I have nothing against the Royale family as such, I mean they are just a bunch of Mancunian lay abouts and wastrels, oh no wait! That is the TV series. My bad.
I have nothing against the Royals personally. They are meant to be hard working individuals who take their responsibilities seriously etc. etc. but I didn't vote for them.
I have not followed the preparations at all and I didn't watch the service. Let's just say that where was Al Qu'aeda when you really need them.
That should send the MI5 watchers scuttling for their terminals.
Enough already.
I am presently on a visitation to see my Mum. On Thursday however she had a coach trip withe her NADFAS group to Sussex. I took the opportunity to indulge in my childhood passion for trains. I think I have blogged before about buying a tram magazine in front of the kids and being offered a bag for it like it was some kind of Dutch pornography. Anyway at Christmas I decided I would undertake to visit all the various light rail schemes in the UK. Fortunately there are only 6 if you exclude the London Underground. All but one are near enough to where i live to make it on a day trip but one is normally a weekend away.
I am talking of course of Croyden. I associate the name with the ultimate in suburban blandness. It is a long been a dormitory for the greater London and City area. It could also once have been described as the "Gateway to the Empire!". The very first London Airport was built here in the 1920's and lasted until WW2.
Empires are good for only a few things - mostly slavery, exploitation and subjugation of indigenous peoples. Losing the gateway status was probably no bad thing for Croyden.
According to Wikipedia the name is an Anglo Saxon word for Crocus Valley. Unlikely in my humble but there you go.
I decided to go by train when I discovered that the cost of my little trip was the same as a 10 minute ride (To Ryde!) on a hovercraft, yet another of my technological foibles. The point of the trip was just to experience the tram system based there in. I am a sad man you are all thinking. And you may well all be right but I don't care. I have loved trains and trams all my life so there.
I purchased my ticket from the booth and waited for my train. It was train journey day for idiots that morning. There were 2 desks open and a big queue was building up as they were blocked by people trying to arrange cheaper or more convenient journeys. None seemed to know where they really wanted to go. Except me. I wanted to go to East Croyden.
The journey was uneventful but quite pretty travelling through West Sussex and past the castle at Arundel. It did look like a fairy tale castle with all it's parapets when viewed form the train. Quite impressive. I have passed it many time by road but it had never looked as imposing as it did that day.
When i arrived in Croyden I was rather taken aback as to how cosmopolitan and vibrant the area was. I was mildly pleased. There is not much point however me wasting precious typing on the place. Vibrant or not it largely resembles Reading with everyone knows is a cancerous polyp on the arsehole of Britain, Which the Thames quite literally is. The water of that river has passed through the kidneys of 7 major populations before it even gets to London so it is quite literally the anus of the nation.
The tram is a good service and it is a mark of the short sightedness of post war planners that these things were removed from the streets of our country only to be put back at great expense 50 years later. Still there you go
not much else to say really. I rode the tram for a couple of hours, enjoyed some Fish and chips in New Addington and a nice young Australian lady put her elbow in my cappuccino.
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