Bloglines, a web site which allows you to subscribe to and read RSS/Atom feeds online, is closing on October 1st.
It’s a bit of a shame – I started using Bloglines almost exactly 6 years ago, and it was great to be able to read all of my feeds on one central web site. That being said, a couple of year later I moved to Google Reader and have stuck with it ever since, due to its better user experience. Bloglines never seemed to catch up and I only know a few people still using it now.
Even so, the number of people using feed readers is apparently falling, and according to paidContent Google Reader is also experiencing a fall in traffic. Whether this is because of feed features in desktop browsers like Firefox and later versions of Internet Explorer have become people’s preferred way of using feeds, or that people prefer Facebook or Twitter, I’m not sure, but it would seem that their popularity is waning.
Yesterday Christine and I went to our first proper music festival: Bingley Music Live. It’s certainly not one of the biggest festivals, with only 15,000 tickets available, and it doesn’t draw many big names. The main acts this year were mostly bands that were at the peak of popularity some years ago, namely The Buzzcocks, Public Image Ltd., Reef and James.
Bingley Music Live is in its fourth year and is organised by Bradford Council with no corporate sponsorship. Despite this, tickets are only £30 for the full weekend, and the Friday event has free entry as well. The small size of the festival means there’s only one stage, and there’s no campsite, but then I think most people who go live locally.
I’ll be going back today for the Sunday bands, although this time I’ll be bringing more of my own drinks. £2 for a small bottle of cola is frankly scandalous.
I’ve been sent a package by the PA to the National Railway Museum’s Director of Fun, Sam Pointon. While it may not seem odd for a museum which is popular with families to have a director of fun, Sam is only 7 years old, and he’s been there for a year now.
Sam, or rather his PA, has asked me to write about my experiences with the museum and tell you about some of the events that are being held this summer, so here goes.
Like Sam, when I was his age, I was also very keen on trains – having a father who worked for British Rail helped as it meant lots of free rail journeys. I also grew up in York, home of the National Railway Museum and was a regular visitor. At one time, my mum took me almost every Sunday, even when there wasn’t free entry like there is now. My earliest memories were of its ‘Great Rail Exhibition’ in the former York Goods Station, as at the time the main hall was receiving a new roof. Now both the main hall and goods station are used for the museum and open to the public. Further expansions have added a workshop where you can see classic trains being overhauled and restored, as well as access to some of the museum’s archives.
Moving out of York in 2002 has meant that my visits have been sadly less frequent. My most recent visit was in 2007 which included a trip on The Yorkshire Wheel, a London Eye-style big wheel which was unfortunately only a temporary attraction and is now elsewhere. As well as seeing classic trains from both the UK and overseas (there’s a driving car from Japan’s Bullet Train, for example), there’s plenty of information about the history of Britain’s railways, and various interesting artefacts.
This summer, a sand sculpture is being built from 20 tonnes of sand by the same people who created a sand sculpture of Charles Darwin in Centenary Square in Bradford last summer. There’s also a major 1930s exhibition, linked in to the recently restored streamlined steam engine the Duchess of Hamilton, which you can see in the photo at the top of the page.
The National Railway Museum is a really great museum and you can easily spend a day there. There’s plenty to do, whether you’re a young child or a grown-up child like me. Best of all, it’s free, and only a few minutes walk from York station. You should go and visit it sometime.
This is a camera made by the Eastman Kodak company in 1917, as part of their ‘Vest Pocket Kodak’ range. It was given to me by Christine’s grandparents. I haven’t tried taking any pictures with it yet, as it didn’t have any film in it. Apparently, the film is still available to buy from specialist retailers though.
I gather that it gets its name from the fact it could fit in one’s vest pocket, as folded up it’s quite small – about the same size as a modern compact digital camera. One such Vest Pocket Kodak model has been up Mount Everest before.
I’m not sure quite what to do with it. I will probably ask the National Media Museum if they are interested in it, since they’re in Bradford and have a large photography gallery; however, several hundred thousand of these cameras were made and so it’s possible that they aren’t interested in it; nor will it make a lot of money second hand (examples in better condition are available for about £50 on eBay from specialist camera sellers). Still, I’ve taken a few pictures of it and may be willing to give it a worthy home if approached.
I’m back from the Isle of Man and both Christine and I had a wonderful time – it’s a lovely island and well worth a visit. I’m slowly uploading photos of the trip to Flickr – I took over 300 so it’s taken a while to sort them all…
If I get chance I’ll write more about the trip; unfortunately I’m rather busy catching up from being off work for a week. No rest for the wicked.
It’s July, which means that we’re now more than half way through 2010. Still feels like April for some reason, despite the very summery weather we’ve had lately.
I haven’t had chance to blog much so this is a summarised version of things that I would have devoted posts to had I had the time.
Films:
About a year ago I wrote about films which I own but haven’t watched. I finally watched Robots last night and it was actually better than I had expected. The computer animation is wonderfully detailed and it’s a lot of fun. I’m starting to wish I’d watched it sooner.
On a related note, I have copies of Eragon, Ghostbusters II and the first Twilight film which I own but haven’t seen. All in good time, I suppose.
I saw the trailer for The Last Airbender a couple of months ago and it looked good, but the reviews of it suggest it’s totally rubbish, so I’ll give it a miss.
Your Freedom:
I was intending to write something about the government’s Your Freedom site, which asks the public for ideas about laws that need changing or repealing. It’s a good idea but badly executed, and Chris Applegate sums it up much better than I can, so read his blog post.
But, for the record, I’d like to see the Digital Economy Act repealed.
The Internets:
Some time in late April our ADSL modem at home started acting up, and ever since it’s been happily dropping packets left, right and centre. It’s a Netgear DG834GT, which isn’t a bad model but it’s several years old and has been rather over-used. The wireless has gone as well, so I’m using my spare Netgear WGR614 as an access point. Anyhow, we’re finally getting a new modem from Sky and so I’ll actually be able to do things like play World of Warcraft without lagging and download files without them timing out.
Holiday:
Things will be quiet around here again as Christine and I are off to the Isle of Man for a week, starting tomorrow. We don’t have a solid itinerary but are planning a trip to see the Laxey Wheel and a train ride up Snae Fell.
Buying rail tickets for train travel in the UK is complicated. Despite some simplification introduced last year, it’s still possible to buy a range of rail tickets at different prices that will get you on the same seat on the same train.
Buy your rail tickets in advance, and as early as possible – you can get them up to 3 months ahead.
Rail tickets bought on the day (so-called ‘walk on fares’) offer lots of flexibility but are also usually the most expensive – you can book as little as 48 hours in advance and save a lot of money.
You can usually book any ticket from any train company, even if your journey doesn’t use their trains. So you could book with CrossCountry to travel on a First Transpennine Express (FTPE) train and get the same price as you would booking direct with FTPE.
Rail Easy displays fares in a different way which can make it easier to find cheaper tickets. I also found that they are more likely to send tickets by first class post for free, rather than charge £6 for next-day delivery. They do charge a booking fee though.
If you spend more than £76 per year (or £6 per month) on rail tickets, get a railcard. If you are between the ages of 16 and 25 you can get a 16-25 railcard. You can order a new one right up until the day before your 26th birthday too. Family railcards and senior railcards are also available. They give you 34% off the price of almost all train tickets, including those booked in advance.
Sometimes two single rail tickets are cheaper than a return – always check both. This is especially true if you book in advance.
Megatrain is worth a look as its fares start from £1 (plus 50p booking fee). Trains run from Sheffield, Derby and Portsmouth into London, but there are connecting coaches from cities like York and Bradford (I travelled from York to London for a total of £3.50 last year). There’s also additional discounts for NUS Extra card holders.
There are many more tips out there, which shows how confusing the system is. Ultimately, the best way to get the cheapest fare is to book as far in advance as possible, use a railcard and shop around a bit.
Yesterday I visited the Bradford Mela, an annual festival celebrating Asian culture. It’s held in Peel Park, which is close to where I’m currently living, and having missed it in previous years I decided to pop along.
Peel Park is quite large and the Bradford Mela takes over most of it. As well as a stage, ‘village green’ area and a central avenue, there are several rows of stalls from local and national businesses. You would need at least an hour to just walk around everything.
Despite having an Asian focus, the Mela has become a truly multicultural event and this is reflected both in the organisations present at the event but also the people there – it gave an almost perfect cross-section of Bradford’s population. No one race or background was under or over-represented.
We spent a few hours there and really enjoyed it. It’s on again today until 8pm – otherwise you’ll have to wait until next year.
In my ‘Bradford – a tale of two stations‘ post a few weeks ago I mentioned that many plans had been made to connect the city’s two stations together over the years but nothing had come of it.
The latest set of plans have been published by a couple of local businessmen. It would create a new station called ‘Bradford Central’ which would be on the bridge carrying the tracks through the city. This would be linked to the existing bus station at Bradford Interchange but it’s probable that the two railway stations would close under the plans.
The proposed station certainly looks good in the artist drawings, and very little demolition would be necessary – just the Royal Mail depot at Forster Court (which has been earmarked for eventual demolition anyway as far as I am aware). It would take some land from the Westfield development but would have the advantage that the site would be very close to the station – therefore increasing footfall in the proposed shops. There’s even a chance that Westfield would help fund it, as they did in London when their White City shopping centre opened recently; this saw a new railway station, new Tube station and another Tube station extensively refurbished with Westfield putting up a lot of the money.
The projected cost of the scheme would be £100m, which is a lot of money. We’ve just come out of a recession and the massive public fund deficit means that money from central government is probably not going to be very forthcoming.
The design of the station would make any potential expansion difficult – it provides 4 platforms but this is less than the 7 that the two existing stations provide between them. Of course, should the platforms at Bradford Interchange remain open for terminating services then potential capacity problems would be alleviated somewhat. However, adding extra platforms to the new station would be very difficult due to its elevated state, and the probably lack of land to expand into.
Despite all this, I really, really hope that this comes to fruition. The current station at Interchange looks very dark and tired, and needs replacing. Enabling through services, rather than having trains reverse, would make routing trains through Bradford more attractive. And it may be the catalyst that gets the Westfield development back on track and would give people more reason to visit the city. But it’s early days and we’ve been in this situation many times before – I’m not getting my hopes up.
