The end of another week here at Bigland Towers and it’s been one of my most inactive for quite some time. By inactive I mean spending more time indoors at home than being out and about. I’ve problems with an elbow which has been cramping my style. I’ve no idea what I’ve done or how I’ve done it but it’s restricting my camera arm. Hopefully, now I have a physio appointment booked I can get it sorted out.
The awful weather we’ve been having hasn’t exactly encouraged me to get out much either apart from a couple of brief forays. Instead, I’ve been catching up with paperwork and picture editing in the comfort of my office. The only occupational hazard here is risking developing corns on my bum from all the sitting I’m doing. I’m not used to being this confined at all. To add to the ‘fun’ the Met Office has issued a new storm warning for this neck of the woods. Apparently, storm Debi is on its way, bringing high winds and (surprise, surprise) yet more rain. Just what we need when it’s hardly stopped all day! Getting to Nottingham tomorrow for the annual Community Rail Network conference may prove interesting…
In the meantime, here’s a picture of something I’ve not been able to see at all today. The other side of the Calder Valley and beyond – and certainly not with skies like this!
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My, wasn’t that predictable? Today’s scenes from London went on as suspected. The Metropolitan police reckon that 300,000 people joined the march calling for a cease-fire and end to the violence in Palestine and Israel. The demonstration included a cross-section of people and religions, including both Jews and Muslims. No arrests were reported and the demonstration went nowhere near the Cenotaph. But then it was never planned to. Protests about the situation in Palestine/Israel also passed off peacefully in Cardiff and Glasgow.
Meanwhile, egged on by the rhetoric from Home Secretary Suella Braverman, a few hundred far-right knuckle-draggers – including professional far-right grifter Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka ‘Tommeh’ Robinson turned up at the Cenotaph in London to ‘protect’ it from *checks notes* themselves. After which, they went on the rampage through central London (including Chinatown and Pimlico) which led to (so far) over 100 arrests.
Having incited such violence and hatred it’s hard to imagine any other Home Secretary staying in their job, but this is a Tory Government ‘led’ by Rishi Sunak who’s so weak that it looks likely Braverman will get away with it. Sunak has condemned the “unacceptable scenes” but not his Home Secretary who incited them, who apparently, has his ‘full support’. Will she classify the far-right running battles as a ‘hate march’ the way she did the peaceful protest? Of course she won’t.
God, what has this country become – apart from a plaything/battleground of yet more internal Tory party ambitions and lies? Surely, the few remaining decent Tories (yes, they do exist) must make their voices heard. Or is the party too far gone? I fear that question’s rhetorical.
Meanwhile, I’ll end this blog with a literal ray of sunshine. Things can only get better…
Decent folk of the UK watching the sun set on the Tory party and 13 years of shit…
Sunday update.
The Met police now confirm that some arrests *were* made at the main demonstration and that 3 people are under investigation for hate crimes (the banners they were carrying were appalling). The Met also say that while the march itself did not see such physical violence, serious offences relating to antisemitic hate crimes were being investigated (and rightly so).
Sadly with such a large crowd (300,000) you’ll always get some bad eggs, it’s a statistical certainty. But those few shouldn’t detract from the fact one demonstration was overwhelmingly peaceful – and one was not. One was condemned by our Home Secretary and one was egged on. Guess which was which.
It’s no wonder the UK’s Jewish community is feeling under siege at the moment. I’ve no sympathy for anyone espousing violence (from any side) towards anyone. I can only hope our political ‘leaders’ like Braverman are seen for what they are – cynically manipulating sentiments for their own ends.
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I’ve had another day working from home here at Bigland Towers, which has allowed me to have news channels and podcasts playing in the background as the the Tory Government descends even more into a farce as our hateful Home Secretary, Suella Braverman spreads her hate speech even further. Not content with attacking the homeless, she’s moved on to protesters angered by what’s going on in Palestine/Israel, labelling them as terrorist sympathisers – and at the same time impugning the police (and indirectly, the Ulster Unionists of Northern Ireland). All this seems to be in direct challenge to the Prime Ministers authority as Braverman positions herself as the flag-bearer of the right, who’ll lead them in their culture wars. Sunak looks too weak and to indecisive to sack her, so the war will continue over the weekend – and beyond. Police, fearing that the far-right will mass to ‘protect’ the Cenotaph from an imaginary threat on Remembrance Sunday will have thousands of officers on the streets over the weekend.
There’s just a couple of teeny-tiny problems with Braverman’s rhetoric. The protest march is scheduled for Saturday (Armistice day, not Remembrance Sunday) and it’s not planned to go anywhere near the Cenotaph, as this BBC map makes clear.
Yet again, the country’s caught up in more Tory-infighting, this time over who’ll be next leader of the party when Sunak leads the next election. We’ve been here before. Last time it was the infighting over Europe that led to Brexit, and the economic and reputational harm that did.
Which brings me back to the title of this blog. In all the Tory infighting, they’re forgotten what they’re meant to be here for. It’s the economy and the wellbeing and prosperity of the nation – only that’s been thrown under the bus (that same red one, the one that promised £350m extra for the NHS). Because if you look away from the infighting, you may just notice that the UK economy’s in the doldrums. Have you seen the stock exchange recently? Here’s how it looks today. Down 1.28% It’s been up and down like a bride’s nightie all year. This is the biggest fall in three months as news of the economy flatlining has broken. Having been hit by interest rate rises and inflation, we’ve narrowly avoided going into recession.
But what are the Government doing about it? Well, nothing positive. Sunak’s lied about things as usual. Just three days ago he claimed the economy was growing! Oh, he also lied about debt falling! The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) had to point out that (in fact) the opposite is true. Now, what was that Sunak said about bringing ““integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level” back to Government?
Lies and culture wars are all we’re left with by this lot nowadays. This week the secretive fossil-fuel funded lobbyists at the Institute of Economic Affairs tried to claim that Brexit was marvelous and our sales to the EU had risen. The truth? They hadn’t adjusted their figures for inflation. When you did, the opposite was true and trade with the EU had fallen by 7.2%. Of course, the right-wing press only mentioned what the IEA claimed and ignored the chart in their report that showed the opposite! Funny, that…
It took the likes of Johnathon Portes, Professor of Economics, King’s College London to expose the IEA’s lie on Twitter (Sod off Elon, I’m not calling it X).
Lying at the heart of Government has become endemic. The Tories have made such a mess of the economy after 13 years it’s no wonder all they and the rest of the right-wing want to do is talk about ‘culture wars and the ‘woke’. And let’s not even mention what’s happening with the NHS.
Don’t be fooled. Don’t let them keep throwing dead cats on the table as a distraction. I hope there’s no trouble in London this weekend, but don’t let the Government weaponise it for their own ends. People have the right to protest, the right to have their voices heard. Even the Royal British Legion have come out in support of people’s right to protest – and who should know more about people fighting for freedom?
So, I come back to that phrase coined by James Carville in 1992 and used by Bill Clinton’s election team. It IS the economy that matters – and don’t let the Tories and their friends in the media distract you from that fact.
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Apologies for my absence these past few days. I not really been in the mood for blogging. I’ve been kept busy with other things and really couldn’t find either the time or the inclination. Besides, what I’d have penned would have turned into more spleen-venting on the state of the country and the Tory party in particular – so at least you’ve been spared that! Normal service will resume shortly.
I’ve been spending much of my time cooped-up here in Bigland Towers for one reason and another. It could be worse as the weather here in the Pennines has been dank and dismal so being in the warm and dry has had its compensations – such as being warm and dry!
I’ve also managed to wade through a backlog of pictures which have now been filed away on multiple hard-drives or added to my Zenfolio website which has been good timing as Zenfolio have started archiving galleries’ on people’s websites that haven’t been updated for over three years. It’s a pain as many of mine are historic galleries that I can hardly update as the subject matter disappeared years ago! Still, it’s given me the impetuous I’ve needed to begin slimming down and consolidating the number of galleries on my website. They’ve got a bit out of hand in the past 12 years. It’s a big task as it’s a slow one. Zen’s a bit cumbersome when it comes to moving pictures around so it’s going to take some time. On the bright side I’ve been looking through pictures I’ve not checked out for years. Hopefully, the process will be finished by the Spring.
In the meantime, there’s plenty of other things to keep me occupied. It looks like I’ll be doing a lot more writing for a living in 2024, which is no bad thing. I enjoy it and it gets me out and about almost as much as taking pictures.
Talking of pictures, here’s today’s. It being autumn woodlands are bounteous places. Our local squirrels are certainly making the most of the seasons largesse. Unfortunately a lot of it seems to be getting added to my pots and flowerbeds! Here’s one thing we don’t have in our area. Sweet Chestnuts. The woods around the hotel where Dawn and I stayed in the Lake District were full of them. As soon as I have time I’ll be writing a review of the Wild Boar as it’s well worth a visit. In the meantime, here’s what covered their woodland floor.
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‘Tis been a quiet weekend here at Bigland Towers. Partly because the weather’s been so bloody awful, but partly because it’s been nice to have the downtime and the opportunity for the two of us to spend some quality time together as well as to catch-up with various chores and bits.
I’d quite fancied the idea of attending a local firework display but the one’s I could find were on Saturday when the weather was crap. I’m glad I didn’t book as I ended up getting soaked just nipping out for some shopping. Standing around in the rain, trying to look up when you wear glasses wouldn’t have been much fun at all. I might as well have stayed at home, stayed dry and stared into a Kaleidoscope! Instead we had a quiet night in with me cooking, enjoying air-fried chicken thighs with a lovely honey, chili and soy sauce glaze, dressed with spring onions and Coriander and served with steamed veg. Bugger, I forgot to take a picture!
Today’s been better, the rain has (mostly) stayed away, allowing the two of us to get out for an evening stroll which eventually led us to our local pub for a drink and a warm by a real fire. Yes, they’re very un PC in these days of Climate Change, but when it comes to my contribution (or not) towards screwing up the planet, they’re the least of my concerns. If you want to help the planet survive, don’t have kids and don’t vote Tory…
Talking of voting Tory (or not, if you have any sense of community, decency or self-preservation) I couldn’t help but wonder what the latest gaffe from our Home Secretary, Cruella, sorry Suella Braverman is meant to be a dead cat for? I mean, suggesting that to want to ban and fine charities from giving tents to homeless people because homelessness is a ‘lifestyle choice‘? Even she can’t be this stupid (oh yeah? Ed) so what’s this a distraction for – the Covid enquiry? The sooner we’re shut of these asset-strippers, feather-bedders and shysters the better. But I’ll bet they’ll hang on as long as they can to remove all the fittings they can get money for. And the next election will be dirty and divisive. The Tories will fight the ‘culture wars’ as they can’t defend their 13 year record on the economy (they’ve trashed it) all they’ll do is pick on minorities as a tactic to appeal to their ageing and intolerant vote-bank – and their friends in the media will cheer them on.
Right, I wasn’t going to vent any spleen tonight, it just sort of happened. So now I’ll leave you with a picture of the day which isn’t in any way political and should hopefully make you go ‘awww’ Back in December 2022 I was standing in a queue to get through the ticket barriers at London’s St Pancras and felt this pair of eyes on me. Then I looked down and saw this.
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I’ve long said that the UK’s ‘green’ movement is hypocritical and unfit for purpose. Their years-old stance of opposing us building HS2, the new spine of the British railway network is the classic example of this. The Green Party of England and Wales (The Scots are separate, and sensible) have a mad policy where they support building a new North-South high-speed line ‘in principal’ but vehemently oppose it in practice. So much so that their energies go into trying to stop a railway whilst giving road construction a free pass.
Yesterday, their outgoing MP for Brighton, Caroline Lucas tweeted this load of tosh whilst linking to a Guardian article on the trial and conviction of Gail Bradbrook, one of the co-founders of ‘Extinction Rebellion’.
Where to start? Was Bradbrook convicted of protesting? No. She was convicted of criminal damage, for smashing a plate glass window in protest against the building of HS2! Yep, protesting against building a new railway! Not a road, not a motorway – a railway! Criminal damage is NOT covered by article 11 of the ECHR law. It is NOT a ‘peaceful protest’ – it’s criminal damage. That some ‘greens’ simply can’t get their heads around that because of their exceptionalism is just another reason I have little time for them.
I won’t go into the rubbish Lucas has claimed about HS2 ‘destroying’ nature. Regular readers will have seen me cover that canard at length in previous blogs. I tweeted this is response to Lucas.
“Without Hs2 we won’t have the rail capacity we need to get modal shift from road/air to rail to cut #co2 emissions to tackle GLOBAL #ClimateChange. Stopping HS2 isn’t ‘green’ it’s the opposite. You’re literally doing the fossil fuel lobby’s job for it”.
This rattled Bradbrook’s cage, as she responded with two tweets, both of which sent my irony meter off the scale! The first quotes the Times newspaper and its recent attempts to fly air-cover for Sunak and the Tories by rehashing old claims of corruption with HS2 Ltd as a way of diverting attention from the mess they’ve got themselves into by cancelling parts of HS2. Never forget, who had oversight and control of HS2 Ltd? The Government. But, a founder of XR? Using a Murdoch-owned newspaper as ‘evidence’? Bless! However, it was this tweet that was the most interesting.
This is a link to an anonymous document with no provenance and no names on it to say who compiled it. Called ‘supporting facts and figures’ it’s essentially a cut and paste job a list of cobbled together reasons and ‘evidence’ of why ‘greens’ should oppose HS2. It’s a litany of lies, discredited claims and things that never, ever happened, including the classic that “HS2 is the largest deforestation exercise in the UK in over 100 years, not since WWI has the UK cut down so many trees”. I skewered that one here back in 2019!
But the real doozies are these. Amongst the list of cut and paste incoherency and contradictions the list uses ‘evidence’ and quotes from both the Institute for Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange, two of the most opaque right-wing ‘think tanks’ in the UK.
Both have been linked to being funded by oil companies. The ironies here are weapons grade! In 2018 a Greenpeace investigation linked the IEA to British Petroleum (BP)! In 2022 it was revealed that Policy Exchange is partially funded by ExxonMobil! Next is where we hit ‘through the looking glass’ territory. The Open Democracy investigation revealed that the new controversial anti-protest law may have originated in a briefing from Policy Exchange! Bradbrook is espousing the views of the very people who may have helped the Government impose the law she’s spent so much of her time protesting against and claims to be a victim of!
That a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion is circulating this travesty of the truth and actively promoting the views of climate-change denying, fossil-fuel funded ‘think tanks’ is beyond belief. Or is it? I’ve long harbored suspicions that XR is a front for attempts to discredit and sideline the green movement by showing them up as a bunch of fools who do more harm than good. Lets face it, many of their actions have had real greens holding their head in their hands. Gluing yourselves to green electric public transport to disrupt the lives of ordinary people is a bizarre way to get people ‘on side’. Many of their actions seem to be intent on alienating ordinary people and provide the right-wing media with a massive stick to beat the environmental lobby with. Is this by accident, or design? The fact the likes of Braybrook are peddling fossil fuel lobbyists anti rail propaganda looks less like stunning ignorance of who these lobbyists are and more like a deliberate attempt to further their agendas.
Bradbrook claims to be a ‘trained scientist’. But if this is the quality of her research…
Still, I’m sure Bradbrook spends even more of her time campaigning and Tweeting about the 1000s of miles of new roads the Tories are planning to build, doesn’t she? Oh, wait. @CanburyLiberal did a search on Twitter and found this. Nada, zilch, zip, SFA…
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After a wonderful couple of days away thanks to my wonderful wife who arranged a special treat for my birthday we’re both back with our noses to the grindstone. Whilst Dawn’s been busy playing catch-up with her day to day work for Community Rail Network I’ve slipped on my CRN judges hat to spend all day wading through the entries for their 2024 awards. To be honest, it’s a pleasure rather than a chore as I get to learn about so many fabulous groups and the amazing stuff they’ve been up to over the past 12 months and more. There’s some really inspirational groups out there and the work they do is amazing. Judging them is really hard as the standard’s so high. In many cases there’s really not much in it, but we have a points based system spread over four categories, which makes life easier for myself and my fellow judge for the ‘It’s your station’ category – Mark Barker.
Now the first sift is done and all that remains is for me to fill out the awarded points on the spreadsheet and crunch the numbers. Then, in a few days time when both judges individual scores are combined we’ll meet to talk through the results and agree the final marks and winners of the four rankings (Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze). My work isn’t entirely done. I still have the shortlist for the photographic competition to select, this time with fellow judge Alice Mannion from CRN. The winner will be chosen from the shortlist by public vote.
Today’s been a good day to be stuck inside as the weather’s been awful, nothing but grey skies, mist and rain – although (so far) we’ve escaped the latest storm that’s battering the South coast. It’s heading our way but we’re expected to miss the worst of it as it passes through overnight. However, I’ll see how the weather is tomorrow morning before I make any plans. There’s still plenty for me to do at home if it’s not up to much.
Tonight I’ll leave you with a picture that illustrates the work of the community rail. The work the volunteers (and staff) carry out around the network is amazing. It’s not all station gardens or posters either. There’s restored buildings, station cafes, food banks, fetes and much, much more. Here’s on example from the friends of Buxton station who had ‘Joe’ made from scrap railway items donated from the site of the old Buxton locomotive depot. You can read all about the brilliant work this group are involved in here.
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Today – in a classic example of weasel words and buck passing – Transport Minister Mark Harper has announced the closure programme has been scrapped. Harper claims that:
““The proposals that have resulted from this process do not meet the high thresholds set by ministers, and so the government has asked train operators to withdraw their proposals”
Train operators proposals? What a classic attempt to pass the buck!
Saved for now. The lovely old booking office at Bridlington was one of many proposed for closure.
This whole process was started by Harper and the Department for Transport back in July when they INSTRUCTED operators to come up with proposals to close ticket offices. It wasn’t the operators idea. Why would it be? Contrary to what some in the media and on the political left claim this wouldn’t have made the operators any more money – exactly the opposite, because under their contracts they get paid a management fee for operating ticket offices. Reduce the size of the pie and you reduce the size of the operators slice of said pie.
This whole debacle is Harper and the Governments fault. They completely miscalculated the levels of opposition to their ‘cunning plan’ and were taken aback at the strength and size of the reactions. 750,000 people responded to Transport Focus’ consultation, many of them from the Tory-voting shires. The issue of access to the network hadn’t been though out – as the results of the consultation made plain.
Don’t be fooled by Harper’s claims and weasel words and when it comes to the next election – remember who’s really responsible for (mis)managing the railways. This government.
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
After a busy few days (and with more to come) it’s time for a break. As part of my birthday bash my wonderful wife Dawn has arranged for the pair of us to have a luxury night away in the lake district. We’re in no rush to get there, the weather’s hardly conducive to long walks in the countryside – we can’t even see the other side of the valley through the rain and murk here, but that’s not the point of the trip. It’s chance for the pair of us to have some quality time together in lovely surroundings. Let’s see how the trip goes…
14:50.
We’re on our way cross-country via Skipton and Hellifield. Here’s the rush-hour and sunshine at Clapham. No, not that one – the other one!
16:00.
We’ve arrived at the Wild Boar – which is rather special…
Did I mention it has its own microbrewery? Our room’s not too shabby either. Dawn’s done a fabulous job in finding this place.
18:15.
Wow! What a lovely place and way to relax. We’ve spent the past couple of hours sat downstairs by the real fire in the bar area having a drink, chatting and watching the residents go by. Now it’s time to dress for dinner. Not too dressy mind – most of the hotel guests are like us and normally wearing walking gear.
21:30.
We’re both stuffed after eating a meatfest in the restaurant. Dawn had the Venison and I had the Mallard. Both were gorgeous, and not something we’d cook at home hence us ordering them. The irony? The dish we both enjoyed the most was a side dish – roasted Butternut squash with pickled Walnuts!
Mallard with some interesting (but light) sides. Dawn’s melt off the bone Venison.
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It’s early but I’m on the rails again. This time heading to Aylesbury from Central London in order to (hopefully) record the first beams of the deck of the new HS2 viaduct being lifted into place. I’ll blog throughout the day when I can. For now, I’ll let this picture do the talking!
08:05.
The job’s been pushed back a couple of hours so I’ve had time to take a trip out to Princes Risborough and back on the first day of the line reopening after the recent blockade.
17:00.
S’cuse the huge gap here, but that’s due to being very busy and also being knackered. Today’s been another fascinating day learning about and seeing modern construction techniques that are making HS2 such a green railway. Forget the absolute dross you hear from ani HS2 protesters, Nimbys and a former BBC Environment Correspondent who’re still chucking out a decade and more old table top calculation, this is the real world and real construction where the UKs’ importing skills from abroad and people who’ve been doing this for years. The old methods went out of the window years ago.
The site I’ve been visiting is that of the Thame viaduct. It’s nowhere near as grand as the iconic Colne Valley viaduct as it’s low-lying (3.3 meters high) and only 880 meters long as its designed to cross a floodplain – and today was an ideal time to see that floodplain in action! The reason for today’s visit was that the girders that form the deck of the bridge have started to be lifted into place and a few of us were invited along to watch the operation.
I’m currently heading back to Yorkshire from Kings Cross after returning to London, so I’ll be adding a few pictures shortly. Bear with me!
17:30.
Here’s some pics from the day.
The cranes are prepped, ready to lift the 4th girder into place.
The lorry arrives with the girder. This is a fine example of how HS2 is spreading wealth around the UK. The crane on the left is on hire from a company in Inverness, Scotland. The HGV bringing the girder in us from a company in Richmond, North Yorkshire, whilst the company manufacturing the girders and pillars is based on the Isle of Grain. Kent.
Two girders which have already been installed sitting on their prefabricated piers.The girder is slowly, gently swung into place before being lowered onto the bearings. Gently does it. The girder inches down onto the bearings and a jack which will be used for the final (vertical) alignment.Here’s what you don’t see. This is the piling for pier 18, inside the coffer dam constructed to keep the flood plain water at bay. Each of these piles is 45 meters deep. A prefabricated pier that’s already been assembled, waiting for the girders to arrive. The flooded fields in the background give away why this bridge is needed, even though it’s only 3.3 meters in height it’s 880m length bridges the area.
18:30.
We’ve just left Doncaster and I’m looking forward to getting home. It’s been a long day…
20:20.
Right, I’m home and uploading a few camera pictures of the Thame valley viaduct for your delectation. When I have time I’ll add some more technical details. But for now, this is me signing off!
I’ve a small favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Paul Bigland 