So it looks like I may have been right about Network Rail’s dodgy maths. Or perhaps not. It depends who you listen to. All I know is that, as suspected, I didn’t get to work the day after a bank holiday weekend of engineering works. Neither did a lot of other people

Again.

It was almost inevitable.

Initial reports on the radio were cautious, speaking of delays rather than cancellations, but soon they got more serious, and it became a case of ‘don’t travel’, rather than ‘allow more time’. And then the school run kicked in and all of the buses that might have been used to ferry stranded passengers further down the line had to instead shuffle reluctant kids to their classrooms, and the line effectively shut down.

‘Engineering work due to be completed over the Easter weekend has overrun leading to delays for commuters,’ the BBC reported. ‘Operator National Express East Anglia said work due to finish on Monday had overrun and delays of up to an hour on the line up to Norwich were expected. The cause is signalling problems after track replacement at Shenfield.’

Delays of ‘up to an hour’ were the least of their worries when the line was effectively cut in two by the breakdown.

But Network Rail claimed that the delays were nothing to do with the renovations. In a press release entitled ‘Network Rail responds to National Express accusations‘ (and ‘accusations’ is a pretty strong word, by my reckoning), it said:

Network Rail has refuted the claim by National Express that it had been ‘misleading’ as to the cause of today’s problems at Shenfield.

Patrick Hallgate, Route Director, said: “Passengers don’t care about the cause of a train delay, only that their train is delayed. We informed National Express of the problem early this morning as soon as possible. At the end of the day, whatever the reason our infrastructure was the problem, we have acknowledged that and sincerely apologise to everyone who has been caught up in the disruption.”

Network Rail clarified that a fault with the signalling system, affecting several sets of points (points number 2247 and 2250), that didn’t form part of the Easter work, was first picked-up in the early hours of this morning as the signalling system was being ‘rebooted’.

Whatever the reason, and whoever was to blame, the outcome was still the same. Thousands of delayed passengers up and down the line, many of whom – myself included – would have chosen to work at home.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about it, though, was the fact that I’d been so sure this would happen I had even brought home work that I could do from there before the Easter weekend, hoping I might be proved wrong.

I wasn’t.

Technorati Tags:
network+rail, shenfield, trains, train+travel

The brew, just before the lid went on (don’t worry – we’re not keeping it either beside the radiator, or on the carpet)

There’s a monster in the kitchen of which we’ve rapidly lost control. We decided to start brewing beer this weekend. It was a four-dayer, after all. So we got ourselves a fermenter, which is really just a five gallon container with a lid and marks up the side, and mixed up our sugar, water, malt and yeast.

We snapped on the lid and… nothing. It really looked like a wash-out, which after our disastrous experiments with home-made hot cross buns (don’t ask) wouldn’t have been such a surprise.

Anyhow, that was Sunday morning. Yesterday.

This morning, we got up to a feint smell of beer in the hall, and looking through the side of the fermenter you could see those cloudy ripples you get down the sides of a freshly-pulled pint. There was tension in the lid of the fermenter, too, which was starting to raise slightly. Yesterday it had been totally flat.

Not wanting to have it explode, we snapped open a corner of the lid to release some of the pressure, then pressed it shut again and walked away. A couple of hours later, the same thing: the lid was bulging in the centre. We released the pressure.

Another hour later, another bulging lid, this time as tight as a drum. It’s been going on all day. The yeast has gone into overdrive and we’ve been releasing the pressure every hour, half an hour, fifteen minutes… the gap between each release has been getting shorter. Now it’s late evening, and in an hour I’ll be heading to bed. What then?

We’ve put the fermenter in the kitchen, beside the cat’s bowls, and I have these terrible visions of a scene from a sitcom. He pops down in the middle of the night for some Felix at the very moment when the top blows off. The kitchen, the counters and the cat are showered in a sticky, drippy, dark brown brew, that he gets horribly leglessly drunk licking off himself.

Stagger, stagger, trip up the stairs, jump up on the bed and hurl on the duvet.

So, the question is, do I loosen the lid overnight (and, presumably, until the end of the initial, most disruptive part of the fermentation process) or do I leave it snapped shut and trust the laws of physics and tight lids?

Reading around the net, it would seem that you don’t want real breathable air getting in to mix with the stale environment cooked up by the yeast, which would suggest the lid should stay shut.

But then I also see that some other fermenters have a value in the top, to release the pressure, but keep the outside air out.

Hmmm.

Ever wondered why rail improvements never seem to run to time? Perhaps it’s Network Rail’s maths, or the lengths to which it expects its workers to go.

Network Rail oversees the UK’s network and stations, and its latest press release, published today, outlines the work it plan to complete over the four day Easter break.

It’s a long and extensive programme, and involves track replacements at Shenfield, overhead line replacements at Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green and timetable changes for services to Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Clacton, Southend, Shenfield and a whole host of other stations, all of which could (perhaps) over-run and impact on my journey to work the first day back.

It happened over Christmas, and the first day back was actually spent working from home. Major upset, big enquiries, compensation paid, fines of £14m levied. Of course, they won’t want to have that happen again.

So it’s good to read Iain Coucher, Network Rail’s chief exec assuring us all that there will be no repeat:

Following the New Year, we have listened to passengers and those who represent them and now our planning and preparation is more robust than ever. Each project is an immense engineering challenge in its own right, and Network Rail is absolutely determined to deliver a safe and reliable railway back to passengers and freight users at the promised time.

But if they’re so determined to get it right this time around you have to ask why they’re not throwing more resources at the problem. In the same release he outlined the level of work required and the number of people making it happen:

In just four days over Easter Network Rail will deliver 300,000 hours of improvement work across the country. Around 6,000 engineers will be working day and night to meet demands for a better railway from the travelling public.

Perhaps Network Rail has forgotten to mention some extra workers somewhere, but 300,000 hours split between 6,000 engineers over four days means each one will be working 12.5 hours a day, every day. Hardly likely, is it, unless they’re hiring some kind of bionic workforce.

It’s also contrary to the EU Working Time Directive, which states that nobody should work more than 48 hours in any 7 day period. This workload equates to 50 hours per engineer in the space of just four days.

I really hope it’s just a poorly-written release, and one that unfairly ignores all the back-room staff supporting the men and women with hammers bashing the track. Unless, of course, they’re called engineers, too. Not all engineers have to engage in manual labour, after all.

Either way, I’d be very impressed if it all gets done on time. Not to say a little surprised.

Technorati Tags:
network+rail, railways, trains, transport, public+transport

Oh, Delia. What have you done? We don’t want to see you opening up packs of ready-mashed potato and laying them on top of minced beef you got from a tin. You’re about frumpy food made properly, using recipes that work, regardless of our lack of culinary expertise. Tonight, though, you were one step away from piercing a film lid and cooking on defrost for six minutes.

There was something a bit sad about Delia’s How to Cheat at Cooking. The interview inserts made the whole show feel like a living obituary – a sentimental retrospective of a kitchen icon who hasn’t yet passed on. At the same time, though, she’s been reduced to eating out of cans and packets, all to the tune of a Jamie Oliver soundtrack that feels just a little bit too young for her.

So Delia, don’t let this be your last ever series. You’ve retired and come back before, so do it for us again. Give us another proper series after How to Cheat at Cooking, and this time go back to what you do best: posh school dinners for the nation.

Technorati Tags:
cooking, delia+smith

It’s been a very busy few weeks around here, as has probably been obvious from the frequency of posts. Why? Because my little fingers have been typing as quickly as they can to complete this book before early April deadline.

Oscar seems to be appreciating it. I’m getting up at 05h30 and working by 6h, and he sits on my lap until his breakfast at 8h, then he pops out for a wander around the garden before coming back in briefly to say goodbye as I leave for work.

In the evening, it’s much the same, except that his dinner comes first, and then he sleeps it off on my lap until bedtime, me tap-tap-tapping above his head all evening. Sometimes he puts his chin on the desk and watches the cursor scooting across the screen, no doubt daydreaming of the girlfriend he seems to have wooed.

I saw them out in the garden the other morning, nose to nose like they were kissing. Then the wind blew their coats up like a big Dr Zhivago muffs and they got all fizzy and chased each other around the garden. If they’re not doing that they sit together in the middle of the cabbage patch watching the world go by.

He seems to have settled into his new home very well. He knows when I get back from work and sits there waiting for me to arrive, then comes in for the night and sleeps on the end of the bed.

That can be dangerous in itself. Last night he managed to hook a claw up my right nostril (don’t ask – nightmares, probably) and pulled it with a curl of my skin attached. From the inside. Swearing, bleeding and running to the bathroom for loo roll ensued as he settled himself into a ball on the end of the bed and went back to sleep.

Anyhow, that’s getting off the point, which was of course writing, writing, writing.

It’s coming on a lot quicker than I expected, and I’m pleased with the progress, but there’s another month of tappety tap to go, and nights with the cat on my knee. And that’s not all bad by any means.