In the Air

I noticed there is a lot of air rage these days. Passengers have angry physical outbursts on planes.  I'm an ordinary guy, but I understand what is happening. The last 3 flights I took, I was very angry; I restrained my anger, all you would see is my expressionless poker face, you wouldn't know I felt very angry but I was. I felt like I didn't have any personal space and the seat in-front of me reclined without warning and pushed my tray table into my stomach slightly. I had no personal space, not even an armrest to myself. I also noticed many of the long distance flights had been dropped permanently since the pandemic so I was forced to take connecting flights. The trouble with connecting flights is you get worried you'll miss the flight if your first flight is delayed. To cut a long story short, you feel like the air line is taking the piss out of you. To top it off, I noticed they were giving out gin and tonic and wine drinks; it is as if the airline wants the passengers to fight. Take away their personal space, make them stressed and get them drunk, a good mix. They should take away the undersold first class, set the lighting to pink and provide seating that lets everyone have their own personal space, everyone has an arm rest to themselves. They will lose some of their seats but there will be less unsold seats and you could put special boxes on unsold seats to add to the air freight of the plane.  

I learn something new every day, today I learned that most of your taste comes from smell. You can trick yourself into thinking you're drinking flavoured water when you're actually drinking plain tap water.  There is a product that capitalises on this human trait, air Up. It is a drink bottle that feeds a scent in the air to your nose and makes you feel like the water you're drinking is flavoured. 

very clever.  

 

Olden Days

 When I was a kid, my father showed me how to solve logic elimination puzzle books. They were magazines filled with puzzles where you had to eliminate all the outcomes until you're left with the truth. Soon after that Sudoku became popular, but I still prefer logic elimination puzzles. 

You know you're getting old when you talk about the olden days. I tell all my nephews and nieces about the olden days, when domestic internet didn't exist. The olden days, when connecting to the internet was about your computer making a temporary dial up connection long enough to download the page and then stop, the olden days, no wifi, no social media, no streaming. Lots of small talk. 

Those were the days. There were computer games that were text based. There still is. You go on a quest in a little text based world. People still make them. Some of them are really interesting. The good thing about text based computer games is they work well on all platforms. You use your imagination and add the graphics in your head, but some of the text based games have still-graphics so you don't need to use your imagination so much. You just see a picture. 

Little Essex Getaway

There is a place you can go if you're a tourist to London, if you had a bad day and need a quick day trip  to the coast or if it's your birthday and you want to take a short break for a few days. It's the little quirky city of Essex county, 'Southend on Sea'. I go there for a short break some times. If I got a ticket to the blues and feel a bit down or If it's my birthday. 

I live north-west of London; I look at London as a clock face to simplify it in my mind. The number 12 is 'High Barnet', 10 o clock is 'Uxbridge', 6 o clock is 'Croydon', the tram district. 9 O clock is Acton and Stains, the bit next to Heathrow Airport. The Nearest Part of London to me is Uxbridge at 10 o clock. Barking and Upminister is 3 o clock. 

I take a bus to Uxbridge Train station so I can get to Barking station, I change at kings cross but the Hammersmith train to Barking stops on the same platform. From Barking station I take a 40 minute train ride to Southend on Sea.  The c2c train ticket costs about £8 but it's not subsidised like the London trains so I'm not complaining. The same 50 km distance from Barking to Southend on Sea would cost less than £4 in London, you would literally get change from a fiver.    

I walk out the sea front and breathe in the fresh sea air and look out at the Kent peninsula on the distant horizon. If you look to your left you can see the open ocean. At night the place is lit up like Las Vegas and the sea is dark but there are always ships passing with lights on them. It's not the best place to go, but it is good for a day trip or short break. 

I imagine some of the tourists that visit London live very far from the sea so it could be a chance to enjoy the coast without spending much time and money.  

London Crossing

London isn't perfect, it is a city with issues, high costs, high crime, little small talk. There are a few perks to London. Most of the important landmarks are by the river, you can walk along the river Thames ("tems") and see most of the important landmarks, Elizabeth clock tower with the Big Ben mega bell inside, Houses of Parliament, London Eye observation wheel, Tower Bridge, Tate Modern art gallery, Tower of London, St Jame's Park that leads to Buckingham Palace, Restored Shakespeare's Globe, St Paul's Cathedral, the Walkie-Talkie, The shard and various others. They're all together in a 1 hour walk by the river. Even Chinatown, Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square are a 5 minute walk from the Thames; remember it's pronounced "tems" not "Faims".  

For me there is a special perk, You can go across the city and use the subsidised TFL zone to get to the Thames Estuary smoothly.  If London were a clock, Uxbridge would be where the number 10 is on the clock face. I can go on the Train from Uxbridge and get to Barking near the number 3 on the clock face and get change from a fiver, £3.60 during off-peak time. The distance is 50km,  if I drive 50 km, the fuel costs a bit more than £3.60. The route that is smoothest is the one I use to get to Southend on Sea for a short break. I take a bus to Uxbridge, then I get the Metropolitan train at Uxbridge Station; it's a terminal station so all trains head east from there,  then I get off at King's Cross, I stay on the platform and catch a Hammersmith Train to Barking  and tap out on the platform. Then I use my C2C ticket to board a C2C train to the Coast in Barking Station , sometimes it comes on the same platform island as the Hammersmith train. It's not the quickest route but it is the smoothest, I get there very fast and don't walk very much. Remember the Uxbridge Line and the Hammersmith line share the same platform at Kings Cross so I would just step off the Metropolitan train and get the Hammersmith train where I stand. 

If I took the bus to Slough and took Cross Rail, I would get to the east side of London a lot quicker but I would have to do more walking and I think it would cost a bit more. 

Using London to chip the price off a journey, yes please. 

Journey Day

Jacob, My son. 

It has only been a few days since a member of our family passed away. It had a profound effect on me, I stopped eating at work, I eat a large dinner before work, then I work through the night, get home, sleep then I have breakfast when I wake up. I thought to myself I should never get sick or pass away because of a poor lifestyle. I'm not saying that's why he died, I would put that down to bad luck. One day my luck will run out and my time in this world will be up but I hope I will have aged enough for everyone else to be aged. 

I'm thinking about all the train journeys we could have in the near future. All the places we could visit. 

Smug Shadow

During this last portion of the winter, I was observing a very interesting new micro EV called the 'Squad solar car'. It is a very small self charging solar car. The website for the micro car is https://www.squadmobility.com/. I thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice if I had a front yard that is too small to make a driveway for a regular car but bought a micro EV that fits. The contractors that were building the driveway would ask what it is for and I would say it's for a car. They would say your car isn't allowed on the pavement though. I would say, don't worry, that won't be a problem. I would feel smug because the front yard is too small for a regular car but the micro car fits and it charges itself while it is parked. 

While this happened a shadow came over me that can only be made by a relative passing away, a dark shadow with no hope. A man that feels fine one day can be dead the next day. What good is life if it ends with nothing. I can only hope that I stay healthy long enough to leave behind those that have aged themselves. I don't want to cause grief to young kin. Let them be old that day and prepared for my end. I started watching what I eat so I can try to be healthy.  If I die because of a poor lifestyle then I would be responsible for causing sadness. 

I bought an old computer game, a roller coaster tycoon classic edition. I remember being very focused when I played that game. I wanted to build the perfect theme park. I could micro manage every detail of the amusement park in a way that even a real theme park director couldn't do. 

Sleeper Wonders

I recently learned there are two sleeper train services here in Britain; to me this is amazing because the island of Great Britain is less than 250,000 square kilometres in area. Britain is a small island, you can drive across the longest part of the Island in less than 6 hours. The idea is you get a small room on a train and sleep on the train overnight while you travel to your destination, I think the train deliberately goes slowly so you can sleep better. You would do this as a tourist experience or if you needed to be up and about when you arrive there and only wanted to stay one day. If you booked early then you would condense your travel and hotel stay into one and save money, perhaps you were an elite journalist or something like that. 

Scottish Rail owns the Caledonian sleeper train service and Great Western Railways owns the Riviera Sleeper (London in the East to Cornwall in the West). The Caledonian Sleeper goes from Euston Terminal Station in London and Riviera Sleeper Goes From Paddington Station. 

Sleeper trains are fascinating because they're small boxes on trains that are fitted out as hotel rooms. They use lots of clever designs and features to use the limited space effectively. Both the Companies found different ways to solve the space problems. The riviera service has a cover that turns the small sink basin into a table and has a folding bunk bed that comes out of the wall. The Caledonian one has similar features but I think they managed to add a small on suite bathroom toilet bit into the space of a cupboard. 

Let me show you two videos so you can see for yourself. 

Caledonian Sleeper video

Reviera Sleeper Video

It makes me think about my own hospitality. If guests come over to visit me, would they enjoy their stay? Perhaps I should have my mind set on getting fluffy cushy couches with leg rests. Guests could visit and they would have a relaxing experience. I could bring them baked pasties and coffee with sugar free syrup barista style regularly. 

I imagined running a sleeper train service. Perhaps they could board the train long before it leaves the station. The train could use a lay-by platform in a less busy station instead of a grand terminal one in the city centre. It could stay there for 5 hours at a time. I wonder if they have sleeper coaches. 

Billy of Time February

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a real life zombie apocalypse? I imagined just finding a good hiding place would cause you to feel relief. A building with strong doors and lots of heavy things to block the doors from behind. Another thing would be a bunker. Some people set their mind to building bunkers under their back yards; the reason for the bunker would be in case of an apocalypse like an asteroid strike or nuclear holocaust, they would't imagine their bunker would be used because of a zombie apocalypse. 

I wonder what it would be like to live off the grid in the wilderness. I imagined a large boat that floated up in the air during the daytime. It would have wings that are filled with mirrors. The mirrors would reflect sunlight onto different parts of cloth balloons, the air inside the cloth would become very hot and provide lift. 

I call it the 'Billy of Time', a boat-blimp with large fabric envelopes that act like hot air balloons, they heat up air inside them from light reflected on mirrors on wings. This causes the boat to rise out of the water and float up high in the sky. Then at sunset, the large flying boat would descend and the wings would help it glide down safely back to the surface of the sea. You would spend your time tending to the fruit garden on the deck; growing tomatoes and berries to live on. The fruits would be irrigated by water condensation gathered in the air and from rain. At dusk you would watch the sun set on the cloud tops, they would be covered in pink and red beams of light. Then at night would would sit on the deck for a while and look at the stars. Your bed would be a hammock below deck wrapped in lots of fabric to save weight. If there was a zombie apocalypse, you would be oblivious.  

The hard part would be to stop the boat-blimp crashing into land and making sure your crops persist. Some of the tomatoes and berries would be dried out to store in case some of the crops failed. 

The mind wonders when you need it to...  

 

 

Trump and Gaza

 I just learned the new president of the USA Donald trump wants to redevelop the Gaza strip. He wants to build lots of hotels and resorts to provide employment and prosperity to the people of gaza. I think this is a bad idea because Hamas, the Gaza strip government have their mind set on destroying Israel. They teach the children in school that Israel's existence is evil and to fight them. They're setting up future generations to fight Israel. It is pointless bringing extra prosperity when it would be destroyed in a future conflict. They'll put missiles in the assets and accidentally detonate them and the assets would be destroyed and the investors won't get their money back. I wouldn't even get involved. They would just blame you if you helped them.  

I don't hate anyone. Some people are misguided and others are full of hate. I'm just an ordinary man trying to find a way to be fine. I sit down in my little chair, in my little home. I sip coffee and wonder how long I have left to live in this world and what I can do. 

What January 2025 Means to me

 January was colder than normal here in Britain; it regularly went below -5 °c at night, sometimes it was -7 °c. My heating system was working hard to keep me and my family warm. All the parts of the heating conspired to keep us at 22°c, I take it for granted every day until I open the front door and feel the chill. 

Donald Trump became president in the middle of January and he went straight to work, he was putting his policies into action. He didn't waste any time. 

I noticed in the news that bush fires were breaking out in the American state of California, large parts of Los Angeles were destroyed. The bush fires devastated a large part of America. I felt like the fires weren't wild, like they were caused by arson because they caught people setting off some of the fires. 

In the middle of the month I noticed most of the planets were clearly visible in the sky during dawn; this is very unusual for me. I could clearly see Mars, Venus, Saturn and Jupiter. Some people said they could see Mercury as well. You need a telescope to see Neptune because it is so far away but i'm sure it was out there on the horizon with the other planets. I think Uranus is also very difficult to see, it appears as a very faint star when it is closest to us, I think it needs a telescope to be seen most of the time.  

Towards the end of the Month we had a large storm here in Britain called Erowin, it was very strong and able to cause winds of 100 mph to occur in parts of northern Ireland and Scotland. Some trees and buildings were toppled over unfortunately. 

Israel and Gaza negotiated a ceasefire, they returned all the Hamas prisoners in exchange for some of their hostages. It's a bad deal in my view but it proves that Israel doesn't want war. They were very flexible with their own stipulations. If Hamas fires missiles at Israel again, we can be certain they're the ones at fault. 

Then during the last week of the month, there were a few air crashes. A small passenger jet collided with a black hawk helicopter near Washington airport. All people involved in the crash were killed. Later a small plane dropped out of the sky over Philadelphia. 

I keep my chin up for February it won't be a leap year, just 28 days of hope.