My Day and Theirs

Some days the sky wants to suck the soul from you and today it came close but was not allowed to prevail. Early sunshine looked promising but a commensurately early departure from the house on a joyous third day off was not quick enough to escape the cloud rolling in from the west. I was determined to enjoy myself though and I did. We went first to Winchester. I had read that development plans for Stagecoach's aging garage within the bus station mean that preserved vehicles of Friends of King Alfred Buses (FoKAB) will be displaced. I hoped to see them but they are securely concealed in one half of the garage building. Nevertheless, I found that the slightly dilpidated bus station and garage exuded character and history.
I enjoyed several other aspects of the city too. Although the sun made sporadic and cheering appearances, a combination of cold and damp was pretty penetrating.


Undeterred, we went on to Ropley for the Mid-Hants Railway depot and station. There was no running today but I got several satisfactory photographs. It was very evident that snow and ice have not cleared in the middle of the county as they have closer to the coast. The Alton station car park has been poorly cleared and remained icy today. We went to Alton as somewhere I don't think I have been before. It is a fairly bland town but the experience was not unpleasant. We chose Prezzo for lunch, a chain, but one which provides excellent food. Our antipasto starter lifted the spirits. My main course of polpette was full of flavour and generously sized. I could not manage a dessert and asked for Honeycomb Smash Cheesecake to be boxed. It was not actually that long before I ate it and it was excellent. I consumed it to the Radio 5 accompaniment of Simon Amstell guesting with Richard Bacon. Amstell is brilliant (as well as very cute) and, being a Jewish man, I doubt he has ever before spent so much time in a room with Bacon. The Radio 5 presenter is currently known for Sky's 'Beer and Pizza Club', a programme which has a surprising charm accounted for in large part by Bacon himself. À propos of nothing, I nominated (in my own mind) my three favourite comedy programmes of 2010 today. I am afraid the psycho-whimsical 'Grandma's House' did not make the list which, in no particular order, includes 'Miranda', 'The Armstrong and Miller Show' and 'The Inbetweeners'.


Less amusing students were on the streets of London today in the latest protests against rises in university fees which were, inevitably, voted through today albeit by a precarious majority. What is not clearly understood by the opponents of increases in reciting their mantra of 'free' education is that it is not and can not be free. The issue is not one of whether it is paid for but at what stage of the social and educational chain and by whom. The small number of troublemakers are ill advised to make themselves known to the police and could find themselves 'rusticated' as some establishments term it. I also find the actions of the police on these occasions less than helpful. I think a lot of them like a good ruck.