Sighting

I saw my first iPad today, produced a little self-consciously by somebody on the 47 bus.

Digital bus stops

I've just discovered MyBusTracker which allows you to see real-time bus information for your favourite Lothian bus stop. It's a pity not all the buses are fitted out yet.

Nostalgia

Today reminded me of a lot of my childhood. It was raining when I woke, raining on the train in to work, raining and only half-light all day, and is still raining now. Ah, my country!

No patience

When I was wee, my mum always made me wait when boarding buses and trains. "Let the people off first!" she admonished. And I always do. Recently, I've encountered a lot of people who are not so considerate. At both the Glasgow and Edinburgh ends of today's journey, there was a wall of jostling people displaying no patience at all.

This must be a sign of approaching middle age.

That wet stuff's a bitch

Monsoon-like conditions greeted me this morning. Fleshmarket Close had a burn running down it. I more-or-less dried out on the train, but then Glasgow was about as wet.

Coming home was dry until I got to Newington, when there was a fresh cloudburst. I sheltered in a close (or was it a pend?) with some bewildered tourists.

Fellow traveller

I wondered what the woman on the train was fumbling with in her bag. There was something furry in there. As we waited to get off, a fancy rat popped its head out and had a good look around. I wonder where she had taken it.

Funny reading

I'm not exactly a great fan of the BMC's membership magazine, which I was browsing on the train, but I didn't expect to find an article mentioning peak oil. There was even a picture of Hubbert's graph from 1956. You should alway treat fifty-year-old graphics with suspicion. The caption says

"The peak arrived right on schedule in 1970. The peak in global oil production is widely expected between 2010 and 2010."

Yes, those sentences do contradict each other. And just in case you're wondering, world oil production didn't peak in 1970. The article is really a thinly disguised puff for a book by David Strahan.

Electronica in the morning

I've discovered that Tangerine Dream is the perfect accompaniment to my morning train journey.

Nice day

A rather peaceful day working from home, thanks to the rail signaller's strike. I must try to do this again. Coffee breaks when you want them, and the journey home lasts 30 seconds. I even felt up to a trip to the library and a quick pint afterwards - wild hedonist that I am. More rail fun tomorrow.

Fragments of today

We had that conductor again on the train. Tonight he told us that the refreshment trolley was available not only in the front three, but also in the rear three coaches.

Somebody has written in to the Independent to say that "Solar-powered airships must be part of the green future". I did enjoy this.

Quite a day for cranky letter writers, because Brian Josephson also wrote in with some conspiracy theory about cold fusion. The Cavendish has rather come down in the world.

Nice start to the day

I was hugely delayed on the train this morning, in common with half the business community of Glasgow. For me, it was a relaxing experience, and I found it hard to join in the ritual tut-tutting over the shocking standards of our trains. It was a cold, bright morning, with frost glinting on the hedgerows and fields. I was listening to my iPod (working for once), and so were most of the other passengers. With every announcement, headphones would be removed, heads cocked, sighs emitted, and headphones replaced. I felt refreshed by the whole experience.

We would wish to remind passengers...

As if to compensate for the terseness of his colleague, tonight's "train manager" or whatever they're called these days, gives us every possible announcement, in obsessive detail.

Quiet

Tonight's trip home was fairly peaceful. I was reading an article in the Guardian about how Britain is so noisy these days. It touched on train announcements; principally their excessive frequency and pointlessness. I realised that my journey had been astonishingly quiet so far - not a single officious pronouncement about not smoking (there's a smoking ban, for fuck's sake), reading the passenger safety notices, what "station stop" we were coming to... Too good to last, of course. At Linlithgow, we got a rather halting statement that we were at Linlithgow. Still, it was an improvement.

Zzz...

Somewhere after Falkirk last night, my mind wandered from Bond's doings in 60s Japan (I'm reading You Only Live Twice), and the rest of the journey was punctuated by me falling forward and then jerking awake again. Funny how it seemed to be in the air - many of my fellow commuters were doing the same, each with their own snort, grunt, or whistling expulsion of breath. Sometimes I feel alert for the whole journey, and sometimes drowsiness is just in the air.

That would do it

Just outside Glasgow this morning, there was an announcement:

"We apologise for the late running of this train, which is due to being slower than normal on the approach to Glasgow Queen Street"

I'm on the train

Although my new job continues to look promising and everyone is nice and friendly, the commuting is pissing me off. First Scotrail publish a work of fiction in which they claim that the train from Edinburgh to Glasgow takes between 50 and 55 minutes. The reality is more like an hour most days, not to mention the delights of cancellations and the consequent sardine-like packing of bodies. A biased estimate, as we statisticians say.

I think some Zen-like detachment is needed. I already try to read, but other people can be very distracting. Maybe I need an iPod.