Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-rike! (It’s the word “strike” elongated)

Image by Annie Mole via Flickr

It seems that my last few (sporadic) posts have been about London transport, as despite being a Travelsaurus stepping on a train seems to be the limit of my travelling at the moment. So, with that in mind, let’s keep talking about it so I can have something to say.

The tubes were on strike. If you live near, in, or even in a place sounding similar to London then you’ll have seen the effects of this strike. Notably on Tuesday (a day when, IF YOU READ MY PREVIOUS POSTS *ahem*, I went into the middle of London to attend a Prom) when it was like a mini apocalypse in the middle of London. Trains were packed, and bus stops were overcrowded as a group of people studied a bus map like apes discovering a monolith. It was fun all around, if your definition of ‘fun’ is ‘close proximity to annoyed sweaty businessmen’.

Wait, which bus is it for London Victora? Are we even on the right side of the street?

But what was the effect of this strike? Yes, it inconvenienced a lot of people, but did it make those people think “they must improve conditions for Tube workers to stop this happening again” or just “I wish those bloody tube workers would just get back to work”. Obviously I sympathize with the Tube workers, but is striking really the best way to get people sympathetic to your cause these days? (this is an actual question as I really don’t know the answer) (why do blog posts have to end on a question anyway, it seems a bit silly, don’t you think?).

The Bizarre Nature of Bus Travel

Image via Wikipedia

I don’t drive, I don’t know how to drive, and really I sort of don’t want to drive. Thankfully, London’s public transport system is such that it’s pretty easy to get anywhere via bus, train or tube. Seeing as where I live is right out in the sticks of zone 6 and we aren’t blessed with a tube station, I’m mostly a bus person.

Travelling on the bus on a daily basis has turned it into a routine – I sit in roughly the same place each time (depending on if it’s a double-decker or single decker), and I’ve even started to notice a couple of odd situations that arise.

1) Sitting in the priority seats makes you judge everyone.
You know the seats, the one at the front with the label “Please make these seats available for the elderly who may need them” (or something to that effect). Sometimes you have to sit in them, they’re the only seats, but as soon as that happens you’re in total judgement mode. Anyone – anyone – who gets on the bus you look at and think “is he/she old enough to need to sit here, he looks like he’s in his 60s but still pretty spry…” It’s a double-edge sword – you either get up and possibly offend someone who is still actually young and fit and can damn well stand, or you annoy a nice elderly person who really shouldn’t have to stand as the bus driver does his own interpretation of how to use a roundabout. Frankly, it’s too much pressure for me – I just want to go home! I don’t want to give you a mental physical check in my mind, assessing your age and physical condition, every time you walk onto the bus. I might as well not even sit in the seat. Which leads me to my next point…

2) We’re all too damn polite to sit down.
More than once there’s been the situation where, on a crowded bus, someone will get up out of a seat and get off. And then everyone stands around the empty seat, not sitting in it. “Oh well you take it, I’m getting off in a few stops.”, “Oh no I’m fine to stand.” So we do. We all stand there, cramped, uncomfortable, while the seat mocks us with it’s emptiness. Why don’t I sit in the seat? Well, I’m getting off in a few stops, so there’s no point!

The perfect oppurtunity to travel… so I don’t think I will.

The British Summer. Image by law_keven via Flickr

This Monday is the fabled August bank holiday. A holiday which, at least according to all the adverts trying to sell me beer, is the holiday day to go out and enjoy the British summer. Of course right now the ‘British Summer’ consists of a lot of rain, but that’s why I love the UK.

But anyway, the point is that Monday will be the day families set off across the country to various places of fun to have fun, and I feel like I should too, because of how much the bank holidays are so important (again, according to beer adverts). So it’s perfect for a day out!

Which is why I wont go. Jammed motorways, crowded city centres, crowded everywhere… Yeah, I think I’ll stay home.

Besides, it’ll be raining anyway, no doubt.

Oh, The Facebook Places You’ll Go…

There’s been a lot of hullabaloo recently about Facebook Places, Facebook’s newest addition and their version of Foursquare (in fact I won’t be surprised if this post gets buried under a mass of other posts about it). Now I’ve talked about Foursquare in a previous post, and I mentioned how it can be a great way to find tips and tricks about places from the people who go there regularly. I also touched on the stalker-ish element, how it can be easy to follow someone by looking at their check-ins, and even finding their Facebook and Twitter pages if you’re mad enough.

And that’s what most people are worried about when it comes to Facebook Places, that it will be an easy way to track where you go and – more worryingly- people will know when you’re not at home (and so are available to be robbed). Now, okay, this has some basis in reality. Back when Facebook was just for colleges it was possible to post your class schedule, which lead to a series of robberies because everyone knew when that student was at class.

I’ve not been able to use Facebook Place first hand yet, both because it’s only available for iPhone, and because it seems to be US-only at the moment, but from what I can tell it works on same principle as Foursquare – you only appear at places you manually check-in to yourself, and your location is only sent to your friends. The only main difference is, as far as I can tell, the ability for your friends to check you in to places for you; and the fact that most people will many a lot more Facebook friends than Foursquare friends.

So is it dangerous? Well, from what I can tell – yes and no. Like most things on the internet it’s only dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing with it. You can easily change the privacy settings to whatever you want (if you think you have friends that will rob you… but if that’s the case I think you have other problems…), and you can disable the ability for friends to check you in (for more privacy options, see this handy post). And of course, the main factor is: if you don’t want people to know where you are – just don’t use it. It’s not mandatory and it will only do what you tell it to. It’s totally up to you.

The only real question here is if it will kill FourSquare, and if so will it keep FourSquare’s great ‘tips’ page!

Missing the Magic of Travel

I used to love using the train. Even if it was just across London, I’d love the experience of the journey – seeing the places you travelled through, the people on the train. It sounds (very) hoaky but still, it was nice. That was when I’d only ever do it once every few months.

Now, though, it’s daily. Every weekday it’s train-time and on I go – commuting with all the other, well, commuters – and it’s sort of lost it’s magic, really. Now it’s just a way to and from work. The train station has become just another place you pass through every day, and the train ride itself has become lost in either the tiredness of being up in the morning on the way to work, or the tiredness of coming home after being at work. Either way, it’s now just sitting down for a while and standing up in a different location.

Oh look. A train. Yawn...

Still, there’s always air travel. Air travel still has all the excitement it used to, most I guess tapping into nostalgia from holidays as a child. Even the stressful stuff, managing with the airport, checking in, sitting down for hours and watching a film you’d never actually watch – it all still has that sense of the start of something fun. Of course, I’m sure if I had to travel by plane on a regular basis I would feel the same thing that I do about train travel. Of course of course if I had I job that meant I travelled by plain on a regular basis that would probably soften the blow…

The Music of Travel

When I walk around any train station, or any city centre, one thing I notice more and more is the amount of people with headphones in their ears, listening to music (or maybe even a podcast). And it’s not a bad thing – I do it too – but I can’t help wonder how much of the atmosphere of a place we miss just by doing that.

So much of the feel of a place we get though our ears. The background noises, the conversations in the background, the sound of the weather. All of it comes together to create a sound unique to the place you’re in. I don’t want to get into some deep music philosophy with you, but you could even make the argument that the ambient noise you’re hearing is in itself a type of music, a soundtrack of the place you’re in. I’ve noticed myself that when, say, my headphones die or the battery on my phone is dead, and I spend that trap across the city music-less, I get a totally different feel to the places I’m going through. Or maybe I’m just a bit mad. It’s probably that…

So next time you want to really feel the place you’re in, especially if it’s a new and exotic place, take the headphones out and listen.

The Car – Dangerous for 114 years.

We all know the dangers of car travel, both to the driver and to other people. But something I found interesting to read recently was this article on the BBC’s site about the UK’s first ever fatal car accident.

It’s really just amazing to think what it must have been like for the unfortunate casualty. Nowadays we’re all very blasé about our roads filled with cars zooming past, and even about car accidents themselves mostly (although everyone will still stop and stare…). But back then in 1896 it must have seemed like madness.

I love the way the car is described in the old police reports: “the car went at a ‘tremendous pace’, like a fire engine – ‘as fast as a good horse could gallop“, it really captures the idea that no one had any idea what they were even dealing with.

Of course, seeing this just makes you wonder what strange device we use today will become so commonplace in 100 years time. Maybe we’ll soon see the world first Segway fatality (unless there’s been one already…), and in the year 2110 someone on a direct-to-brain-blog (a DTBB, naturally) will wonder why everyone thought it was so strange…

I WILL Prom this year

If you live in the UK, and have the habit of turning on BBC 2 in the evenings, then you can’t help but notice that it’s Prom season.  The Proms, now in it’s 115th year, is the highlight of the year of classical music fans (like me), but even though I live literally a train ride from the Royal Albert Hall, I’ve never taken the opportunity to actually go there.

But not this year. I’ve made my mind up, this year I will go. To two. With the cheap £5 tickets. But a cheap £5 ticket to a BBC prom is still a ticket to a damn prom, so it counts!

The first one I have my eye on is on the 3rd of September – Mahler’s 1st Symphony. I love Mahler’s 1st Symphony so damn much. Especially the 2nd movement.

The second is on the 7th of September: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (you may know it as ‘The bit with the dinosaurs’ from Fantasia). Although it’s only half an hour long, it’s still worth a fiver to see it played live.

So really, it’s easy to pop into a prom if you’re anywhere in the area. Just get there early to queue up for the on-the-day £5 tickets, and you’re set!

The Survival Holiday

I was recently asked by a friend of mine what I would do if I were lost in the rainforest and had to survive on what was there. I of course replied with “um” and then “well, I guess, eat some leaves or something?”.

That was not the right answer. He, of course, had the right answer – which food to eat, animals to kill, insects to eat… yeah… Everything Ray Mears.

And it’s not just him either, lots of people seem to be in lover with the idea of living in the middle of nowhere surviving on what you can. So my question is… is it a future travel possibility? Book a flight into the middle of a jungle with just a knife and a bit of string (and, sure, a satellite phone for emergencies) and spend two weeks – or however long you can last – surviving in the wild. I’m sure plenty of people would take up that offer – but I don’t know how many would actually see it through!

Travelling the World from your Sofa

It’s hard to go out and travel these days – well it is for me – mainluyy due to the lack of that stuff called money. But as I’ve learnt over the years, the internet literally has everything you could possibly want on it (and a lot you don’t want).

So here’s a great little site I found: Google Sightseeing.

It does pretty much what you think it would do – point out interesting locations on Google Earth, and now Google Streetview. It’s a great way to spend a few hours when you’re feeling like to weant to get away from it all – and it’s a great way to see all the strange things the world has to offer without having to spend any of that pesky money.