Time for a new gadget?

As anyone who knows me can testify I love gadgets and web widgets of all shapes and sizes. For instance on a working day I rarely leave the house in the morning without having checked the weather page, the rain radar and the train times with a passion verging on the obsessive/compulsive so imagine my joy when I found out that TFL are providing live bus times from a bus stop of your choice! All you have to do is head to http://countdown.tfl.gov.uk/ and stick in your postcode and it will let you select the nearest bus stop, like the example shown below:.

It's almost a shame that I rarely need to get a bus, but perhaps you might find it useful!

God Bless Atheists!

First some lovely Christians decided to put an advert on a bus (I forget what it said) and then Richard Dawkins and Co ran their "Probably no God" campaign so, feeling that I've been left behind somewhat, I've decided to run my own.

Waddya think?? To the point and has a glowing reference.....

As you've probably guessed this, together with my fascination with lolcats, stems from a childhood background of wanting to mess with photos. When my Dad had finished with the newspaper I would take pen in hand and draw moustaches, beards and other such pre-Photoshop alterations on the pictures for amusement (only three channels of TV in those days!) and that has grown up (I use the term loosely) into a fascination for photo alteration. Nowadays there are a whole bunch of websites which will enable you to mess with pictures at the click of a couple of buttons and has made my life a lot easier, which I'm sure was their designers' stated objective when they came up with the idea. Anyway, you want to get fiddling don't you so head over here and start making your own bus captions and, once again, if you come up with and good or funny ones (not rude, profane or potentially illegal ones..... unlike last time) then I'll post them here.

And Yes, I probably will get in trouble with Mrs Brinkster for posting this.......

Friday stuff

While browsing eBay last night I happened upon a strange but amazing sight. Worcester Park's most distinctive supermarket, Ryan Gate, is up for sale on eBay with the opening offer standing at an inviting £10K. You can opt to "Buy it now" for £108K but I'd suggest holding out for a last-minute bid.

I love the description of the Ryan Gate in the auction:
"Ryan Gate is a slightly impluasible Lebanese deli in Worcester Park consist of range of services; pizza making, greengrocery, bakery, butchery (sic), kebabs, burgers, hot Lebanese delicacies and a coffee shop. Oh, and wedding cakes. It has been opened since october of 2005."

I'm not 100% sure whether it's a prank or not but I'll keep my eye on it.....

Anyway, there's a lot of other stuff to pack in today so let's get to it!!

For those following the Special Needs Transport changes proposal the Sutton Guardian has an article in it this week which I've scanned in and you can see by clicking on the image below:


On the subject of Sutton Council the leader of the Conservative Group, Paul Scully, has blogged to say that the £35 garden waste charge is on its way out after a belated consultation exercise. I won't shed any tears for it though I have to say that the glass recycling hasn't been better and the fears of yobs sucking the dregs from booze bottles before hurling them through windows hasn't materialised, at least in Brinkley Road anyway.

Just a reminder that there's a reprise of the 400 Years of Worcester Park exhibition tomorrow, and I even posted the info to the Local Guardian website!

The X26 bus is a familiar sight in Worcester Park plying its trade between Croydon and Heathrow and apparently they will be changing the timetable in November to every half hour instead of every hour between 7am and 7pm, which will make it a more viable option for getting to the airport for holidaymakers (though not early morning commuters)

I can't move on without a mention for Talk Like A Pirate Day next Friday, the 19th. Ye have been warned!!!

Those with a keen eye and poor time management may have noticed that at the bottom of the right hand column there's now a feed from my Twitter page, which I'm using to record random thoughts that don't necessarily warrant a full post. I'll see if I can overcome my inner luddite to make it useful.

No Friday news slot would be complete without its closing bizarre article and it's always more funny to point out other people's peculiarities rather than your own so in that vein I was searching for a postcode earlier I stumbled across http://www.bench-marks.org.uk/ which explains the theology of adherents like so:
"The database contains records of Ordnance Survey bench marks, with particular focus on the numbered flush brackets which appear on walls and buildings across Britain. In addition, fundamental bench marks, projecting brackets, tidal observatories, and other bench marks are also included, to help give a more complete picture of the levelling lines."

Say what?

Anyway, I now know what the Second geodetic levelling was though I can't say that I feel particularly enriched by the knowledge, in fact I feel somewhat violated by the thought that someone may mention it in conversation one day and I'll actually know what the hell they're on about..... I'm sure they're lovely people but..........

Have a great weekend and perhaps I'll bump into you at the history exhibition tomorrow

Worcester Park's tenuous link to Z list celebrity

As mentioned in my last post Worcester Park will soon have a new shop when "Cycle Power" opens up in the unit next to Papa Johns and they now have a website up, which can be found here. It links off to another site called "Pedal in The Right Place" which provides cycle training for children and adults and in their news section they mention that Cycle Power is due to open at the end of August. Another thing they mention in their news section is that their head instructor, Fred Ellis, recently made an appearance on Big Brother teaching one of the inmates housemates to ride a bike, as the local Guardian noted.

In other news red-rf.com, the folks behind the recent Classic Bus Day, have a review of the day on their website and have issued a request for pictures to add to the archive. If you do have pictures to offer, or just want to read the review, then head over here. They estimate that there were some 8,000 to 10,000 passengers on the assorted buses, which is quite a result. Are you reading this Boris?

The worst thing about holidays.....

.... is coming back.

I've always been of the opinion that when someone goes on holiday any work they had to do should either be dealt with by their colleagues or just disappear into the mist and never been seen again. No such luck. I've spent my week doing last week's work and this week's work which I can offer as my only feeble excuse for not posting sooner.

First things first I'm pleased to see that long time commenter The Parkerilla has got his own blog going and I'd recommend you to give it a read over here.

Both he and The Worcester Park Blogger have done admirable service to the Classic Bus Day in Worcester Park so I'd recommend you go and have a look at their posts on the subject to see all the pictures. I wandered down to the station to have a look as I was on my way to Sutton but ended up catching a regular TFL 213 (it arrived first, OK) but did manage to catch a Classic 213 back. I've been in some ostentatious cars in my time but few of them received the kind of admiring and bemused attention than that bus did on Sunday so well done to everyone at Red-Rf for a great day.

On Saturday afternoon I spotted a sign out on Central Road.

It was Sutton Council rather belatedly consulting the public on their recycling policy, by which I mean why you now have to pay £35 to get your garden waste recycled. I did pop in and pick up a consultation questionnaire, along with a number of others, so I can take my part in the democratic process. If you didn't see the sign on the day or see any advance notification that they were going to be there I think I may have found out one reason why:

This is the sign at the junction of Green Lane and Central Road entitled "Waste and recycling policy - have your say"..... perhaps someone should have used waterproof ink!?!? For any fans of the late Douglas Adams I think this could be called consultation, Vogon style.

Lastly the shop next to Papa John's is going to be Cycle Power.

Although Worcester Park has tried and failed to have a successful cycle shop before perhaps they've got their timing right given the current fuel price situation and I hope they'll make a success of it. Having a cycle shop pretty much at the end of Brinkley Road will certainly be handy for me anyway!

Let me know what else I've missed on my week (or so) away!

It's nearly time for Classic Bus Day!

Devoted readers may hazily recall that back in November last year I posted about the upcoming free bus service in Worcester Park on the 10th August and pointed you in the direction of the folks at red-rf.com for information. Last night some kindly person commented to point out that red-rf's web site was broken and spewing out error messages but fear not! Worcester Park Life has come to the rescue and the new August edition, available in print tomorrow, has a two page feature entitled "Classic Bus Day" on pages 10 and 12 with all the details you'll need to enjoy what should be a very entertaining and nostalgic day. If you can't wait until tomorrow to get your hands on a hard copy of Worcester Park Life you can always jump the gun by downloading the PDF from here.


On another historical note I was chatting to a neighbour last night who related that Brinkley Road, until the 1930s, had a clear view over the fields below and can remember his neighbour talking about watching the German prisoners-of-war working in the fields during the First World War...... seems hard to believe 90 years on.

EDIT: Steve's on the case and hopefully the website should be back up soon!

UPDATE 09:20: The site's back up. Nice work!

Free bus service in Worcester Park

Don't get too excited. I do like to keep up with WP activities and with duty done about the Christmas event make a note of Sunday 10 August 2008 as "August 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the withdrawal of London's first red bus route operated by low-bridge double-deck buses".

"To mark the anniversary, Red-RF Events is organising a running day on Sunday 10 August 2008. This will feature the routes and buses of the area, concentrating on buses in operation during the life of route 127, from 1941 to 1958. Buses will run free services available to the public and full details will be provided on this site. A commemorative programme will be produced nearer the time, but will not be required for travel."

I'd recommend a brief visit to their site for no better reason than it has a picture of an old red bus by WP station.

As you can see a new mini-poll has appeared on the left about the Christmas event so please do cast your vote.