With severe flooding in the north Midlands and the pseudo “north of England” that is South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, I was sent on a merry go round before returning back to square one by clueless railways staff.

“Hello, I am a Customer Assistant Annoyer, how can I help inconvience you?”.

I had arrived at Kings Cross intending to go home tonight – wary of the looming disaster that will cripple the country for a few hours because all eyes turns to the rolling news on people being trapped in offices and cars. It is this wariness that I figured I’d best get the train earlier rather than later.

On arrivng at Kings Chaos station, one can only be amazed that the fire regulations permit these many individuals interlocked with suitcases and tickets inside the station. I made a bee-line for St. Pancras after noticing half the station was “queuing” either at the information desk or the ticket sales.

I intended to do a reverse trip of what I did last September – London to Derby on the Midland Mainline, Derby to Newcastle on Virgin. No good. All trains north of Derby are sitting pretty in their stations while some probably look like a log of poo surrounded by brown waters from the air.

Midland Mainline staff tells me that GNER has put on a bus service between Bedford and Sandy and that GNER are running from Sandy, so all I need to do is hop on a train to Bedford and wait for a bus there. At the station a few of us were waiting for that bus.

That familiar realisation of the bus not going to materialise at all was confirmed by the extremely helpful and patient Bedford station master after ringing around trying to get reliable information.

As I was waiting for the train back to London, I was advised by another staff to continue up the line for Nottingham instead. “But where do I go from there? Oh just take a local train service to the East Coast Mainline or Sheffield from Nottingham”. Yeah right(!). That inspires a great deal of confidence in me.

A Midland Mainline train conductor then gave me short shriff after inspecting my ticket by just saying “NO.” No what, I asked? “You can’t go to London on this ticket, you want to go to Newcastle”. I am going to Newcastle! I think she must have thought I was retarded and sighed, gave me back my tickets and walked off chasing other customers.

On returning to London, my good mam has texted me to say that GNER are running trains again. Sure enough there was one leaving. However, the whole station and their suitcase wants to get on it. I sighed and ate a Mars Bars while they stampede onto the train. I couldn’t believe that many could fit onto one train.

People watching is a great tool in playing in today’s world. In that time, I observed that the vast majority were not going into the First Class carriages. Those that were suits with no luggage, clutching a London newspaper. These people do not travel first class normally and know the tricks of the trade. I followed them and found myself a nice comfy First Class seat. Those who were forced to stand were also offered a free upgrade to First Class and the ticket conductor allowed us to remain there.

Most of the suits got off an hour later, virtually leaving the whole carriage to myself for my whole journey. Bliss! On disembarking at Newcastle, I could see the “poor” class were squashed up like cattle and clearly a little bit crowded.

That gave me a nice warm feeling and a big smile.

So, big thanks to GNER despite their massive disruption – it wasn’t their fault, they can’t be responsible for floods.

First Capital Connect Staff at Bedford – very patient and kept a potentially fissile situation under control.

Midland Mainline – bloody useless for sending me on a trip to Bedford for a ghost bus and griff for trying to get back to London, and pretty dirty trains both way. No wonder you guys lost the contract.

After much deliberation, I’ve decided to migrate from the b2evo blog engine to Wordpress blog engine for reasons that would bore you. Suffice to say, it was not easy to move all the entries and all your delicious comments over. Fortunately, with my geekish Google skills, I’ve managed to track down a script that converts all these for me.

A side effect of this is that it has given me a virtual gender change – all the old posts are as if it was authored by “pam” when in fact she is the very first registered user on my old blog.  Not to worry, I should be back to normal very soon.

I know Google search results will bring one or two visitors here, so I’m kindly providing the following techie information for them.

I was using version b2evo 1.8.2 and Wordpress 2.2 at the time. The script was actually designed for a later b2evo version and an earlier version of Wordpress but worked just fine here.

You can read all about it at this blog which include the scripts and their various revisions. What the site DOESN’T say is that if you use any of the revisions, rename the revised file back to b2evo2wp.php as it is hardcoded into the script to default to that filename as you go through the motions.

See Hear, allegedly a programme catering to the deaf, hearing impaired, BSL, selectively deaf, selectively hearing impaired, mildly deaf, moderate hearing loss, those without ear lobes, Prince Charles, the hard of hearing, the hard cases, sign language, SSE, all the above with a -wannabe suffix, the old, the hearing aid art groupie, the Cocklea Implanters, Irish People, Americans and The Moderator.

Recently Seah Rear aired an article on the breakthrough of empowerment for the above mentioned people and that the above lot should begin to immediately use it as it breaks down all known barriers and find lots and lots of girlfriends – especially if you are a 75 year old man.

What is this breakthrough?

The Internet! Now, just incase you do not know what the Internet is, the programme helpfully brought in an Internet expert, a Ben Thingummy. Ah, now that we know what it is, we should all go to Bebo en masse, while carrying a subscription to the suspicious acclaim of “biggest deaf social site” being a certain Yahoo email group owned by The Moderator.

And should you have a problem with “the Internet” on account of not being able to get online – you wait three months, having enlisted your family to fudge with your computer in the meantime, you call the See Hear hotline and they will fix it by airing your plight.

Remember, if you are a teenage girl and you fall into the above mentioned group, you must lock yourself in, as stepping outside, or letting anyone in will result in a sprog popping out of your tummy. Practise safe sex, use the Internet!

Now, if I see anything as patronising as that on the BBC again, I will write a blog titled “You’ve never had it so Patronising with the BBC”. I still stand by You Never Had it So Good with the BBC complete with its grammatical and spelling errors, simply because See Hear is not the only programme on the Beeb.

I just brought a new used 4×4 and I love it. I’m an avid 4×4 user. I use it at home for recreation and at work to haul equipment miles off the beaten track.

I am used to urban myths regarding how evil 4×4s are and such frivilious, ill-researched statements are now being expressed by people with influence, such as MPs.

1/ They cause more pollution
No more than any other large cars. And some 4×4s actually emit less as they are fitted with LPG, or have very small engine size (eg, my Suzuki Jimny got a 1.3 litre engine).

You are also more likely to see a 4×4 running on biofuels or LPG than you would with any other type of car.

While more materials could be used in production of a 4×4, your average 4×4 lasts forever. There are plenty of ancient 4×4s still running on the roads, so the continuing re-use of 4×4s keep them out of the scrapyard, and reduce the need for replenishment of new 4×4s compared to cars.

2/ They are unsafe to drive
The car does not make it an unsafe car to drive – or it would not be on the roads! As they say in computing, the users are the bugs – likewise, the drivers are the bugs – they can cause crashes (in the literal sense rather than the IT metamorphical sense).

The vehicle’s bigger weight, etc makes it harder to stop, roll off bends, etc. Not necessarily true, all 4×4s are different – some are very heavy and some are ridicolously light, some has excellent anti-roll features. All come with the brakes that are equipped to deal with the type of vehicle it is stopping and some has anti-roll electronics to cope with any roll. Ultimately the driver’s behaviour play a role in this. If the 4×4s are so dangerous because of these features, why do we accept vans?

3/ The spacious, high riding height and comfy interior of a 4×4 lures drivers into a false sense of security
Again, all 4×4s are different, and some actually give a very rough and uneven ride, and others gives a smooth ride. No more different than a luxurious executive car or a ramshackle car.

4/ They take up more roadspace and is unweildy to drive
Again, all are different. The short wheel base versions can be shorter than the cars on the road. My Jimny has a wheelbase that is shorter than a Nissan Micra! The largest of the 4×4s are actually shorter than an average estate car.

The inherent design of 4×4s can give them a tighter turning circle than a small car. A long wheel base 4×4 could turn in a tighter space than a small car 1.4 litre Citroen Saxo. This is because off-road, you don’t always have the room.

The extra driving height offered by *some* 4×4s are advantegeous for driving and yes it can block the view for other drivers behind and cause accidents. But those other drivers are driving too closely anyway! Vans and other large vehicles are also view-blockers.

5/ Poor pedestrian safety
Little known fact: it is actually better to be run over by a 4×4 than a car. The engine bay has so much spare room that if a pedestrian is hit by one, the bonnet has enough give in it to allow absorption of the impact, in effect a cushion, rather than bouncing off the bonnet headfirst into the windscreen with a car. Or if you go under, the extra height offered by some 4×4s gives some clearance not commonly afforded by a normal road car.

4×4 manufacturers are concentrating improving pedestrian safety for children, with bull bars being used again, but in a different material as to allow cushioning effect, and yet more crumple zones.

6/ They are never used off-road
Not all are used off-road but the additional storage space, ride height makes it easier to put kids and dogs in and out of the car, and towing capacity offered by 4×4s are reason enough to live a road-only life.

So, stop jumping on the anti-4×4 bandwagon blindly until you research both sides of the story! It is not what it seems. Sadly the media has not cottoned on to that, but quel surprise!

In the north east of England, from a hearing aids maintenance perspective, there is really only one place to go for anything involving more than a change of batteries.

It seems the department isn’t coping at the moment – I waited two hours to be seen to get new ear moulds – a very simple 5-mins procedure. Only three years ago, I’d only need to wait around 30 mins before being seen. On the plus side, my ear moulds should be “ready in 10 days”.

This is a contrast to Luton in the previous year; I only waited around 20mins but I only got my ear moulds after 8 months (I was told at the time it would take about 6 to 8 weeks).