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Author
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Topic: Eee! Fancy that, Gromit... it's Yorkshire Day!
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 08-01-2006 10:42 AM
Story's 'ere, lad.
For the uninitiated, Yorkshire is an an area of north-east England covering roughly Skipton (west) to Scarborough (east) and Doncaster (south) to Darlington (north). It's so large that administratively, it's split into three separate counties (North, South and West). While in a way it's good to celebrate regional identity, I can't help thinking that this stunt misses the point a bit, though: thanks both to immigration and demographic changes within Britain, the Bradford curry is as much a Yorkshire trademark as the infamous, heart attack inducing Yorkshire Pudding (as any regular at the Widescreen Weekend will know), and in some ways the region has stronger links to other parts of Europe than to the rest of the UK (for example, my local airport has more daily flights to Amsterdam than to London). Meanwhile, probably the best known exponent of the Yorkshire accent and dialogue is Aardman Animations (Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run) and they're based in Bristol, 300 miles away from the county.
Anyway, I probably don't count as a 'real' Yorkshireman, as I've only lived here for six years. But it's good to see London not getting all the limelight for a change.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 08-01-2006 04:02 PM
Well, I've just got back from the Great British Beer Festival I hardly ever drink beer, but I did have a glass of perry.
I had a rather nice pork bap, and bought three jars of Chutney:
Autumn fruit with dark winter ale.
Apricot & ginger.
Flaming hot.
They are all marked 'made in Yorkshire'; I asked where, "Halifax", was the reply.
Also bought two other chutneys:
Special real ale.
Gooseberry & corriander.
but those were from a company in Devon.
The only place I can buy these is at the Beer festival, so I buy enough to last about four months, and then have to go without until the next year.
Perry also used to be almost impossible to find, but the local supermarket now sells quite a good one.
Quite a lot of beers from Yorkshire brewers at the show, and there's usualy a company who sell thigs like beer pumps (do people really install these things at home?) that are based in Settle, but they didn't seem to be there this year.
So, quite a lot of Yorkshire there, but I've never heard of this Yorkshire Day thing.
Haven't been to Yorkshire for a while, since the Widescreen weekend in March last year; it's so expensive to get there now.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 08-02-2006 03:30 AM
In my experience, few people have switched to air for domestic travel; those who have moved away from the railways now travel by coach or car, or like myself, they simply no longer make the journey. Air travel is still mainly used for international trips, and those that do travel by air domestically mainly do so for essential business trips. I can't think of anybody I know that has made a domestic flight in the couple of years; many, possibly most, have made international ones.
I used to travel mainly by rail, but now very seldom do so. The 'walk on' fares are very high in most cases, and the alternative is to book days, or weeks, ahead on one of the various low-cost advance booked tickets, of which only limited numbers are available, and which commit you to travel on a particular train; I don't usually know in advance what time I will want to return. Coach travel is much cheaper, but can be slow. I gave up driving almost twenty five years ago; I hated it, and will never do it again. Air travel is horrible, and you've still got to get to/from the airports at each end, so I wouldn't use that for domestic travel. I don't need to travel on business, other than occasional local trips to seminars, training sessions etc., so now if travelling up to about five kilometres (say three miles) I generally walk, unless the weather is very bad, or I am carrying something heavy. Further than that, including getting to work, I go by bus, and if it's too far, or there isn't a bus route that will take me there, I generally don't go. There's no way I would even consider riding a bicycle in London traffic. Other than getting to work, I have very little essential travel; the shops I generally use anre within a couple of miles or so from home, and so easily walkable. Trips to Yorkshire etc. are not essential, and so tend not to be made these days.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 08-02-2006 04:46 AM
We're veering off-topic, but what the hell.
quote: Stephen Furley
...and those that do travel by air domestically mainly do so for essential business trips.
Into which category around 90% of my journeys fall. Most of the London trips (1-2 a month on average, sometimes 3) are generated by my archive's footage sales to TV producers. They're all based in London, and they expect you to come to them for production meetings. On average, a trip by air works out at around 3 to 3 1/2 hours door to door: 40 minutes' drive to Teesside Airport, 30 minutes of faffing at the airport, an hour on the plane and an hour from Heathrow to the final destination. Assuming it's possible to book 7-10 days in advance (which it usually is), the cost comes in at £80-100, including airport parking and the tube. It's also usually possible to book flights which enable you to spend a single, long day in London at that price.
By train, in theory it should be: 15 minutes' walk from my flat to York station, say, 15 minutes' faffing at the station, two hours on the train and up to 30 minutes' walk from King's Cross to final destination. Total cost = £146 standard class open return. There are no cheaper options if you need to leave before or during the morning rush hour. The first train doesn't leave until 0600, meaning that if anything happens to that, you're screwed as far as making an 0900 meeting is concerned. The other problem is that those trains are chronically overcrowded and unreliable. To stand any realistic chance of getting a seat, you need to book one a long time in advance, even if you're buying the full fare ticket. Added to which, the trains are frequently cancelled and subject to long delays. This was why I stopped using them for London trips in December 2003: and the only person I know who still does is lucky enough to work for a company which sends her first class (for an eye-watering £290 per trip!). For the rest of us, having to stand in a crowded corridor for 2 1/2 to 3 hours is not unusual.
I admit that taking short, overland flights is not a good thing to do to the environment. But when you're having to get up at 4am and not get home again until 11pm (usually with a full working day the next day), the unreliability of the alternatives leaves me with no realistic alternative. I suspect that many people agree with me - those flights are always pretty full, and many of the people I regularly see and chat to on them are refugees from GNER (the train company), too.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 08-02-2006 05:32 AM
One line from my post yesterday seems to have gone missing; I was going to suggest that a screening of 'North to the Dales' by the British Transport Films unit might be appropriate for Yorkshire Day.
quote:
By train, in theory it should be: 15 minutes' walk from my flat to York station, say, 15 minutes' faffing at the station, two hours on the train and up to 30 minutes' walk from King's Cross to final destination. Total cost = £146 standard class open return. There are no cheaper options if you need to leave before or during the morning rush hour. The other problem is that those trains are chronically overcrowded and unreliable. To stand any realistic chance of getting a seat, you need to book one a long time in advance, even if you're buying the full fare ticket. Added to which, the trains are frequently cancelled and subject to long delays. This was why I stopped using them for London trips in December 2003: and the only person I know who still does is lucky enough to work for a company which sends her first class (for an eye-watering £290 per trip!). For the rest of us, having to stand for 2 1/2 to 3 hours is not unusual.
Years ago, it used to take me about 40 minutes to get to Kings Cross from home, a minute or two under two hours to York, and then a few minutes walk to whereever I was going at the other end, probably just over three hours door to door. I think a cheap, i.e. not Fridays or a few Saturdays each year, Saver was about thirty pounds.
What I can't understand is that if the cheap tickets are so restricted, and the unrestricted ones are so expensive, why are the trains overcrowded? Who are all these people who are using them, and what type of tickets are they using?
When I used to use that route reliability and punctuality were both good, though journey times had been extended somewhat since the introduction of the High Speed Trains, about thirty years ago. As I said, the last time I made the journey was in March 2005, and previously probably about two years before that, so I can't really comment on what it's like now. You've no doubt seen the recent news about the financial problems of GNER, and indeed of the parent company, Sea Containers. I go to an event in Sheffield each November, but otherwise Yorkshire might as well be on the moon as far as I'm concerned, it's just as inaccessible. I make the journey to Sheffield by coach; the event finishes at about 22:30, and there's no train back to London at that time even if I wanted to use one. The first coach of the day is at 01:45, and that gets me into London at 06:20; it's always absolutely full almost the whole way to London.
I travel up to London by train occasionally, maybe every couple of months or so, as there's no direct bus from Croydon, and any indirect route takes ages; about the only other journey I make by rail now is to Birmingham about three or four times per year. The journey from Marylebone to Birmingham is normally fine, and costs about thirty pounds, half that if I can go after 11 a.m. (this applies on all days). Marylebone is not that convienient to get to, but both Moor Street and Snow Hill stations are quite convienient in Birmingham. The problem is that long sections of this route are closed at weekends for engineering work. This seems to apply on about 50% of Sundays, and rather less Saturdays. Last Sunday it was closed between West Ruislip (on the outskirts of London) and Banbury (more than half way to Birmingham). Replacement buses were operating, but the journey time was so extended that I just couldn't do it. The work which is done isn't very major, and I cannot understand why they have to close such long sections of it, or so often.
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David Buckley
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 525
From: Oxford, N. Canterbury, New Zealand
Registered: Aug 2004
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posted 08-02-2006 06:55 AM
There was a time when British Rail was actually rather good.
Back in the 1980s Euston to Liverpool took 2 hours and 40 minutes, for twelve and half quid return, with a quid each way for upgrade to first class.
It wasnt anything like that well before I left, and as I understand it the rail system continues to go downhill.
The last rail service I used semi-regularly was London to The Grim Northern Town (GNT) of Sheffield, run by Midland Mainline, which only let me down once in many dozens of journeys, but which regularly annoyed colleauges and friends with it's unreliability.
Commuting these journeys by air sucks in my opinion, its not the plane trip, its all the time wasted in airports...
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 08-02-2006 09:10 AM
Is this Yorkshire thing a one-off, or are there going to be others? Maybe a Lancashire day, where we all eat Black Pudding, and watch 'Sing as we Go', or a Somerset day, where we chew on bits of barley straw, and pronounce 'S's as 'Z's. I can't think of a suitable film for a Somerset day at the moment.
How about a day to celebrate some of the grottiest bits of the Country? I think it's been cleaned up in recent years, but parts of Tees-side, around South Bank and Cargo Fleet would have been ideal for that; derelict steel works etc.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 08-02-2006 01:00 PM
quote: Michael Schaffer
Which point is that? It may be obvious to you, but I am not a PhD, so please explain.
That the reduction in economic barriers between EU member states means that national capitals and economic infrastructure are becoming less important. If anything, links with Scandinavia and The Netherlands are becoming more important to the north-east of England than with the south-east of England. It's slightly quicker and no more expensive for me to get to Amsterdam from York than it is to London (and now that Easyjet go for £55 return, it's a lot cheaper to get to Berlin).
quote: Stephen Furley
You've no doubt seen the recent news about the financial problems of GNER, and indeed of the parent company, Sea Containers.
Yes. The basic problem seems to be that they offered far more than they could realistically afford to Gordon Brown for the East Coast line franchise renewal, with the result that they're trying to claw it back by reducing the availability of concessionary fares (thereby forcing more passengers to pay the full whack) and reducing the standard of service. They also dragged a rival operator through the courts, which is trying to introduce direct trains from Teesside and Sunderland to London. They lost last week; the new trains (which will stop at York) start in December, and if the timings work for my meetings I'll certainly give them a try. But if GNER is so worried about the revenue from three trainloads (out of 20-30 a day?) as to go all the way to the House of Lords, that suggests that they're running on razor thin margins as things are.
quote: Stephen Furley
One line from my post yesterday seems to have gone missing; I was going to suggest that a screening of 'North to the Dales' by the British Transport Films unit might be appropriate for Yorkshire Day.
The Turn of the Tide would be another option, though the Rank-inspired religious message is a tad tedious.
quote: Stephen Furley
Is this Yorkshire thing a one-off, or are there going to be others? Maybe a Lancashire day, where we all eat Black Pudding, and watch 'Sing as we Go', or a Somerset day, where we chew on bits of barley straw, and pronounce 'S's as 'Z's. I can't think of a suitable film for a Somerset day at the moment.
There was a great April fool in one of the papers a couple of years ago, which announced the formation of a Miners' Strike Re-Enactment Society - you could choose whether to dress up as a truncheon-wielding policeman or a molotov-cocktail armed picket at the Battle of Orgreave, etc. etc.
Or you could chuck someone off the roof of a car park for Tyneside Day...
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