First's Festive Farce

 How Not To Do It

This is the Christmas Information from First South Yorkshire. In general we see that, on most days, a Saturday service operates "with minor variations". These variations usually provide extra capacity for those who are still at work. Such journeys would not normally happen on a Saturday.

On Christmas Eve we have a heading "eves service". Good on yer, Eve! But the text is the same as for the other "Saturday service" days. There will be "minor variations".

What are those "minor variations"? For that we would need to interrogate individual timetables.

The astute may work out that "forthcoming" (almost a Shakespearian word?) means, for example, that things are happen ningon 07/12/2925.

But what?

Upon a deeper investigation, we discover that it means FROM Sunday 7th December TO Saturday 20th December. 

Giving the actual days would be helpful, First.

So, to check on Eve's service (lucky girl, a bus service just for her!) we need 'Forthcoming on 21/12/2025.

We then need to go to our chosen service. fbb imagined himself back on Crimicar Lane and sought out the 120. For those four days (21 to 24 December) we need FOUR DIFFERENT timetables.

Also note that there are no timetables for Christmas Day or Boxing Day - so no buses on those two days on the very busy and normally frequent cross city 120?

Bur back to Christmas Eve. Now we can check the "minor variations".

Only a tiny change, like there are no buses after approx 1900! Maybe First need to check the meaning on "minor" in their Collins Gem dictionary?

It's only timy but it might have 'minor' in it!

Then fbb looked for his other former local route, the 51 to Lodge Moor.

But, shock horror, the 51 has an entry for 25th December which, if fbb's memory is in its usual crisp and incisive working order, is Christmas Day. There it is, a bus every hour!

Way, way back, possibly in the late sixties or early 70s, there was a brief period when the City Council tendered a Christmas Day service on several main routes. fbb cannot remember who was the operator, but certainly not one of the big names!

But look back at the list at the top of the page. Here it is again to save you all that effort of scrolling back to the top.

Yep; it definitely says NO SERVICES on Christmas Day and SPECIAL SERVICES on Boxing Day, 26th.

But their timetables are equally vehement that the 51 on the big day, the Birthday Party for the boy Joshua, has hourly buses. Equally vehement is that neither the 51 nor the 120 has buses on 26th for those whose Boxing might take them to Fulwood Crimicar Lane or Lodge Moor.

Or maybe a boxer will want to enjoy the Moot by the Lodge?

Outwardly none of this makes sense.

But this is the First Bus that recently published Gkagow timetable changes on the First South Yorkshire web site ....

... so web site reliability is not one if the Company's key management skills.

 

But, fbb, the Sherlock Holmes of bus timetables, is on the case and will report back in due course.

Stagecoach, a company that is (maybe was) part of the Sheffield  Bus Partnerships, (stop sniggering arpt the back!) seems to explain things better. fbb is confident that this list is correct.

Again no buses on Christmas day.

More exciting Christmas news to follow.

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 H oliness  H ub

Quirky Quiz Question : Three really crackpot ideas are common in illustrations of Moses holding the 'tablets of stone, the source of' the Ten Commandments. (1) Size : have you ever lifted a pavement slab? What is the likelihood of |Moses stagger down Mount Sinai with two of them?

(2) Shape : Can anybody explain why they have curved tops? The two below look like they fold in the middle. Folding stone slabs: a bigger miracle that God writing on them!

Content : the Ten Commandments are sometimes called 'The Decalogue', Greek for Ten Words. These are those ten words in Hebrew.

They would easily fit on something a good bit smaller that your authors 'tablet'.

But people don't like the image of an angry God ...

.... telling them what to do, despite that being exactly what we all need.

There is nothing angry about the Ten Commandments. It is A Covenant, an agreement between two parties; in this case man and God. By far the BEST READING of the ten is this ...

IF

you worship no other god

IF

you do not worship idols

IF

you do not use God's name wrongly

IF

you have a break for worship each week

IF

you respect those that care for you

THEN

YOU WILL NOT

commit murder

YOU WILL NOT

commit adultery

YOU WILL NOT

steal

YOU WILL NOT

make destructive accusations

YOU WILL NOT

want what you cannot have

Seems a good deal all round - so why don't we do it? It is all about holiness - doing things God's way. That becomes a bit more feasible as a result of CHRISTmas.

Quirky Question : What box would be found in the tent?

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 Next Sheffield blog : Tuesday 9th December 

Sunday Variety

The Benefits Of Tecnology

Seasonal Science

Astounding A I

On a serious note, the use of clever computer technology, that isn't AI, might be yet another way in which pressure groups can cause mayhem without even leaving their keyboard!

Horrific Happening!

Completely fake. The building is in Milan (high fbb memory unreliability factor) and there are no train lines anywhere nearby.

What A Surprise

And, ultimately, we are paying! Did anybody ask us?

Competition for Coventry

Readers may remember the period of experimental street running on a quarter of a mile of "busy city street" closed to all traffic. Apparently it went OK.

It is not clear what the word "success" means in this context, but the aspirations for dozens of these mini trams scuttling around the streets of Coventry seem to have become as politically embarrassing as a certain horse ride.

Modern recreations of the historic and defiant ride by her ladyship seem to involve participants with abnormally long hair!

But, moving quickly on, our friends across the channel have come up with a jolly good idea.

Looks familiar? But this one is designed for low-use branch lines; not city streets. And it will be driverless!

Yeah, right!

It is being developed in Bersee on the border between France and Belgium.

Here there is a short test track.

In purely practical terms, the car has been displayed in Paris.

Bonne chance!

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 G rim  G uidance

Whoops! Forgot the Quirky Quiz Question yesterday : so here it is with the answer below.

What did Moses take off as he approached the Burning Bush?

There really is no point in belittling this experience. Moses had murdered an Egyptian official and run away to the sanctuary of life as a shepherd, married, and only wanted a quiet life. Either the experienced a real miraculous physical happening or a huge mental vision. Either way it sent him back to Egypt to rescue his people from slavery.

Quirky Answer : he took off his sandals out of respect for the holiness of the encounter.

Archaeology has found the area of Goshen were the Hebrews lived as slaves, and it appears to have been suddenly abandoned.

We are told that, in a competition between the Egyptian Witch Doctors and Moses' God, God won at every turn. A string of nine disasters struck the nation.

Remarkably,  the plagues did not effect the Hebrew settlements.

The tenth plague was the death of the oldest child (and the oldest animal). To escape this disaster Moses instructed his people to slaughter a perfect, pure young lamb and smear its blood on their doorposts.

The "angel of death" would pass over their houses. "Pass Over"? Possibly a good name for later celebration?

The blood of the perfect and faultless "lamb" saved the people.

Sounds familiar?

That's  CHRISTmas again.

Quirky Question : What is really strange about most depictions of the "tablets of stone"?

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 Next Farcical "First" blog : Monday 8th December 

Gang Plodge - Part 2

Please be Reminded;

DECEMBER BLOGS

fbb will be adding his traditional "Advent Calendar" each day from 1st to 26th December. Thus year the theme is:-

Christmas is Not Just for Christmas

It's as Easy as A to Z

To that end, there will be a daily quirky quiz question, mainly about Christmas; to be answered in the following day's  blog.

As your increasingly ancient blogger is in need of a bit of a break, the Public Transport content of December postings will be somewhat reduced in amount, but, hopefully not reduced in stimulation and excitement.

Hmmm?

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

And Back to Whitley Bay

The first public trains ran on the Tyne and Wear Metro in August 1980. Only the northern part of the loop via Whitley Bay was operated with trains departing from Haymarket and terminating at 

Tynemouth (the ORANGE line).

Trains via Byker still operated as previously with proper trains from Newcastle Central.

The posh VIP opening was in November 1981, performed with aplomb by HMQ observed by the obligatory V a bit less I Ps a k a Civic Dignitaries.

Everything about the Metro was "state of the art" and shiny. There were escalators at the underground stations, there were barriers and ticket machines and there were a couple of front seats next to the driver's cubicle so you could see the road ahead.

Juicy.

But Whitley Bay station was still rather tired but with bright new signs.

The splendid all-over station roof  was opened up when the route was converted from electric to diesel in the 1960s to let the fumes out and the wind and rain in.

It was also cut back a little at one end ...

... to make way for a new footbridge.  The extension canopy over the platform (above, upper right) was removed but most of the structure remained.

And, hooray, it has recently been reglazed, repainted and generally refettled!

The holes have been refilled as well.

Here are the lads hard at work ...

... and here is the roof (a section thereof) without hi-vis costumes but still with the work platform in place above the tracks.

It has made the station much brighter as revealed by the VIP in the Atrium!

It's All On-Line?

Or is it? Whilst trawling the interwebnet for pictures of Whitley Bay station this item appeared as a response to the flbb interrogation.

There was the tower, and there was an older roof - but what was the train? Surely the North Eastern Railway never ran anything like that?

Another picture added to the confusion.

We now have overhead electrification and a very un-British looking train.

Closer inspection, with brain switched on, revealed that it was a different tower and the station buildings appeared to stand above the tracks not alongside. If in doubt, fbb, read the text!

These pictures were not of Whitley Bay but of Newcastle - and not on Newcastle Tyne and Wear but Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.

The ever helpful Google had found stations NEAR Whitley Bay (i.e. Newcastle upon Tyne), but, being Google, it had found one other Newcastle which has a station.

There is the similar tower, next to the bus station ...

... so as part of tomorrow's variety we should have a look at the Oz trains at Newcastle.

Those Yellow Tank Wagons!

Now fully displayed.

Ignore the Sodor wagon on the topmost shelf and the two yellow wagons on the bottom. They are not "Shell".

One and a half shelves are dedicated to Shell tankers, most of which have featured in recent blogs. Is fbb obsessed or is he obsessed?

And do fellowship worshippers at church reverse away when the old bloke mentions any tank wagon?

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

 F athers of  F aith

The word 'patriarch' is from Greek. 'pater' as in Latin is 'father' and the 'arch' bit is from 'archein', a ruler. So a Patriarch is a father who is also a ruler. There is a string of them in the Bible as follows:-

Abraham married Sarah and they produced Isaac

Isaac married Rebecca and produced twins ...

Quirky Answer : Jacob was smooth skinned ...

... while his brother, Esau, was hirsute and, most likely, red haired. 

The two brothers had a massive falling out which involved a bowl of bean soup ...

... basically because everyone cheated everyone else. 

Jacob had twelve sons and a daughter. a busy man indeed. The kids were produced by four different women but that is another story, and full of even more cheating by everyone involved!

But we read that Jacob wrestled with God ...

... thereafter becoming something of a reformed character.  His eleventh son, the first born to Rachel, the woman he really loved, was Joseph, famous for the coat his dad gave him! This famous long linen coat with embroidery ...

... was a sign of his status as Jacob's favourite first born, but first born to the woman he loved. It never was a coat of many colours.

So he got sold to some itinerant travelling salesmen and  ended up No 2 in Egypt where, through God given good management, he saved the people from starvation!

You really couldn't make it up! The whole shemozzle would make several months' storylines for a Biblical equivalent of EastEnders!

HIT or MYTH?

There is not the slightest doubt that this complex everyday tale of country folk (Oh, that's "The Archers", sorry!) has its place in real history even if detailed corroboration is simply not there. Remember, these people were nomads shambling around the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia - they were of no interest to the scribes charged with the recording of the exploits of kings, queens and princes.

But back to Abraham; and the point at which he was 'told by God' to sacrifice Isaac. Scaree!

But, at the last minute, a male lamb (ram?) was spotted caught in a bush and, by substitution, saved the boy.

The death of a 'lamb' as a substitute to save people. ..?

Sounds familiar? It should sound familiar, because that's the consequence of CHRISTmas.

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 Next Variety blog : Sunday 7th December