2014 - Neil Turner's Blog

2014 in review

December 29, 2024December 31, 2014 by Neil Turner

This time every year I do a blog post looking back at the year that has just about finished, and all of the things I did (although normally it’s a few days before New Year’s Eve, not on it). So this year it is the turn of 2014 to be analysed. You can read my previous posts from 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009.

January

January is my blogiversary month and 2014 marked 12 years since I started blogging. We started January at a friends’ house with a relatively young kitten, some guinea pigs and plenty of food and alcohol.

I went to the Manchester Beer Festival at Manchester Velodrome, which was a really great experience and one that may be repeated in 2015 if my friends and I get sufficiently organised. I also server-transferred my World of Warcraft characters for a second time, taking advantage of a free character migration option so that I didn’t have to join queues when wanting to play.

At the end of the month I saw Robin Ince again (for the fifth time – and I’d see him again later in the year), along with Josie Long and Grace Petrie who were at the same gig.

On the blog, I started a weekly series of blog posts about the projects I backed on Kickstarter, which ran for three months. I may resurrect this year with some of the projects I’ve backed since, but I’ll have to see. January was also the month when I committed myself to posting a new blog post every day – I managed it for several months straight and overall I managed to write more blog posts this year than in recent years, although recently I haven’t had the inspiration.

February

In February Christine and I went on an impromptu trip to London, which I quite literally booked the night before. And despite it being Valentines’ Day we managed to do it without breaking the bank – our transport was via Megabusplus, and we booked a reasonable cheap hotel in Croydon to stay the night. Whilst there we visited the Museum of London to see their Cheapside Hoard exhibition, had dinner in Chinatown where all of the Chinese New Year decorations were still up, and got cheap tickets for We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre – a show which has now finished its West End run. It was our first Valentines’ Day as a married couple and probably one of the best – even though it was rather manic. Oh, and we called in at the Tate Modern on the Saturday too, before heading home.

We had an afternoon of kid’s films, seeing Frozen and The Lego Movie in the same day (EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!), and visited the Doctor Who & Me exhibition at the National Media Museum in Bradford. I also went on a pub crawl around Leeds and went to a couple of places that I’d never been to before, including Tapped Leeds, a brewpub on Boar Lane.

I wrote about how my dear wife Christine has developed a taste for gin, how I was opting out of the NHS care.data programme, and the various ways you can call freephone numbers for free on mobile phones.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/neilt/13013337513

March

March was marred by the sudden and unexpected death of Dave, one of my closest friends. It really affected both Christine and I, and barely a day has gone by since without something reminding me of him. He would have been pleased that so many of his friends took the time to pay their respects at his funeral, and again at a get-together later in the year. He died a day before he was due to play the role of the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors, along with Christine and other friends.

It also marked five years since I hit rock bottom – the end of my previous relationship combined with the passing of my grandmother, unemployment and having to move back home with my parents. Thankfully things have improved since and I’m now happily married in a good job that I enjoy.

One Saturday when Christine was working, I took myself off to the Museum of Transport, Greater Manchester for a day out. It was mostly buses and I’m glad Christine wasn’t with me as she would have been incredibly bored, but I found it interesting. March was also the month where I started playing Hearthstone – I still play it now and again on my iPad.

For the first time I travelled overnight for work, to do a two-day UCAS convention in Bristol. It was my first time visiting the city, although I didn’t really get to see much of it. Christine’s never been so we’ll need to find time to go for a few days to experience it properly.

Towards the end of the month we went to the first of two weddings in 2014, the first being on the same day that gay marriage was legalised in England and Wales. I wrote a letter to myself in 1999 about the internet, had a tetanus vaccination as I couldn’t remember whether I’d had a recent booster or not, and signed up for a new railcard that makes it cheaper for Christine and I to travel together by train. It’s more than paid for itself since we got it.

April

In April Christine and I had a day out in Hebden Bridge, for the first time in quite a while. I also posted a listicle on Buzzfeed, which didn’t exactly set the world on fire, and we saw two of our favourite bands – Within Temptation and Delain – play in Manchester. There was also live comedy – we went to see Gary Delaney at our local pub, The Works, who run a monthly comedy night with reasonably good acts.

There was the fall-out from the discovery of the Heartbleed vulnerability, resulting in many changed passwords, and I posted about disconnecting from work email to better focus on family and recreation time.

May

I became officially middle-aged in May when I turned 30. Christine’s present to me was a trip to Dublin in Ireland, where we visited the castle, the Guinness storehouse, the old Jameson distillery, the jail, the Temple Bar district, the zoo, the natural history museum, the post office museum, and fitted some shopping in to a four night stay. And we did it all just with carry-on luggage.

My parents’ present to me was a new iPad Mini with Retina Display (retrospectively renamed by Apple as the ‘iPad Mini 2’), replacing an increasingly useless iPad 1 which I still haven’t got around to getting rid of.

May was also our first wedding anniversary, although we didn’t really do anything special to celebrate it apart from going to see Sarah Millican in Halifax (third time), and it was our turn to host a Eurovision party.

June

Although it started in May, it wasn’t until June that we started watching Happy Valley on BBC1 – a crime thriller set in our local area. It was a brilliant, gripping series that’s well worth watching if you can – I believe it’s on Netflix in America, or you can buy the DVD from Amazon (sponsored link).

Another work trip came up in June, this time to Gosforth near Newcastle, although it wasn’t an overnight stay this time.

The Bradford Playhouse faced an uncertain future in June, as the building was due to be sold at auction. Thankfully it’s now been saved – a friend of ours who had a fair amount of money from a recent house sale bought the venue and kept the current management team, and now it’s going from strength to strength. I spent quite a bit of time there at various points throughout 2014 and I have no doubt that I’ll be back there in 2015.

Christine and I signed up to Netflix – whilst we probably haven’t quite got our money’s worth we have been able to see a number of films and TV shows that we wouldn’t have otherwise. And at the end of the month we went to Blackpool, including yet another visit to Blackpool Zoo.

July

The big thing that happened in Yorkshire in July was the Grand Départ of the Tour de France, which I watched on TV over the weekend – even though it passed within a few miles of our apartment. Whilst I wasn’t so interested in the later stages of the race, it was great to see so many people out cheering the riders along and Yorkshire looked fantastic in all of the TV coverage. From 2015 onwards there will be an annual professional cycle race in Yorkshire and hopefully it’ll be just as popular.

In May I started taking lactase enzyme tablets to ease my lactose intolerance symptoms, but it wasn’t until July that I wrote about it. It seems to work, as part of a strategy of also cutting down my dairy consumption and eating lactose-free alternatives instead.

In mid-July Christine and I both started learning to drive again. We’ve both had lessons years ago, and I’ve previously failed my practical test twice, but now we really do need to be able to drive and own a car. The lessons are coming on well – we’ll both be taking our theory tests soon (when we book them) and hopefully at least one of us will be qualified to drive by the summer.

I also started going to the gym again after a long break, although that habit petered out recently. I need to start going again in the new year, especially as doing the seven minute workout at home almost killed me (well, not quite…). I cancelled and then un-cancelled my Dropbox Pro subscription after finding it better than the alternatives, and recently Dropbox extended the storage available to a whole terabyte so it’s actually not bad value for money now.

I bought a Roku box – it’s been a great purchase and we’ve used it a lot, to watch programmes on catch-up services or on demand. Christine found it really useful when she was at home on sick leave as it’s really easy to use.

On the blog, the 10,000th comment was posted; there have only been another 40 since as few people bother commenting on blogs these days, it seems.

August

August is always a busy time for people like me who work in university admissions, as it’s the time when A-level results are released and universities try to fill up their leftover places on courses through the Clearing process. As usual this meant working long hours and 13 days straight.

Over the August bank holiday I did manage to get out into the countryside – I met up with friends from university and we did a couple of days walking. On the Saturday we did Whernside, one of the Yorkshire three peaks, and then Brimham Rocks on the Sunday.

August was the month when I stopped using Delicious and started using Pinboard instead, and reviewed Alestorm’s fourth (and probably best) album which had recently been released.

September

September saw me being nominated for the ice bucket challenge, which pretty much ceased to be a thing at the time when I did it. I drank some free beer with friends, and had an iPhone 6 to play with for a few days. Which actually put me off buying it because it was so huge, so I’m sticking with my iPhone 5 for a third year on a cheaper contract.

Work was still busy in September so not much else really happened.

October

By contrast October was rather more eventful. We went on a ‘mini-cruise’ to Bruges in Belgium – I’d been 22 years ago but it was Christine’s first visit. We were only there for a day, but managed to squeeze quite a lot of sightseeing in and enjoyed ourselves. Because we went there by ferry from Hull, on the way back we called in at The Deep.

I had the last week in October off work so I went with some friends on a day trip to Hawes, where I ate and bought lots of cheese.

November

In November Christine and I went to Nottingham for the first time, to meet up with friends who had recently moved to the Midlands. It’s quite a nice city with a newly-renovated railway station, expanding tram system, and a good selection of independent shops in the area around the Lace Market. We’ll have to go again some time, though perhaps not by train as it takes about 3 hours each way – which is as long as it takes us to get to London.

We also went to our first ever comic convention – Thought Bubble in Leeds. It was another opportunity for us to get out our Steampunk outfits and spend lots of money on comics and other related paraphernalia. We’ll almost certainly be back again next year as it was great fun.

I visited a great new pub in Bradford the day before it officially opened, and we saw two live comedy acts in the same weekend: Frisky & Mannish and Susan Calman. The following week, we went to see Delain in Manchester for a second time, this time as the headline act, and called in at the Manchester Museum (for which I still need to write up and upload photos for).

The new World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor, was released, and I’ve been playing it a lot ever since.

On the blog, I wrote a long post about the history of an under-threat bus route, and how I ended up on the ‘chav’ page on Wikipedia. It was also about this time that Google decided that my blog was reasonably important after all and so my older blog posts started appearing more in its search results, leading to an increase in traffic. Which is paying off financially – clicks on the banner ads have doubled and the amount of money I’m making through affiliate links to Amazon and iTunes has increased. Whilst this still means that the site runs at a loss each month, it’s a smaller loss than before.

December

And finally to this month, in which I haven’t blogged much. I was ill for a week recently – it was a cold, but one that really knocked me back. Christine had it before me and it had also been spreading around at work. I ended up taking two days off work, and probably should have taken more had there not been things that I really needed to be in to do.

Speaking of work, in December we moved to a new office. It’s much bigger as we’re sharing it with a couple of other teams that we already work with, and it has brand new furniture and better facilities. It’s on the ground floor, rather than the eighth floor as before, so no more waiting for the lift – although the view out of the window isn’t as nice. We’ve also been moving to Office 365 over the year: email in the summer, which meant that I stopped using Thunderbird after all these years, and we’ll be moving our calendars out of PeopleCube’s Meeting Maker over the Christmas break.

Outside of work, I went on a pub crawl around Skipton, and we saw Mitch Benn in Hebden Bridge – we’d also seen his show, Mitch Benn is the 37th Beatle, in Leeds in June. We spent Christmas with Christine’s mum, and then went to York after Christmas for my Dad’s 70th birthday. No, I can’t believe he’s 70 either – he’s certainly very fit and healthy for his age. But then his father – my grandfather – is still doing well at the age of 94.

We’ll be the ending the year tonight in Blackpool, probably in the same way that we ended 2012. Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas!

December 22, 2024December 25, 2014 by Neil Turner

Not a big Christmas for us this year – a few small presents, and we only put the tree up yesterday. We’re staying in our flat in Sowerby Bridge due to work commitments.

But I get to spend it with my amazing wife and that’s all that matters. Merry Christmas to everyone.

Distracted in Draenor

December 23, 2024December 7, 2014 by Neil Turner

Oops, looks like I forgot to post any new blog entries last week. This is mostly because a lot of my free time has been spent playing the new World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor.

I didn’t play it much in the first week following release, which is probably a good thing as it meant that I avoided the worst of the launch issues, although it was almost two weeks’ after the expansion became available that the game settled down reliably. Apparently a higher than expected number of former players have returned to the game and Blizzard Entertainment hadn’t foreseen this, so there have been capacity issues. A few weeks on and the game is now playable without queueing, disconnects or lag, for the most part.

During the last expansion I effectively retired my main character, a human paladin called Hexorious, and mostly played on a shadow priest. Because it’s been so long since there has been any new content, I managed to level four characters to level 90, and another one was boosted using the offer that came with the purchase of the Warlords of Draenor expansion. However, I decided to go back to my main for this expansion and now he is level 100 – the other four still at 90.

Indeed the player character development features of this expansion make it less-alternative character friendly, in my view. The big new feature of the expansion is Garrisons – your own base of operations where you can construct buildings and gather resources. Building this up is a major time investment and not one that I’d necessarily want to repeat on another character. This is not to say it isn’t fun and I spend quite a bit of time every day tending to my garrison – starting and collecting work orders, sending followers on missions and building up resources to expand. My garrison is level 3 – maximum level – but the buildings are all level two as I haven’t come across any level three plans yet.

I think I would have enjoyed Warlords of Draenor even if it wasn’t very good, because it’s the first major bit of new content in the game for over a year and overcomes the staleness. But it is a really well-done expansion. So far I don’t quite think it’s my favourite – that would be Wrath of the Lich King – but it’s probably a close second, and certainly far better than Cataclysm which didn’t feel very immersive despite the decent story lines. I particularly like how we get to see the planet of Draenor in a different timeline – some bits still recognisable from Outland and some completely different but still familiar. And the non-player characters have a more defined back story – without wanting to reveal too many spoilers, Alliance characters should pay attention to Vindicator Maraad, especially paladins.

I’m still questing through Nagrand and have a number of bonus objectives to complete too, so even though my character is at the maximum level there is plenty more to do. And I’ve only just started setting foot into dungeons. So far, I’m really enjoying it, although hopefully I’ll have time to write things here too…

Susan Calman

December 29, 2024November 24, 2014 by Neil Turner

After seeing Frisky & Mannish on Friday, Christine and I went to another comedy gig on Sunday. This time it was to see Susan Calman, a diminutive Scottish lesbian and stand-up comedian on her tour ‘Ladylike’, at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge. Hebden Bridge is something of a lesbian capital and so it was not surprising that the gig had sold out a few weeks ago.

I’m familiar with Susan Calman through her work on BBC Radio 4 – she is a regular guest on the weekly panel show The News Quiz, and has presented two series of her own show Susan Calman is Convicted. On TV, she’s appeared on Have I Got News For You and a few other programmes, mainly in Scotland. She’s been top of my list of stand-up comedians whom I have yet to see live so last night was a chance to fix this.

And I’m pleased to say it was really worth waiting for. Calman is a fantastic observational comedian, with all of her material drawn from her own life and experiences. It helps that she has an interesting story to tell – about her height, her sexuality, her career change and her three cats, each of whom has its own theme song.

Her tour continues into next year and whilst a number of dates are already sold out, hopefully there will be a gig near you with tickets still available. If you want to hear someone who is charming, inspirational and, most of all, hilariously funny, then find the time to go and see her when you can. Tour dates are on her web site.

Now, to make time to see Bethany Black and Chris Addison, who make up the rest of my list of comedians to see live.

Frisky & Mannish

December 29, 2024November 23, 2014 by Neil Turner

On Friday Christine and I went to The Wardrobe in Leeds to see Frisky & Mannish – a cabaret act who parody popular music. We’ve seen them before in September 2012 when they came to Bradford – we stopped back after the gig for the above photo. Which, incidentally, was one of the last photos taken on my iPhone 4 before I replaced it with my current phone.

Anyhow, as we enjoyed ourselves so much last time, we made a point of booking tickets for their gig in Leeds. This was for their new show, ‘#justtoomuch’, which was a departure from their previous shows. Whereas in the past they have focussed on ‘educating’ people about pop music, this show was about celebrity excess and the inevitable fall into depression and drug abuse – see Amy Winehouse, Miley Cirus et al.

Which sounds depressing but it’s put together in a great way. 2/3rds of the show was made up of new material, including some topical jibes at Bob Geldof, ballet dancing and made-up letters from Sinead O’Connor.

The rest was set aside for their greatest hits – nursery rhymes set to the tune of ‘Sound of the Underground’ by Girls Aloud (“The wheels on the bus go round/The wheels on the bus go round and round…”), ‘Beep’ by the Pussycat Dolls in the style of a Blackpool end of the peer variety act, and various love songs with creepy undertones sung in a psychotic way.

Frisky & Mannish have a very loyal fan base – Frisky asked the crowd who had been to one of their gigs before and more than half had – but it’s easy to see why people keep on coming back. F&M’s current tour has a few more nights to go, so if they’re in your area I’d thoroughly recommend taking the time to see them. If you remain unconvinced, their previous three shows are free to watch on YouTube, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign.

The Record Café, Bradford

December 23, 2024November 21, 2014 by Neil Turner

Last night I went to a preview night at Bradford’s newest bar, The Record Café, on North Parade. Officially it opens tonight, and it will be a great new addition to Bradford’s new independent quarter.

The Record Café is three things. First and foremost it’s a bar, with four hand-pulled cask beers and six keg beers, along with a fridge full of bottled beer. Most of the beers are either British (Saltaire, Great Heck, Brewdog and Camden Town were present when I visited) or American, including the Anchor Steam Brewery’s Porter available in a keg – this is the first time I’ve seen their beers in anything other than a bottle in this country. There were also a small number of bottled continental beers, and an eclectic selection of gin that eschews the more common brands. No mass-produced mainstream lager here.

It’s also a delicatessen, offering platters of ham and cured meats – there were plenty of samples available at the preview, and it was good quality stuff. In this sense, by offering beer and charcuterie it’s a bit like Friends of Ham in Leeds, but less hipster-y.

Where it differs is the third thing, and the clue is in the name – as well as being a bar, it’s also a record shop. There’s an upstairs mezzanine where you can browse and buy records on vinyl. This wasn’t quite ready with limited stock and some decorating to do, but the emphasis will be on new music, rather than it being an exchange for old records.

It’s located just opposite The Sparrow, which was Bradford’s first ‘bier café’ – that opened in 2011, just as craft beer started becoming popular in the UK. That’s still going strong, and joins Al’s Dime Bar further along North Parade, in an area becoming known for bars serving good beer. Next year, the Bradford Brewery opens around the corner, along with another new bar called The Beerhouse and an independent cinema which will have a bar as well.

For once, it’s becoming an exciting time to be in Bradford, and I hope these bars will do something to improve Bradford’s nightlife. In recent years people have travelled from Bradford to Leeds, Halifax and Huddersfield for nights out and I hope some of those will choose to stay in the city in future.

I took a number of photos last night and these are available to view on Flickr.

With thanks to Keith Wildman and his colleagues at The Record Café for inviting myself and the Bradford University Real Ale & Cider Society along.

Northern Rail’s “Intercity” services

December 29, 2024November 20, 2014 by Neil Turner

I’m a northerner, and I travel by train a lot. At least 95% of my journeys are with Northern Rail, a franchise run jointly by Serco (to whom all your base are belong to) and Abellio, which is owned by the Dutch government. The franchise was let in 2004 on a ‘no growth’ basis – the assumption being that passenger levels wouldn’t grow significantly during the franchise period, and so there was no real requirement for any extra trains or to increase service levels.

In reality there has been a huge growth in passenger levels in the north over the past ten years. Thankfully Northern has invested in some extra trains, although these are mostly old trains that other operators no longer need, and some services have been improved. But there haven’t been any brand new trains ordered, and whilst most have been ‘refreshed’ with a coat of paint, new flooring and seat covers, internally most of Northern’s fleet retains their original fixtures.

Around the time that the rail franchises in the north were re-jigged in 2004, the intercity services that Northern’s predecessor (Arriva Trains Northern) operated were mostly split off into a different franchise – First Transpennine Express. These services received new trains. Northern was left with mainly commuter and rural services, and the internal layout of its trains reflect this. But it still operates a few intercity services that I’ll get onto.

What makes a service ‘intercity’ anyway?

Simply put it’s a train service that connects two or more cities together, although I’d also state that the end-to-end journey time is over an hour, and it only calls at larger stations. Unlike short-hop commuter trains, where fitting on as many passengers as possible is the main goal, with intercity services you want to provide a more comfortable experience for longer journeys. To me, this means providing:

Refreshments, such as a trolley service or buffet car
First class accommodation
Wifi (free or paid-for)
Plug sockets
Seat reservations

Almost none of Northern’s services meet the above criteria, and yet some of its trains probably should. Here’s my list of “intercity” services that Northern runs.

Leeds – Nottingham

This is fresh in my mind as we took this train on Saturday. It’s actually a relatively new service that was first introduced in 2008. The full journey takes almost exactly two hours, taking in the cities of Wakefield and Sheffield, and the large town of Barnsley on the way. It’s actually not the quickest way between the two cities, as we found out coming back – taking an East Midlands Trains service to Sheffield and then a Crosscountry service to Leeds took marginally less time, even allowing for 20 minutes in Sheffield. This is probably because the direct train goes via Wakefield Kirkgate and the Erewash Valley Line, so whilst it is an express service that skips many intermediate stations, it still takes a long time.

Our mid-morning Saturday departure was on a two-carriage class 158 train, which had ample seats for the number of people using it. And whilst the 158s are the newest of Northern’s diesel fleet, they are showing their age somewhat. Case in point – I had to use the toilet and it took several attempts to get the door to close because we were going around a bend and its motor wasn’t powerful enough to cope.

Leeds – Carlisle

The service from Leeds to Carlisle was under threat of closure until around 25 years ago, when the line was reprieved. Nowadays there’s a train roughly every two hours, and each one takes a little under three hours to complete the journey. You could argue that this doesn’t qualify as being “intercity”; Carlisle isn’t a very big city, and it doesn’t pass through any other cities on the way. But it’s also the only one of the services that I’m writing about today which meets one of the five criteria I mentioned earlier.

Thanks to the Settle-Carlisle Partnership there is a trolley service on the train, between those two stations. It’s the only Northern-operated service where this happens though, because it’s provided by the Settle-Carlisle Development Company and not Northern themselves. Again, for the most part Northern operate class 158 trains on this service but not always.

York-Blackpool North

I used to catch this service from Bradford quite regularly when I lived there and Christine lived in Blackpool; later when we moved to Sowerby Bridge I also used to commute in on it on a morning, until the timetable change in May this year. It connects the cities of York, Leeds, Bradford, and Preston, which was granted city status in 2000, but also calls at Burnley, Blackburn, Halifax and Blackpool which are large towns. Travelling the full length of this service takes almost three hours.

Northern usually puts its class 158s on this service but I’ve also endured its older class 150 trains, which have narrower seats, no air-conditioning and only one toilet, on this route. Whilst the former is reasonably acceptable, the latter does not make for a good journey experience, especially for such a long period of time. I suppose it could be worse – it could be a Pacer, a train made of 1980s bus parts bolted onto a two-axeled freight wagon, which are sadly still common on many of Northern’s services.

Spending three hours on a train with no opportunity to buy refreshments on board, no wifi or sockets to plug in a laptop to do work on, and no guarantee of a seat, does not make for a good travel experience. And yet, passengers put up with this every day.

Next year the government will announce a new franchisee for the Northern franchise. Shortlisted are Abellio (on their own this time), Arriva and Govia, and the winner will take over in early 2016. I really hope that whoever wins puts some effort into improving the rail service in the north – but especially these services. Offering a decent intercity-standard service between the north’s major cities will hopefully encourage more people to travel, and allow them to make the best use of their time on board.

Nottingham

December 23, 2024November 18, 2014 by Neil Turner

Whilst I spent Sunday wearing a top hat and too many cogs, on Saturday Christine and I went to Nottingham to meet up with some friends from university. In the past, the only bit of Nottingham that I’ve been to has been the marina; my grandparents had a narrowboat there for several years, but the last time I’d have visited would have been around 20 years ago. Until now I’d never been to the city centre.

We took the train, which from Sowerby Bridge was three hours each way; in all we spent more time getting to or going home from Nottingham than we did in the city. Nottingham’s rail connections going north aren’t that great, but it is served by regular trains going south to London and some cross-country services.

Nottingham has just the one central station nowadays, built in 1904 and recently restored with a new, glassed-in porte-cochère at the front. In fact the station has had a lot of work done recently, with changes to the track and platforms. It looks really nice and shows what can be done when a sympathetic restoration is carried out.

Sadly once you leave the station via the main entrance, no-one has really thought through how pedestrians should get into the city centre. You basically reach a huge concrete wall, with a tiny opening in it taking you into the Broadmarsh… sorry, intu Broadmarsh shopping centre. The Broadmarsh centre seems to be stuck in a 1980s timewarp (it was last refurbished in 1988) and doesn’t reflect well on the city – not at least because the name of it reminds me of Broadmoor. Thankfully its owners have plans to refurbish it again; whether these plans will go as far as turning into a more open space like Liverpool One or Leeds Trinity remains to be seen, as right now it comes across as a major barrier.

Bombardier Incentro AT6/5 tram in Nottingham

Public transport geeks (hello!) will like Nottingham for a few reasons – as well its large station, it has buses that are still run by a council-owned company, and an expanding tram network, called NET. NET opened a little over ten years ago, and unlike many other light rail schemes in Britain it has been very popular right from the start. So much so that it’s being extended and the fleet of trams increased from 15 to 37.

In our brief visit to the city the main thing we saw was the Old Market Square, and the Council House, which is the large imposing building pictured at the top of this blog post. It’s primarily home to council offices, as well as tourist information and a small shopping arcade called The Exchange. We also headed to the area around The Lace Market, which is now home to many small, independent shops including several that sell vintage clothing. Most of the city centre is pedestrianised.

When I said I was visiting Nottingham for the day most people I spoke to seemed a bit perplexed. At best, people perceive Nottingham as nothing special – whilst it doesn’t get the (unfair) bad rap that Bradford does, it’s not perceived as somewhere to go on a day out. Which is a shame because, apart from the aforementioned shopping centre issue, I quite like Nottingham. I’d be happy to go back there sometime, anyway.

Thought Bubble Comic Con, Leeds

January 20, 2024November 17, 2014 by Neil Turner

Photo of Neil and Christine pondering a trip to Thought Bubble, annotated in the comic book style

Yesterday Christine and I went to our first every comic convention, as part of this year’s Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds. It’s been running since 2007, and I’ve been aware of it since 2012 but this was the first time we’d been.

Running over two days, the comic con concludes the week-long Thought Bubble Festival which takes place across Leeds and celebrates comic art. It’s based at the Royal Armouries Museum, taking over the Royal Armouries Hall (recently renamed from the ‘Saville Hall’), the New Dock Hall, and a large marquee in the square outside, plus some small rooms for talks. There were hundreds of mainly independent comic book sellers, artists and all sorts across the three main venues.

Me and Christine, dressed in Steampunk outfits

One-day passes were £15, or two-day passes for both days – for die-hard comic fans who want to attend as many talks and panels as possible – were £24, and in both cases there was a £4 discount for cosplayers. So Christine and I dusted off our various steampunk paraphernalia and dressed up for the occasion. In doing so we spent more than the £8 that we saved on the entry price but we had a significant number of positive comments about our outfits – especially the octopus fascinator that Christine bought at a previous Leeds Steampunk Market. I’d say around 10-20% of attendees were in cosplay, some more elaborate than others. Kids under 12 had free entry so there were plenty of children around, many also dressed up. We saw a small Tardis, and a young, grumpy Hulk in a pushchair amongst others.

We followed the web site’s advice and made sure that we took out plenty of cash before we got there. The bigger stalls take cards but many of the exhibitors are regular people like you and me who just do this on the side, and the one cash machine nearby usually runs out of money on Saturday morning, apparently. And we spent most of the cash that we took.

Here’s the point where I’ll admit to not being an avid reader of comic books, but you don’t necessarily have to enjoy reading comics to have a good time at Thought Bubble. It did mean that we knew very few of the exhibitors – Moo and Keo being one of the only major exceptions, along with Dr Geof whose Tea Museum has recently returned from an exhibition at the Cutty Sark in London. However we did come across the official Professor Elemental comics, about the steampunk-themed ‘chap hop’ rhymer, and James Chapman whose Soundimals comics I’ve come across on Tumblr and Facebook. We bought their books, the latter signed, with a sloth illustration.

Speaking of sloths, we also had a couple of commissions, or pieces of art drawn for us. The first was by Sajan Rai, who offered to draw you as a sloth – Christine volunteered, hence the octopus. And Lucy Bellwood drew us the beautiful red panda, which we’re planning to get framed.

Commissioned pieces - red panda and sloth

Leeds’ major comic book stores – Forbidden Planet, Travelling Man and OK Comics – were also there and we picked up The Oatmeal‘s book 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (sponsored link).

Part of the fun of Thought Bubble, for us, was simply people-watching. Obviously some of the cosplay outfits were amazing, although regrettably I only took one or two photos. But it was also fun looking at the bemused expressions of those who were on their way to the Royal Armouries Museum and weren’t aware that Thought Bubble was taking place – and were thoroughly confused by all the people dressed up. In Pizza Express, at lunch, we were one of two steampunk groups, with a girl on another table wearing a painted morphsuit showing all of the muscle groups in the style of a flayed corpse.

It was really good fun, and I can’t believe we’d never been before. We’ll be there next year.

528 bus from Halifax to Rochdale

December 23, 2024November 14, 2014 by Neil Turner

Today’s blog post is about a bus service. You may be wondering if I’m scraping the barrel here – surely there’s nothing interesting about a bus service? But Diamond Geezer blogs about buses and makes them interesting, and I think that this particular bus service qualifies.

The 528 bus service

The 528 bus runs once every hour from Halifax to Rochdale, via my home town of Sowerby Bridge, Ripponden, Blackstone Edge, Littleborough and Smallbridge. Drawn on a map, it operates on a near direct south-westerly line, taking around an hour to complete the journey. And it’s quite a scenic route – the photo above is of Blackstone Edge reservoir, as between Ripponden and Littleborough the bus runs through open moorland. On a nice day it can be quite spectacular. I’ve used it a couple of times, once when I needed to get to Bury for work, and another time when the trains weren’t running because of engineering work.

It isn’t the only way of getting between Halifax and Rochdale though. It’s quicker by train, with the fastest services taking around half an hour. Plus the trains run twice an hour during the daytime whereas the 528 is hourly.

There’s also another bus service, the 590, which also runs hourly. The 590 runs via Luddendenfoot, Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, Todmorden, Walsden before rejoining the 528’s route at Littleborough. It takes longer – about an hour and a half – but passes through more populous settlements.

First 66783 YK05 FJF — *P927949 by Ingy the Wingy on Flickr, CC-licensed.*

Change of operator

At one time, both the 528 and 590 bus services were operated by First, the Scottish-owned large national bus and train company that operates the majority of buses in West Yorkshire. First still operate the 590 service, but several years ago the 528 was taken over by a company called Centrebus Holdings. This was a joint venture between the managers of Centrebus, a bus company in the Midlands, and Arriva, the large national bus and train company owned by the German state railway company Deutsche Bahn. Last year, the managers of Centrebus sold their stake to Arriva. This allowed Arriva to take full ownership of the company, which is now branded Yorkshire Tiger. Their buses retain Centrebus’ orange livery but with black tiger prints on the side. It makes me smile that a bus operated by Yorkshire Tiger crosses the border into Greater Manchester.

The reason for the change in operator is because the 528 bus is a subsidised service. It’s not commercially viable without taxpayer support, which comes from Metro (part of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority). Over recent years, First have pulled out of a number of subsidised services in West Yorkshire which run more as a public service than for profit. When these services have been put out to tender, Centrebus have often won.

Centrebus 775 YJ10 EZH — *Huddersfield Bus Company 775 YJ10 EZH by Ingy the Wingy on Flickr, all rights reserved*

Cuts

The weak economy and austerity cuts being imposed by central government led Metro to review the services it was subsidising earlier this year. In some cases it was supporting services that were used by just a handful of people. This wasn’t providing value for money, and so a consultation process was held. And one of the proposed service cuts was the 528. Not just cut, but cancelled completely with some replacement buses running only as far as Ripponden as bus number 560. There would be no bus links between Ripponden and Rochdale, and those wanting to use the bus between Halifax and Rochdale would have to use the slower 590 service.

Whilst a large number of other cuts were proposed, the cut to the 528 received the most vocal opposition. In particular, the consultation was only held in West Yorkshire; residents of Littleborough and Rochdale were not asked for their views. Meanwhile the buses used on the 528 route were downsized from large single-decker Optare Tempo buses to smaller Optare Solos.

Redemption, of sorts

The outcome of the consultation was published a couple of weeks ago, and like many consultations that propose cuts, the end result was something in the middle. The 528 will still cease to exist when the changes take effect early next year, but it will be replaced with a new service called the X58 which will operate the same route. ‘X’ services are express services and this will hopefully reinforce the fact that it offers quicker journeys between Halifax and Rochdale than the 590, with the potential that more people will use it. It’ll retain the same hourly service interval as the 528 bus service, although it will not run late into the evening and its frequency will be reduced on Sundays.

I’m pleased that the bus service will be kept, even if I personally don’t use it very often. Whilst some buses can be run at a profit, it shouldn’t mean that those that aren’t profitable are withdrawn, provided that they serve a useful public service. Serving small outlying villages may not make much money for the bus companies but it can be a lifeline for the residents who rely on these services.

Update: The X58 bus service began on the 25th January – you can download the timetable here.

Update 2: As of 2025, the 528 bus has been replaced again, and is now the 587.