Fri 30 December 2005

What a terrible, terrifying day.
Most of the day I was in Swindon, having left home very early for a meeting, and hearing about the outrage when Steve phoned me just before ten. Obviously I followed events through the day, but feeling worry for Steve in London. During the day a number of people contacted both of us to make sure we were ok; I must admit I hadn't really considered that other people might worry. All a bit of a shock, and made me think.
I had to do quite a lot of driving, ending up very late at night just north of London. When I'd finished, in the early hours, I deliberately chose to drive home through the centre of London rather than round the M25 - those bastards aren't going to terrorise me. And listening to the radio and hearing messages of support and solidarity from all over the world was very, very encouraging.

Six weeks or so ago I had to go to Hull to work. The following entry was written at the time, but only posted here now.
I found myself last night staying in the hotel next to the main railway station, which of course is a terminus. This place may once have been known as the Station Hotel - since it literally forms part of the fabric of the station itself - but is now known as the Quality Hotel for some reason. No matter, it has some history: Queen Victoria and five of her children apparently occupied a suite of rooms here in 1856, according to a faded plaque next to the lifts. But it has that huge, airy feeling; and somehow affluent yet practical - for the traveller with some means who needed a place to stay. This of course is a legacy feeling: the place today merely serves the function of another - yes, 'quality' - hotel, and seems well managed and looked after. But there is a sense of something older, a line of continuity from a past age that I have briefly ridden too.
Having breakfast was huge fun. The breakfast room was literally on the edge of the concourse, and large windows allowed views of the huge vaulted roof and cavernous space of the station itself. I was able to watch trains arriving head on, seeing them grow slowly, creepingly larger before they stopped gently at the buffers and impatiently disgorged a hurry of passengers.
Some people scurried, and some loitered, as they do in stations the world over, and it is this vast yet transient population (admittedly along with the trains!) that has always made stations fascinating for me. A man pulling on a cigarette quickly puffed at and extinguished before he hurries for his train; other cigarettes gratefully lit as more passengers emerge through the barrier; a young chap waiting, waiting then rushing and embracing an elderly lady - his grandmother? - and taking her case to carry as they walk and talk slowly towards the exit; almost ageless sights.
It occurred to me that if you hid yourself away up in that vast and once smoky ceiling and you looked down on the scurrying ants below, if they each trailed black paint behind them you would see lots of straight yet diagonal lines connecting so many different points around the building: everyone wants to get somewhere directly, but everyone's start and end departure and destination point is slightly different.
I was also surprised to see no ticket barriers. Living in London, where any weakness in any system is immediately exploited by enough people for the system to cease to work, ticket barriers are essential and ubiquitous. Outside the metropolis, people are less selfish and systems can continue to run on the goodwill once taken for granted.
Incidentally, WHSmith (for whom I work), a company whose early strength was built on the back of the expanding railway network, has a shop in Hull station. This was not where I was working this time, although I have worked there many years ago. But since my last visit the station has rebuilt the old wooden bookstall building, and it looks just splendid as you walk in off the street, and in fact forms the back of the current shop. But set into the three sides of the rebuilt building are black and white photographs and descriptions of some of those early bookstalls, and I am going to photograph them before I leave Hull.
I've stayed in some fantastic hotels around the country recently, many of them booked through a website called laterooms.com which offers some pretty good deals. Worth having a look at if you want to stay away somewhere.