Sunday, December 10, 2006

assorted observations

I went up to visit my parents in Herefordshire at the weekend. I took Hazel with me (well, we met up on the way) for the obligatory Meet The Parents weekend. Luckily no-one set fire to the house, lost the family cat, sprayed the contents of the septic tank everywhere, broke someone's nose playing volleyball in a swimming pool, etc. Surprising, as it's all so easily done. There are some photographs, but the gallery area appears to be inaccessible at the moment, so it'll have to wait. I'll put a link up as soon as it's back; you'll have to make do with the miniature image here for the moment.

As it was Sunday there were the obligatory engineering works on various parts of the railway network, in particular the Welsh Marches Line between Hereford and Newport, and the Birmingham - Bristol main line. So I had a slightly circuitous rail journey home, specifically from Hereford to Worcester Shrub Hill, and then from there via Gloucester to Bristol. Fascinating railway station fact: Gloucester has the longest railway station platform in Britain, at 1975 feet. The second longest one is in Cambridge; the longest one in the world is in Kharagpur in India at 3517 feet. No idea what it's for.

Zara Phillips appears to have won the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year award. Fair enough I suppose; I didn't really have an opinion as it was a bit of a grim year for British sport. It probably should have been Joe Calzaghe, but they don't give the award to boxers unless they're a) heavyweights, b) lovable showbiz-friendly types like Henry Cooper and Frank Bruno and c) heroic plucky British failures who never actually won anything proper - like Henry Cooper and Frank Bruno. Third place went to gymnast Beth Tweddle (pictured) who is undoubtedly a fine athlete, though she could also, to quote my friend Mario, eat an apple through a letterbox.

1 comment:

Andy said...

That is an interesting fact about Gloucester Railway Station. I always thought it was quite long, but it never occurred to me that it might be the longest in Britain. Wow.

Not sure why your site has gone tits-up [technical term] - nobody else on that server or nearby servers is affected, but we have some of the finest technical brains in Christendom working on it.

When the Boffins get back to me, I'll let you know ...