchester in the past (here they are in 2014). So, what’s the hard  evidence for such a claim? Well, why don’t we have a look at the new national petition that StopHs2 started last month? Surely, Stockport will register in that as an absolute hotbed of anti Hs2 feeling – as Rukin’s claimed. Oh, wait…

Here’s a screenshot of the petition results from Stockport, taken earlier today.

stockport

A grand total of 9 constituency residents, 0.01%…

As usual, Rukin’s bullshit and bombast falls just as soon as you start looking at the truth.

 

 

 

Stop Hs2 never learn…

25 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by in Anti Hs2 mob, Hs2, Hs2 petitions, Politics, StopHs2

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I’ve not blogged about the anti Hs2 campaign for some time, mainly because their campaign’s collapsed. There’s nothing going on nationally, just a dwindling number of folk moaning about Hs2 on Twitter. Locally, a few campaign groups on Phase 2 continue to make a noise, but their numbers are small and there’s little in the way of co-ordination.

However, last Thursday, Joe Rukin of the sole surviving ‘national’ group (Stop Hs2) decided to start yet another anti Hs2 petition using the Governments template. What a bad idea! I’ve always said that (like social media), these petitions are a double-edged sword. They’re just as likely to show a campaign’s weaknesses as much as its strengths – as is the case here. Regular readers will know I love this petition format as it provided some very interesting numbers to crunch. Signatories are identified by constituency and a total is given as a percentage of resident constituents. So, this morning I crunched the numbers. The petition will run until March 2018, which means Stophs2 have 6 months of embarrassment to come (if they last that long).

Here’s a link to the petition itself. Hs2 petition.PNG

The map that comes with the petition’s the really useful resource as it highlights the constituents with the largest number of signs using different colours. The darker the colour, the more who’ve signed. Now, spot where Hs2 goes!

hs2 petition map

Straight away the map explodes the myth that the Stop Hs2 campaign’s national. It’s clear that it’s anything but. Folk signing the petition are mostly living on the route, with the greatest concentration on Phase 1 around the Chilterns!

Here’s the number crunching, firstly for constituencies on Hs2 Phase 1 – which is a done deal now.

hs2 numbers p1

The first figure is the number of constituents, the second is the number who’ve signed the petition and the final one is the percentage of constituents. The first fact that leaps out is how tiny the percentages are, the largest is just over half 1%! The second fact is that phase 1 signatories make up a third of the grand total of 6229. The other fact is that other constituencies on the phase 1 route aren’t on the spreadsheet as the numbers of signatories are so small.

Now let’s have a look at Phase 2. I’ve divided them between the two legs of Hs2, Manchester and Leeds. Lets look at the Manchester route first.

p2 M'cr

What’s fascinating about this is that so few constituencies Hs2 passes through feature. This proves what I’ve been saying for some time, the stop Hs2 campaign’s always been weak here (there’s never been a single anti Hs2 group in Manchester for example) but now it looks like it’s pretty much collapsed. Despite the presence of a small but noisy Mid-Cheshire ‘action’ group, Congleton constituency only has 25 signs. Stafford has 31.

Now let’s look at the Leeds leg.

hs2 leeds

The numbers show that all the noise that’s come from one or two groups in Yorkshire and elsewhere hasn’t translated into signatures and the percentages for the constituencies are well below what we see on phase 1, which suggests there’s far less outrage about Hs2 here.

It’s worth remembering that these petitions get the greatest number of signs in the first few days. Once the activists have signed, numbers drop off rapidly. To reach it’s target the petition needs over 555 signs every single day for the duration. There’s no chance of that happening. This petition’s utterly pointless. The only thing it’s doing is allowing people to monitor the pulse of the stophs2 ‘campaign’. Judging by these numbers, it won’t be long before someone turns off its life-support machine. I’ll report back monthly, just to monitor what happens.