Ambassadors Cinemas in Woking are not showing the preview of Kick-Ass, thus necessitating me an expensive and longer journey into Guildford to watch it in an even more even more expensive cinema, the Odeon. Not that I’m complaining too much as the seats at the Odeon are much more comfortable than the Ambassadors. The Odeon also runs a better loyalty scheme to boot – but it’s still not as good as Vue’s (the nearest is in Camberley which is even further away!). Ambassadors only has two showings confirmed at this point whereas the Odeon has a full schedule. Sigh.
While my bike is out of action (although now borrowing a colleague’s bike as from today):
I’ve been using Arriva Buses to get me to and from work. And boy is it an eye opener. I usually leave 6:50am to catch the 7am 34 to Guildford. This is a pretty good route and gets me to work in plenty of time (turning up around 8:15). The only real downside is the stop at Bellfields where school kids get on. There are a couple of girls who are constantly screeching and making as much noise as possible and when they’re not doing that, they’re playing music on their mobile phones at full blast. Two businessmen scolded them for this and they just answered back until they were told off again. As soon as the businessmen got off the bus, they cranked up the phones until I told them it was too loud (I had the iPod on with headphones and could hear them loud and clear). They answered back, saying that they were just having a bit of fun before school. I left it at that. I had no wish to get into a shouting match with them. All I know is that they then get on a number 4 or 5 bus and head to Park Barn. They repeat this action almost every single morning. I wonder how Arriva bus drivers keep their sanity.
This morning I took the 28 as I had to prepare for the bike swap and thus left a little later than usual. A group of kids from Merrist Wood College get on at Sainsburys (Knaphill) with me. I’ve seen them before having used to take the 28 during previous bike outages. But they seem to be getting much worse – they’re taking to insulting fellow passengers who have done nothing to them. One girl got off near Pirbright and was immediately criticised by these teenagers about her weight. A man was getting on at Brookwood station and had insults about his hat. And this continued, including insulting the bus driver, pedestrians and so on until they got off at Worplesdon. It got worse as school kids soon embarked and started making racist comments towards a Sikh passenger (who had, perhaps, been lucky enough to be wearing earphones and didn’t hear) – they little game of giving their fellow passengers different names. Don’t know which school these kids were from – they had black blazers and red embroided coat of arms.
Even back in my day (God, I sound like I’m 70 years old) we didn’t take to insulting people. Makes me wonder what kind of parents these kids have to encourage their anti-social behaviour against people who have done nothing to them to warrant such verbal abuse. It’s getting worse, as we’re seeing drunk teenagers boarding the 91 bus and making far more aggressive gestures to passengers. The bus driver tries their best to reason with them, but they just get stroppy and fling more insults until they eventually get bored and leave.
So what’s gone wrong? I have no idea. But I will most glad when Memset upgrade their bike fleet and we get a bike that’s not going to keep breaking down every month – I really dislike using public transport at the moment and will be glad to get away from it.
Had set off from work at roughly 4pm (started at 8am) when the weather wasn’t too bad. It was spitting a little, but this has never been much of a problem even when the ground is still quite wet. However, as I was heading down Aldershot Road (see map below), the rain picked up enough to completely obliterate my vision. In addition, the electric bike’s breaks barely worked. This resulted in me swerving across the road rather dangerously and then ending up clipping the kerb and falling off the bike. Thankfully I only banged my knee and shin a bit and not much else (in essence I managed to do some mad hopping off the bike before it hit the ground).
Since the rain was still coming down extremely heavily, I decided that I couldn’t risk cycling any more and walked the bike from that point upwards to the Worlpesdon stretch of the A322. This was not without further discomfort having had reckless drivers whizzing down the road and going straight through massive puddles causing me to become absolutely drenched (with the occasional mouthful of dirty rain water).
Managed to ride the bike from that point using the cycle path up to Fox Corner when the rain started to hit heavily again (and once more, the occasional covering of water from passing cars) and I decided to walk the bike again up until Knaphill. It took a while, I tell you:
Set off to work by electric pushbike this morning thinking that I wouldn’t really need my gloves. How wrong I was. In fact, it got so bad that I stopped off at Sainsburys and bought a £9 pair of fleece-lined leather gloves. Legs were quite a bit cold despite wearing thermal lined leggings. I think tomorrow I might need the under thermals as well. Eek. I think it’s safe to say it’s now PROPER winter.
Was very glad to receive an email at work from the University of Surrey asking for feedback from cyclists who cycle in and out of the Surrey Research Park. Have sent back an email to the Uni telling them exactly what it’s like. It’s not generally pleasant ever since the Royal Surrey Hospital opened it’s new car park. That said, it’s always been bad when you leave the Research Park around 4pm. You see loads of cars all backed up around Occam Road waiting to get into Gill Avenue as everybody waits for cars to come out the hospital car parks, people crossing at the out-of-action traffic lights, and having to deal with a nightmare roundabout at the end of it all. There’s not much point asking for cycle lanes as there is just no room for them. The best I think us cyclists can hope for is a dual pavement/cycle access lane. Who knows?
Have also been tinkering with servers to get them PCI compliant. You’ll all be pleased to know that the miniserver this blog sits upon has passed with flying colours (albeit with some caveats). I even recompiled and installed the very latest OpenSSH on this box to go above and beyond what is required by some of these PCI checkers.
Finally – after a good few days of solid use, I’m pleased to say that I absolutely adore Thunderbird 3 (albeit I’m running a release candidate!). It’s far exceeded my expectations and I’ve even moved from Apple Mail on the work Macbook to Thunderbird 3. No major issues encountered so far.
I decided to leave the electric pushbike at home and embark by bus to Guildford (and consequently to the Surrey Research Park). Sadly, after two buses failed to turn up and an ever increasing queue of old people and student-types, I decided to go by train. This particularly journey didn’t go too bad. Coming back: not so good.
By the time I got to Guildford train station, it had been announced that a car had hit a railway bridge which would affect trains heading into London Waterloo. The announcement boards for incoming trains kept repeating this fact over and over again. By the time a train did come in, all of us bundled into the nearest carriage and set off, thinking we were heading to Woking first.
Oh dear, no we weren’t.
We travelled all the way into London Waterloo where it turned out that the train was going back to Basingstoke via Woking. Had to explain to the ticket inspector that there were no announcements or indications that the train wasn’t a stopping service. The inspector was quite understanding and told me that she had spoken to quite a few people in a similar situation. Got back to Woking close to 8pm and home about 8:30pm. Two and half hours after I left work.
Back on the bike Monday..
Oh, to make matters worse – had to re-install OS X Snow Leopard on the Macbook as it’s been playing silly buggers over the past few weeks. Lots of rainbow beach balls and no activity at all. So had to spent an hour and half wiping and reinstalling everything again. Thankfully our own SquirrelSave service saved me embarrassment when I realised that my SSH keys were wiped. Thank goodness for Cedric the Squirrel!
This week I’d like to have a go at both car drivers and my fellow cyclists. Pedestrians get an honourable mention.
I’m encountering too many cyclists, both adult and children, who are out and about after dark without any lights or reflective clothing. Or helmets. There are also a good number of cyclists who like cutting up both pedestrians and other cyclists without paying attention as to who else may be using the road or pavement. I was coming down the road that leads out of the Vyne and suddenly a cyclist (who DID have lights) cut across my path rather than turning properly into the road.
To the car drivers of Woking and Guildford who have graduated from the School of Psychic Motoring, you will already know what I’m about to say. SIGNAL. And especially: SIGNAL AT TURNINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS. But in particular: KEEP TO THE CORRECT LANE. I cannot describe how frustrated I am at trying to outguess the increasing number of car drivers who fail to correctly signal at junctions and at roundabouts.
I’m also fed up with cars and vans overspilling into the cycle lane around Sainsburys in Brookwood/Knaphill as well as the cycle lane further up Aldershot Road. Or cars PARKED in the cycle lane. And the cars that park right by the roundabout between Southway Road and Aldershot Road in Guildford: why? You’re effectively blocking off an entire lane by your selfishness. It is very difficult to turn left.
is seeing a good number of drivers who fail to get in the correct lane and consequently then pull off when it’s not their turn and nearly collide with cars turning from the opposite direction. The traffic lights at that junction are quite obvious, and yet so many are getting it wrong.
Speaking of Sainsburys at Brookwood/Knaphill – why do Sainsburys security allow kids to ride their scooters/bikes/whatever around the car park? I’ve nearly collided with these kids who shout abuse (at both staff and customers) and generally get underneath the feet of shoppers. This suggests to me that we need more open space/parks in the area for kids to go. A Sainsburys car park is no place for kids to play.
Also to the college students who attend the Merrist Wood College and who walk down the cycle path that connects Holly Lane to Aldershot Road: it’s a cycle path – there is PLENTY of room to the either side (pavement or the road itself). Don’t act surprised to see cycles coming down it. Oh hang on, you don’t – you don’t look or pay attention where you’re going and need to be alerted that somebody is coming down the path. Perhaps the college could offer courses on the Green Cross Code?
