tehmina.org » interesting

Access all areas? South to north Wiltshire by rail

admin — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 08:38:10 +0000

In my effort to campaign for better public transport links between south and north Wiltshire I have not as yet looked in great detail at actual services provided by rail, their cost, convenience and duration (bus to come). I feel it is important to express the problems with current service in this way as for too long those in authority (Wiltshire County Council, First Great Western and Department for Transport) have assumed the service cuts are a very localised issue for Melksham and therefore felt more justified in ignoring it. Well it isn’t. With Wiltshire CC winning its bid to become the only local authority in the county and the majority of county services being based in Trowbridge and increasingly Chippenham, it is more important than ever for transport links between south and north to be improved.

As you may have read from previous posts, there is a direct railway connecting Salisbury and north Wiltshire (Chippenham and Swindon) via west Wilts (Melksham) but there is only one direct service a day timetable in the evening, the service starting in Southampton at 1827, arriving Salisbury 1905, arriving Chippenham 2000. An excelleLondon bound service at Bath Spa. The direct service continues to Cheltenham Spa. There is no direct journey back to Salisbury and/or Southampton. Using the www.nationalrail.co.uk website the following results were obtained for weekday and weekend services.

The search first yield the following warning on ticketing:

Please be aware, you may need to buy separate tickets for this journey, as a through ticket may not be available. If you don’t want to travel via this route, click ‘Restart journey’ at the bottom of the page and try again.

DISCLAIMERPlease do not use the timings given below as a guide to using these services, use www.networkrail.co.uk

Monday to Friday

[time requested from 0000 on a Monday. Advanced fares quoted at £3.00 to £8.00 single with standard Open return fare at £13.70 (with anomalous fare of £22.00 if on the 17.41) and Saver/Cheap Day return at £16.00]

Dep. 06:02
Arr. 07:30
Dur. 1:28
Cha. 1 [Westbury 29mins wait]

06:40
07:54
1:14
1 [Bath Spa 11mins wait]

07:19
08:54
1:35
1 [Bath Spa 23mins wait]

08:25
09:54
1:29
1 [Bath Spa 20mins wait]

09:03
10:24
1:21
1 [Bath Spa 11mins wait]

09:41
11:24
1:43
1 [Bath Spa 36mins wait]

11:11
12:24
1:13
1 [Bath Spa 9mins wait]

11:41
13:24
1:43
1 [Bath Spa 36mins wait]

12:41
14:24
1:43
1 [Bath Spa 36mins wait]

13:51
15:24
1:33
1 [Bath Spa 29mins wait]

15:03
16:24
1:21
1 [Bath Spa 11mins wait]

15:41
17:24
1:43
1 [Bath Spa 36mins wait]

16:41
17:54
1:13
1 [Bath Spa 9mins wait]

17:41
19:54
2:13
1 [Bristol Temple Meads 39mins wait]

19:05
20:00
0:55

19.11
20.54
1:43
1 [Bath Spa 48mins wait]

20.56
22.07
1:11
1 [Bath Spa 2mins wait]

21.41
23.02
1:21
1 [Bath Spa 16mins wait]

Saturday
in compilation

Sunday
in compilation

The erratic waiting times for changes at Bath Spa indicate that this is not a route that was planned for. While many argue that the spheres of leisure and work travel are very different in south and north Wiltshire, with those in Chippenham for example preferring to travel to Bath, Bristol and Swindon and those in the south preferring Salisbury or Southampton, has anyone bothered to find out about the potential for travelling across Wiltshire by rail? Considering the significant traffic problems on north-south routes such as the A350 (Chippenham to south coast) and also A338 in the south east of the county, there has never been a better time ti make changes to mass travel.

Next, North to South Wiltshire by rail.

Government regulation of reincarnation

admin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:32:51 +0000

Heaven knows (literally) how the Chinese government will administer this one!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/

Other Tehminas

admin — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 07:26:27 +0000

Quite by chance, I happened upon this string of comments about the meaning of Tehmina on an (old?) blog called Tam’s Diaries. There were suggestions of all descriptions from people called Tehmina across the world. Some suggestions were: ‘true witness’, ‘shred’ or ‘scintilla’, ‘healthy’ or ‘insurance’ in Arabic, ‘honest’ in Hebrew, ‘precious of heart’ and originating from south India, and then there was my suggestion which I believe, to my best knowledge, to be true, that it is from old Persian (Pahlavi) or older, and means ‘strong woman’.

I think among these descriptions, any ought to do?

Give us this day our daily bread

admin — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 10:18:02 +0000

Last year, during the FA World Cup, I bought a sandwich which came with its own thought for the day. Today I find myself buying the same sandwich made by Daily Bread: shaved cheddar and pickle. It still comes with its daily motto which today is:

If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us airline tickets

Mel Brooks

Quite so.

Where have all the pennies gone?

admin — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:45:30 +0000

Apparently Britain is missing 6,500 million pennies. That’s £65 million. This, while the Royal Mint are designing a new penny to be introduced in the coming year. The portcullis does not represent ‘modern Britain’ any more [like it did in 1971?]. I wonder what we’ll get instead? A white shell-suit? A pimped-up car? A Sky dish? No, what about a big M for McDonalds?

I can account for at least 650 which are sitting in my house.

Google maps directions: swim

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:27:37 +0000

I have recently returned from the USA. While I was there I wanted to find out how many miles I had travelled. I duly went to Google Maps and found out: approximately 3,500 miles between Salisbury (home) and New Jersey (first port of call). What I didn’t expect were the precise directions:

12. Slight left at Portsmouth – Le Havre (111 miles)
13. Swim across the Atlantic Ocean (3,462 miles)
14. Turn left at Long Wharf…

I noted that the most recent edition of the Now Show on BBC Radio 4 (13 April) also marvelled similar directions a listener found while travelling from Chicago to the London.

First Great Western debated in Parliament

admin — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:45:07 +0000

Ed Vaizey, Conservative MP for Wantage managed to secure a parliamentary debate on First Great Western’s questionable service. While many MPs who have been petitioned by their constituents were not present at the debate, at least this is a start. Whether there will be a finish I do not know.

My MP, Robert Key (Conservative) for Salisbury, has been very responsive to my emails about the problems with the service cuts introduced by FGW last December, and in the latest correspondence he assured me he had already signed two of the Commons motions raising the issue of FGW’s bad service and will be writing to the Minister responsible for service level agreements on behalf of his contituents regarding the problem.

Yesterday in Parliament, FGW’s performance was raised in Prime Minister’s Questions (Wednesday 24 January 2007), Dr Doug Naysmith, MP for Bristol North West (Labour), tabled a question to Prime Minister Tony Blair regarding the poor performance of First Group’s buses and trains. He described them: ‘disastrous commuter trains and unreliable and expensive buses.’

The Prime Minister’s reply was unsurprisingly bland and non-commital. Read the Hansard transcript.

Thank heaven for Kernowman!

admin — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:54:40 +0000

It gives me great pleasure to report that Kernowman is back to save our dear Cornwall from the blight caused by those who use it as their holiday pad and status symbol and other frustrations that hinder the Cornish.

I urge you to make sure that if you encounter Kernowman you offer him a cup of tea and a nice sit-down.

My footsteps

admin — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 14:03:43 +0000

This is a map of the countries I have visited, apparently 5% of the world’s countries.

create your own visited countries map

The Preciousness of Peace

admin — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 09:17:18 +0000

This week’s Global Museum highlights a story about a new museum that has opened in Nagoya, Japan in memory of Shoichi Yokoi, a former soldier in the Japanese army who returned to Japan in 1972 having spent over 26 years in the jungles of Guam without realising World War II had ended.
The story, originally released by Japan Economic Newswire quotes Shoichi Yokoi’s widow said that the museum was opened in memory of her husband, then sargeant of the Imperial Japanese Navy, at the couple’s former house.

I want many people to realize the preciousness of peace

Sadly the story does not elaborate further about the sargeant’s life on Guam or why he should have returned, ‘ashamed to come home’ alive more than 31 years after he left Japan on a naval transport ship.

What I find interesting about this story isn’t so much that Shoichi Yokoi might not have realised that World War II had formally ended more than a quarter century before he left Guam, but that he created a life for himself there, solitary or otherwise. How did that change his view of the world and of his own sense of self and how in 1972 did he find out that WWII was over? This story on the ‘last Japanese WWII straggler on Guam‘ which describes more detail about his extraordinary survival in an underground cave, making clothing from the fibres of wild hibiscus for example. In 1972, Shoichi was reputed to have said,

‘We Japanese soldiers were told to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive.’

‘The only thing that gave me the strength and will to survive was my faith in myself and that as a soldier of Japan, it was not a disgrace to continue on living’ he reflected later in 1986.

It is difficult to know what such a story can teach us except perhaps demonstrating the human capacity for survival and determination to live when all else that busies our minds and bodies is lost.