Happy Holidays!

Astrid and I are settled in for a long winter’s nap, and I’ve got visions of Victoria Sponge Cake dancing in my head.  With everything closed and no transport services, we dutifully went grocery shopping Friday night (beating the Christmas Eve crowds on Saturday) and are all set.

Our very thoughtful friends Sarah and Drew sent us this blow-up turkey for Thanksgiving, and we thought we would bring it out to grace the Christmas table as well!

I still find it hard to believe that there is no transport on Christmas!  The last train from Central London passed at 21:24 last night, with the next train not for 56 hours (5:21 Tuesday morning).  Although the Underground is only closed today, the drivers are striking tomorrow on Boxing Day (as they did last year) over demands for triple pay plus a day off in lieu for working on the holiday (they’ve also called three more days of strikes over the next two months).

At the top, South West Trains image should say non-train services. Below, a (hopefully) rare view of the London Underground live status screen.

Perhaps the most noticeable difference here, though, is the absence of buses; all day every day we have 30-40 buses per hour passing our windows, with 4 per hour all though the night – so the lack of visible presence and noise is quite big!  The car traffic is pretty quiet too, and with no public transport and nothing open even the pedestrian crossing just outside the window is beeping less (since it is by request only).

So, we are curling up with books and blogs and kitties to celebrate a week off, and send our best wishes for a great festive season and a Happy New Year out to you all!

My Biggest Purchase, Part 2

Hello all!  Sorry I have been so remiss in posting, but things are just incredibly busy at work and will only get moreso through the end of June.  The good news is that in that time I have some exciting trips – to Taipei (with a couple of days aftewards in Hong Kong) and to Vancouver (with a couple of days afterwards in Seattle and Portland).  But I also expect to be working one day every weekend though that time too.

But I decided to post something quick here because today was an exciting moment – I bought my new “annual travelcard” for transport!  I blogged about it last year, so I thought it would be fitting to review it again this year.

London's transport smart card

For the same exact thing, the price has gone up £80 to £1,288.  Not impressive enough?  Try $2,070.   Still the largest non-automobile purchase I’ve ever made, I think.

The 6.6% increase is more than inflation – which I think was about 4-5% here, although it is hard to decide which measure to use and when – and only £0.22 per day more.  The total price, though, comes to £3.53 (or $5.67) per day.  Yesterday, though, after my old one expired and before I got my new one, I had to use “pay as you go” to travel to and from work, and it cost me £7.30 total, so I guess it is a good deal.  If you start to try and add up the days I’m traveling and try to figure it all out, the “maths” get complicated, but I do think it is still a good deal. I should point out that for my mega-pounds I also get a “gold card” which gives me a 34% discount on off-peak travel throughout most of the south and east of England (everything from here to the coast including Dover, Brighton, and Portsmouth, plus just-beyond-London destinations like Oxford and Cambridge), but also for trips to Outer London (including the airports).

Apparently this is going to be available, but I didn't see it today - I just kept my old one in the yellow Ikea plastic wallet.

I want to take this opportunity to talk about one other thing regarding the transport fares here – the fact that the only people paying “full” fares are adults between 18 and 60 who can’t find a way to qualify as students.  Under 18s are mostly free (10-18 have to pay half-price on trains but are free on buses), and over 60s are totally free (at least for residents).  Adult students get 30% off.  The situation is particularly noticeable elsewhere in the country, where bus fares are very high, but anytime you pay them you notice that virtually everyone else on the bus is free.  While I don’t want to be subsidizing seniors (especially the rich ones), I don’t particularly want them driving on the roads either.  Interesting policy issue, with pros and cons in both directions of course.

London Underground Posters from WWII

If I tell you that last night we went to ANOTHER interesting talk at a museum, you’re going to get the impression that we’re all cultural and stuff. But don’t worry, this week has so far been anachronistic.  But we did go another talk last night.

“Seeing it Through”, at the London Transport Museum, was a talk and slideshow about posters designed or commissioned by the London Underground during World War II.  It’s quite a fascinating subject, and I really enjoyed myself.  I think Alex liked it too, although he was not as interested in some of the design aspects.  The speakers were both excellent and well-informed, and I think I’m quite likely to go back next week for another talk!

This blogger was at the event last night, and her website talks a lot about various posters and such, particularly the now-famous (or infamous, depending on your design senses) Keep Calm and Carry On poster that has taken over the world.

Here are just a few of the posters we learned about:

During WWI and the beginning of WWII many of the LU posters were informational, using simple letterpress with nothing fancy. These were not very successful at transmitting information, although they are certainly clear.

This poster shows that a little rhyme can be more successful and interesting. Customers were even encouraged to complete another two lines and win £10!

This poster shows a real life "clippy", or conductor, doing her "war work". In the museum archives there are records about who this woman was; she worked near Shepherd's Bush, and apparently between September (when she started her job) and December (when the photo was taken) her home was bombed out in the blitz. (I think the year was 1941, but I might be mistaken.)

These are some of my favorite posters from the time, and feature cartoon characters dealing with everyday situations on the Tube. Since many people were coming to London during the war and not all were familiar with Tube etiquette, these posters were commissioned to try and "train" (haha, no pun intended) the new passengers about the best ways to naviage the system.

This, of course, is now the uber-famous slogan that hipsters everywhere have adopted. The funny thing is that this poster was never used during the war! It was designed, produced, and distributed for use in case the country was invaded, but that never happened.