Saturday Variety (mini blog)

More Accolades for the Press NOT

The above headline looks splendily attractive BUT ...

... as you read on, you find that the fare cap will only apply until the end of January 2025, so not the big deal that is implied.

But the really bad piece of jounalism is the picture of a Stagecoach bus passing Brighton Pavilion. The new year's short hop fare will apply to Brighon and Hove Buses only.  Stagecoach is not involved.

Then we go to Oxford.

The bridge in question links the railway station with its car park on the opposite side if Botley Road. The removal is, of course, only temporary as part of the station improvement works which fbb has well covered in recent blogs.

Next, a bit of a quiz! Where might this station be?

The blue metro-style trains might help, except that the description doesn't seem to fit.

And named after what?

The station concerned may well be familiar to our knowledgeable readers ...

... as it is Gants Hill on the Newbury Park bit of the Central line of London's Underground. It doesn't look as attractive from above ground!

And what might it be named after?

It it might not! Presumably the junior hack who composed this piece was thinking "Gants Hill", "Ants Hill" and so "Anthill"?

Here is the official etymology:-

It is from Wikipedia so it must be right!

Can Bus Stop Engineers Spell?

In Charlton, Greater London, someone cannot spell "Qween"!

Meanwhile in Leicestershire ...

... the village of Quorn used to be called "Quorndon". Indeed the village sign used to read:-

The village boozer still uses the old name.

But whoever created the bus stop sign either cannot read or didn't look.

The village has NEVER been QuorndEn!

Happy Christmas in Brighton

... have published their Christmas holiday arrangements. Notable again this year is an excellent network offer on Boxing Day ...

22 services will run on 26th.

Christmas Day's selection is much less, but similar to that operated for the last three years. Most notable, however, is service 12.

This is extended to run every hour all the way from Brighton to Eastbourne;

Is this th longest Christmas Day bus service operating in the UK?

P

Emma Chizzit?

fbb has been keeping an eye on model railway prices for locomotives as they increase dramatically. The most "ordinary" big loco model here in the UK will cost well over £200 and often in the region of £300.

But if your layout is of European heritage then one company has just smashed the glass ceiling.

Willkommen bei PIKO

Das klassische PIKO Produkt, durch das PIKO weltweit bekannt wurde, ist die Modelleisenbahn.

In den Spurgrößen H0 (Maßstab 1:87) sowie G (Maßstab ~ 1:25) bietet PIKO dem Modellbahner ein komplettes Sortiment an. Neben verschiedensten Lokomotiven, Personen- und Güterwagen sowie Gebäudemodellen gibt es mit dem PIKO A-Gleis und dem PIKO G-Gleis alles, was der Modellbahnfreund für sein Hobby benötigt.

Attraktive und preiswerte PIKO Start-Sets in den beiden Spurgrößen H0 und G bieten die ideale Möglichkeit für den Einstieg in das faszinierende Hobby Modellbahn.

Yours in the UK for approx £550!

More "Variety" tomorrow.

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"NOT the Advent Calendar", but ...

     The      

  CHRIST -mas 

  Criss-muss  

   Confusion  

 Critique   7 

A Rebel For Advent!

Isaac Watts was a rebel as far as The Church of England was concerned. He was a dissenter who did not accept the authority of the Church.  His authority was the Bible.

He was born in 1674 in Southampton and died in 1748 at Stoke Newington, London. Because he was not a member of the C of E he was severely restricted in his university education.

As a child he had an unusual skill in making rhymes, a skill which he developed as a prolific hymn writer. Hymns were not permitted in the C of E where only Psalms from the Bible were chanted.

Watts believed that singing about God and Jesus were ideal ways to prepare for all the great church festivals, especially CHRISTmas.

His Advent hymn was such a powerful picture of the coming delights of  CHRISTmas. that the world has adopted it as one of its most popular songs.

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 Next Sunday Variety blog : Sun 8th December