It's The End Of The World! (part 2)

 Finisterre

The area round Brest (France) takes its name (Finis Terre - end of the world) from the most westerly point in France at Pointe de Corsen.i

It is a wild and windswept place ...

... which thankfully lacks the tourist grot of John o Groats and our very own Land's End. You will find no nearby public transport because rural buses, outside of school and college services, are either super-sparse or non-existent!

There is also one in Spain, either Finisterre or Fisterra depending on your Iberuian ethnicity ...

... although Punta Cala des Laxes (map upper left) is further west than the lighthouse.

But it is a wild and windswept place.

Finisterre England

It seems that the ancients really thought that these inhospitable promontories were very much the end of the world. You only have to go back to the 1920s to understand the remoteness of Lands End.

It was a wild and windswept place ...

... and still is ...

... if you let your eyes stay fixed on the First and Last House and ignore what lies at your back!

But it is a lie and a delusion. By no stretch of geography is Lands End the southernmost point of mainland UK, neither is it the furthest west of anywhere!

It only takes a quick glance at a map to see how the development and attractiveness to tourists has inaptly become a case of mistaken identity.

The orange pin is placed on Lizard Point. It is a wild and windswept place ...

... or would be without the tea room etc. But visitors need their cuppa! But stroll down to the old lifeboat station and its wildness and its wind-sweepable qualities are still to be enjoyed.

But, as ever, this blog's business is buses. Under normal circumstances a foolhardy tourist or bus traveller might decide to search the Transport for Cornwall web site.

There is a nice logo which appears on bus stops and on shiny red buses all over the place.

But when you go to www.transportforcornwall.co.uk all references to the "brand" have disappeared. You have arrived at a typical Go Ahead web site.

But didn't Cornwall Council tell us, with boundless enthusiasm, that they were creating one unified network for the whole county? Too right they did. They did tell us but they didn't create!

But there is a rather splendid network map which shows a service 34 to Lizard ...

... plus a timetable which is plastered with exceptions and column head notes ...

... but a three year Open University course should suffice to help the summer visitor cope. Just by way of passing example, the 0842 arrival at Lizard does serve Ruan Minor and Kuggar, but Go Ahead and Cornwall Council want to make it hard for you to find that out.

But, warts and all, we can get to Lizard Point from the bus terminus at Lizard Green ...

... down a lengthy and narrow road where, for safety's sake, a separate footpath has been created.

But the sign is correct.

What about First Bus? Thanks to Cornwall Council's unified bus network for the county, First Kernow's services are excluded from, the Transport for Cornwall publicity, what little there is. In an outbreak of political lunacy, the worthy councillors offered all their tendered services in one wodge, a tender won by Go Ahead.

The commercial services of First Bus are, apparently, not part of Transport for Cornwall.  Utterly crackpot.

But what about buses branded "The Lizard"? there is a small one ...

... and a big one!

To find out what, if anything, is going on we need to go to First's web site for a map ...

... where we find lots of emptiness! But there is an L1 (L for Lizard mayhap) but it only goes to Mullion.

More investigation needed and will be presented in tomorrow's blog.

It's All On Line - In Tins!

Railway modelling is back on the agenda after a closed down winter. Now, re-fettling existing stuff, plus some new projects, requires paint. Little tinnies of Humbrol enamel are the modellers' stock-in-trade. It is an expensive way of buying paint, but you don't use too much at a time and it is better used fresh, before it goes gloopy.

Humbrol (now owned by Hornby) makes a huge range of colours, surely too many for any retailer to keep the whole range. So, for cheat-modeller fbb, things get painted in the colours he can buy, usually from Peco at Beer.

Closed until mid May.

After a tedious and lengthy search on-line fbb found a seller who didn't charge too much, charged a fair amount for postage and had some of the colours that fbb needed. But panic set in when the order acknowledgement popped into the old man's in box.

SEVEN orders for Humbrol paint. Yikes! Summat has gone wrong!

But the delivery arrived yesterday morning (scheduled for 12th!) in a small cardboard box ...

... containing just seven tins of the stuff.

It would appear that chummy's web site treats each tin as a separate order, then adds on one lot of postage.

Unless another six boxes arrive tomorrow ...

Oooh-er! The stress and the tension is well-nigh unbearable!

Mrs fbb would be SO delighted!

 Next "End of the World" blog : Thursday 8th April 

Don't Be So Utterly Stupid!

Disciple Thomas has to be your author's favourite. He was not going to be convinced even by the reports of his chums. Resurrection - phooey! He needed more that the chorus of astounded witness from fellow disciples.

One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (called the Twin), was not with them when Jesus first came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger on those scars and my hand onn his side, I will not believe.”

A week later the disciples were together again indoors, and Thomas was with them. The doors were locked, but Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands; then reach out your hand and put it on my side.

Stop your doubting, and believe!”

Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

There is a strong tradition that Thomas travelled to India to serve his Lord and his God by setting up a Christian church there. The denomination so created still bears his name.

The Mar Thoma Church sees itself as continuation of the Saint Thomas Christians, a community traditionally believed to have been founded in the first century by Thomas the Apostle, who is known as Mar Thoma (Saint Thomas) in Syriac, and describes itself as "Apostolic in origin, Universal in nature, Biblical in faith, Evangelical in principle, Ecumenical in outlook, Oriental in worship, Democratic in function, and Episcopal in character".

In the state of Kerala, where it is strongest, it was recorded in 2011 as having over 400,000 registered members.

Something must have changed "Doubting" Thomas into a Missionary Thomas.

Our fortnight ends with tomorrow's blog.

====================================