Is It Only A Year Ago?
fbb wrote a blog in which he compared Seasonal bus provision in Bristol with the Festive Flop that is Sheffield. Here are a few extracts from that year-old posting, praising developments in Bristol..
One good house point.
A near normal service with some judicious pruning as thee evening wore on. Another good house point.
Not bad at all (and much better than most) but not as good as, say, London. But another good house point.
For those that would like to read about the full comparison, the blog itself is (here).
Roll forward to 2017 and ...
Sunday 24th Dec Christmas Eve
Normal Sunday timetable will operate from the start of service,
Hooray?
however... The last departures will be from around 6pm, with no services operating after approximately 7.30pm ...
Ever heard of the 24 hour clock?
... (except Airport Flyer Services A1 and A3 which operate a normal service). Click here for a list of last departures.
Nope. Its a backward step and a festive raspberry!
Tuesday 26th Dec Boxing Day
Special timetables will operate on a number of services in and around Bristol, click here for more details. Sunday timetables will operate on Airport Flyer Services A1 and A3. There will be no services operating elsewhere on the West of England network.
And the list of these services? There isn't one as far as fbb can tell. You must scroll through the PDF pages in the leaflet ...
Sunday 31st Dec New Year's Eve
Normal Sunday timetable will operate.
So in Bristol, NO early shut down on 31st. Even better, many night buses will run; here are some of the last "night" (i.e. early on 1st January) journeys on offer.
But why withdraw the evening service on 24th after only one year?
The word on the Bristol streets is that they didn't carry enough passengers. Possibly true, but as 2016 was the first year for many an aeon that such a service was on offer, the take-up would surely need time to grow. But once established, surely a Christmas Eve evening service should attract more punters?
Bus industry short-termism strikes again?
And, is the "booklet" available in printed form? Our Bristol correspondent will doubtless let us know.
Just for the record, whilst Sheffield has selected services running until about 1800 on Boxing Day and fewer such on new Year's Day, everything finishes between 1700 and 1830 on the two "eves". There are no Boxing Day and New Year's Day services anywhere else in the whole of South Yorkshire with some notable exceptions in Barnsley (of which more later).
Bristol has gone backwards in many ways, but it is still far, far better than Sheffield, and ever farther better than Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham.
Why the difference?
Over the border in West Yorkshire ...
O.K., a reasonable service on Boxing Day and (almost) nothing on New Year's Day with (fbb assumes until informed otherwise) no printed material at all.
Not good.
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ADVENT CALENDAR - 13
So they arrive at Bethlehem and we are immediately on familiar territory. The innkeeper has pity on the pregnant Mary and allows her to use his stable or cattle shed. Baby Jesus has "no crib for a bed" and gets plonked in a manger - an animal's feeding trough.
The rest of the detail goes to make up innumerable Nativity scenes and innumerable nativity plays which are all part of the "Christmas Story".
Except that most of it has been added in - without the slightest whiff of evidence.
SPOILER ALERT
The Innkeeper is not mentioned. It is very likely that there was an innkeeper but his part in the story remains an assumption..
She was pregnant, and while they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby. She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger - there was no room for them to stay in the inn.
SPOILER ALERT
The cattle shed/stable is not mentioned.
In about 150 AD, a high flyer in religious circles named St Justin Martyr wrote about the Nativity.
But when the Child was born in Bethlehem, since Joseph could not find a lodging in that village, he took up his quarters in a certain cave near the village; and while they were there Mary brought forth the Christ and placed Him in a manger.
Today you can still see caves in and around Bethlehem. Some of them are turned into shrines but some remain in their original usage. It is where the animals are kept in the winter.
And while we are looking at Luke's actual words as they describe the nativity scene, please note ...
MEGA SPOILER ALERT
... there was no star, no animals, no wise men and no angels.
We have seriously damaged the Nativity story by adding in so much irrelevant clutter. What matters, what Luke records, what Justin Martyr records was beautiful in its magnificence; just a man, his unmarried pregnant wife, later with child, in a gloomy cave behind the pub with that not very clean feeding trough in which The Son of God was laid.
Nothing else happens until some smelly, scruffy and rough-mannered shepherds turn up.
Not a very auspicious start to a major world religion? But most Carols get it right:-
How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven
No ear may hear His coming
But in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive him, still
The dear Christ enters in.
O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born in us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel
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Next "no idea yet" blog : Thursday 14th December
In the Stoke on Trent area there are no buses on Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Years Day from First, D & G Bus and the solitary Arriva service. Fairly late services on the "eves" on a couple of First routes. Publicity good on-line but not seen any leaflets.
ReplyDeleteRemember the 24th is a Sunday so there's already going to be less demand
ReplyDeleteI concur with Anon at 0802.
ReplyDeleteFirst in Bristol, Bath and West have operated a near-normal service on Christmas Eve for quite a few years and the late night buses were well loaded, at least to Portishead.
My concern is not with the actual level of service but with the utter and illogical inconsistency in different areas of the country.
ReplyDeleteIt is unlikely that people in Bristol behave in a radically different way from people in Sheffield or Leeds. So is there are real reason that service levels are so varied - or is it just bad management?
or even a real reason!
ReplyDeleteIf you want to go back to the days of the dead hand of Aberdeen ruling everything, carry on. I much prefer the trust put in local managers now to do the right thing for their market.
ReplyDeleteI shall be in Luzern, Switzerland at Christmas. There is absolutely NO information on line about the bus service over the Christmas and New Year period. (Because, of course, everyone knows its a normal service except on Dec 25, 26 and Jan 1 and 2 when a full "Sunday and Holiday" service is operated.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the history behind early shut downs on NYE? I don’t get it. Surely demand is at its most highest point on this night.
ReplyDeleteHappy Christmas by the way.