Scotland Holiday - Day 2

If it's shiny, happy people you want, I suggest you listen to REM's 1991 album 'Out of Time'. You won't find them on the Saturday evening streets of Glasgow where you are more likely to encounter the star of the next Channel 4 documentary on being not very healthy. I know a large number of very nice Scottish people at work but they were not represented by the crowds cluttering shop and restaurant fronts in Scotland's premier city (sorry, Edinburgh)where 'last gasp' is a way of life as much as it is a way of death and smoking does not seem to have been reduced by being forced outside. This was an evening of harsh accents, murdered vowels, public tattoes and mutton dressed as mutton. It was not attractive but I imagine that London at the same time is no more attractive - I am seldom there to judge.

For much of the day rain affected our activities and I can only say I was disappointed as we are on holiday. We went to see Greg's aunts and I used my compact camera to capture moments which might not arise again. The compacts of today are remarkable and I used mine again in the evening to capture buses on my dinner trip when I would not carry anything larger.

For the picture I include here, I used my bridge camera. We drove past this inspiring, wonderful statue and turned around just to photograph it.


With Greg resting I used my 'Roundabout' ticket to move around a little but lacked motivation largely because of the persistent precipitation. I was impressed with Partick station which has very smart buildings. In a complete contradiction of normal memories, the Subway seemed larger than I recall. It is very well used and care has been taken to make the stations light and safe. The ticket is good value but I was taken aback to have to obtain a supplementary ticket (free) in order to access the Subway. Queen Street is, frankly, dull compared to the 70s and 80s when locomotives were common at that station. Rain made speed necessary for the short walk to Central. Buchanan Street and the station precinct were heaving with people and I lost the last of my motivation especially having taken photographs last night.

We went out in the evening hoping to try Taco Mazama which I had seen advertised on the Subway but it was unattractive in real life and we turned instead to Bombay Blues for Indian buffet. I have reviewed it in a previous blog but can not remember what I said. Tonight, however, in spite of a slightly odd selection oddly labelled, it was very tasty and good value too. I watched with interest mid-meal as a local harridan exhorted her inebriated husband to "move". They were, apparently, ready to leave, perhaps for their monthly sex. I was inwardly surprised when he made it down the steps but doubted that he would make it 'up'. I returned my attention to the Times and looked forward to tomorrow's journey to Edinburgh.

Source Restaurant - Marriott Hotel Glasgow

In my previous blogs I have written about the improvement in Marriott restaurants. Circumstances dictated that we again put this to the test on the Friday night of our holiday in Scotland. The menu at the Glasgow Marriott’s Source restaurant looked interesting enough and, by Marriott standards, reasonable priced at a promotional £25for three courses.

All the food was attractively and promptly presented. I was pleased with my goat’s cheese and pine nut salad with roasted shallots which added interesting texture and flavour. Greg was less impressed with salmon fishcakes which appeared to be too wet and whose chilli salsa was hard to detect.

Greg’s belly pork with black pudding mash did not disappoint and neither did my well cooked sea bass with ratatouille. My small accompanying potatoes had been cooked without salt. It is the modern way to be scared of this once essential addition.

My dessert was an unexceptional banana and caramel pavlova which gained nothing from the use of proprietary meringue but provided the sugar hit I needed. Greg was well served by a cheese platter with generous portions of both cheese and biscuits. Recently we have seen this dish subject to a surcharge but there was none here and the quantity of biscuits was appropriate for the amount of cheese which is not always so.

Given the quality and cost it was surprising that the restaurant was poorly patronised albeit we ate early.


7.5 out of 10 for mostly good food that was just about value for money

Car Parking Scams

Beyond the supermarkets and oil companies (at their petrol stations) there is another source of scam which is better hidden; less obvious until you stop to think about it.

How much do you pay for parking? We all use parking places and car parks and most of us are pretty alert to the myriad, complex and inconsistent restrictions which affect us when so doing. The nature of parking difficulties these days allows the providers to rip us off and many miss no opportunity.

The most obvious technique is where tariffs are for odd amounts but the machine gives no change. Here they are counting on people having no change and resignedly inserting a large coin thus leaving extra profit for the provider. How many times do they receive £1 for a 60p or 70p charge?

There is no reason, no reason at all in this computerised age, why providers should not use per minute charging and yet I have seen this only once on a recent European holiday. Instead they choose to charge in large blocks of time so that if you park, for example, for 2 hours and 2 mins, you pay the 3-6 hour tariff. A nice little earner as they say.

Hotels have now started routinely and openly charging for their parking although it is not clear in many cases how you would reach the hotel without a car. Whilst I am sure that the facility would in any case be included in the room rate there is no need to gerrymander the accommodation charge and bill parking separately. The cost can be a nominal £3 a night or so but at London’s County Hall Marriott for example (the last time we stayed) it was an eye-watering £30.

Finally, one more recent wheeze thought up no doubt by some company’s Revenue Maximisation Manager. In many service area car parks now are displayed prominent notices exhorting one to ‘pay by phone’ and providing helpful details on how to do so. This is a great one for catching out our foreign visitors as it is much less obvious on the notices that the first two hours is still free – so that the majority of people need never pay such a charge. I imagine from the insidious spread of these notices that the revenue generated is enough to cover cost of the signs for a fee most of us do not need to pay.

Always be alert for people trying to take your money and do everything legal to stop them. It pays to think.

Scotland Holiday - Day 1

The day started with some disappointing cloud and I very nearly forgot some of the stuff I needed with me. We were under way early and ate well at Sutton Scotney. The services there are verging on the inadequate but the Little Chef seems consistently good with service fairly attentive and prompt. Our second stop at Norton Canes generated the money for the M6 toll and rather more as we both won on the machines. Next time we go there should be more £500 machines there. Much less satisfactory in most respects was our last motorway stop at Lancaster (formerly Forton). It is certainly very ugly and was not enhanced today by the onset of heavy rain. The toilets were overcrowded and overheated to a level which might have been welcome in January but was inappropriate for today. In fact the whole of the very dated service area seemed cramped as though designed for smaller people. The ladies toilet had a huge queue and that is something you rarely see today. The saving grace was the excellent food from M & S food.

Several sets of roadworks north of Preston became tedious. A combination of the usual thoughtlessness of the Highways Agency and the apparent lethargy of a sparse workforce seemed to involve the destruction of a lot of the verge – at sites just far enough apart for one to be able to speed up between them in an essentially futile manner. The work evidently involved a bonanza for shareholders in whatever firm makes that ubiquitous purple piping.

Carlisle Cameo

With the rain continuing, I was not sure about the wisdom of stopping in Carlisle but we did. It seemed that the station was difficult to access by road and we parked a little way away. I was beginning to tense up when I discovered that they no longer do platform tickets. With revenue protection staff having a day out at this station and the coffee bar I wanted for Greg on the platform, I wondered what to do. Fortunately the ticket office lady was very helpful and had a solution. I simply bought a cheap ticket – a ‘Duo’ ticket in fact – and was free to move around. There were several photographers at this classic railway location and with both police and staff much in evidence, not a hint of hassle for any of us. Once again I was very pleased with my pictures. The Friday traffic on our departure was nightmarish but no more, I suppose, than many towns or cities.



The weather remained poor for much of the journey and our evening in Glasgow was one of protracted dusk. Dark cloud removed many photographic opportunities but we went anyway to Glasgow Central where I got more good results by using timer and handy surfaces.

Pre-Navy Days 29 July 2010

NAVY_001 29 July 2010
Originally uploaded by John Oram

In case you were wondering I did see some of the early arrivals for Navy Days. Here (from front) RFA Argus, Type 45 HMS Dauntless & HMS Westminster.

In The Mood

Taking adavntage of beautiful if slightly uncommitted weather, I went to Gosport to take the ferry to Portsmouth. I wanted to see the preparations for this weekend's Navy Days. There were limited views as sightseeing trips begin tomorrow but the trip turned into a photographic delight as I was inspired by many other things around me. The only slight disappointment was that the roof of the Hard Interchange building, an ostensible viewing gallery, is closed. I hope that it might re-open one day.

24

In less than 24 hours we shall depart for Scotland. I am excited at the opportunities the journey and destination present for photography. Scanning will be suspended for a while and I hope to add plenty of new material to FB, Flickr and blog. In addition to my usual transport subjects I shall be looking for anything unusual or a new angle on the familiar. My Flickr stats are growing - one image I uploaded yesterday already has had 13 views and, at work, one of my pictures will appear on Picture of the Day on August 5th. I hope to photograph Antony Gormley's '6 Times' in and on Water of Leith (as a Heathrow controller I should have no problem with access). Today, I shall visit Portsmouth harbour to see if I can preview Navy Days which I shall miss while I am away. How fortunate it is to have so many things to do that one can not do them all.

851823

851823
Originally uploaded by John Oram

All this time ago (11 January 1986), before two wars, both savage and one illegal, we were friends with Iraq and had supported them in the Iran-Iraq war. I think I recall (although frankly my memory fades) that these Iraqi IL76s could also be seen at Manchester when I worked there ten years earlier in 1976. Goodness knows what we were loading into them. Ah well; what goes around comes around huh?

In The Garden and In My Chair

In the garden beauty was represented by two of our regular goldfinch visitors feeding on both nyger seeds and sunflower hearts. Our garden birds bring me great joy.

Inside, eschewing my normal post-second morning duty sleep, I set to scanning yet more photographs. I was thrilled to be asked for use of one of my images at http://www.bcalreunited.co.uk/ My Flickr stats are climbing sharply too and that is all I can ask. It is hard to say that memories have been stirred because, without looking at my diaries, I have no recollection of visits I obviously made as my photgraphs are my own - I do not post others. I was moved though by handling my pictures of the final months and years of the Trident 3s 1985-7. These can be viewed on my Facebook page and at http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnoram/

It Hasn't Been Painless

A tough morning at work required the remedy of an evening scanning and uploading. Some of my Heathrow photographs warmed my heart, especially my "tribute to D58 (below)".

The scanning requires patience. Invaluable though the scanner is, it is not without quirks. Some images gain artefacts; some can be cropped out, others need redoing. The device sometimes passes a print straight through for no obvious reason. But, in the end, I believe it is worth it.

Heathrow in the 1980s

With only one week to go to what should be a very productive trip, I have continued my scanning activities with uploads to Flickr and Facebook. I am focusing on my photographs from Heathrow in the 1980s. The images include unusual visitors, the last months of Tridents Two and Three and Concordes in their heyday.

A Flickr Milestone

Today with uncharacteristic patience I scanned my remaining photographs of European railways and with the uploads passed the 1000 mark on my Flickr photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnoram/ There is still a huge task ahead with my remaining albums but, in the meantime, I continue to produce new images, some of them even worthwhile. I don't like to 'dump' on Flickr so you only see images I am somewhat pleased with in the first place.

Please look out for my 1980s aircraft photographs with a special feature from Heathrow.

In just one week I shall be heading for Glasgow and Edinburgh and, shortly afterwards, for Paris by A380. I hope for a lot of fresh photographs and hope I can keep up.

A Quiet Time

I am not writing much at the moment for several reasons. I am, of course, slightly numb after my night shifts. I have not been angry - I often write more when annoyed by something or someone. I am content. I have not been travelling much but that will change soon with trips to Scotland and Paris. Finally, I am still finding my way with this new blog. My next objective is to decide how best to incorporate my photographs which are available primarily at http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnoram/

Things Can Only Get Better

When my original blog host said it was withdrawing the service, I changed to Windows Live. I was happy with that for a long while but then it started displaying erratic behaviours and my friends complained of not being able to link. My competence onlne is minimal so I have moved home with apprehension and via an unsatisfactory experiment with Wordpress. So here I am, with a lot of work to do. I hope you will stay with me especially on my travels.