. The BBC is a prime cheerleader for those who seek to use “climate change” as a convenient excuse for limiting our freedoms. I notice it carries a glowing report this evening suggesting that the UK needs a “modal shift” from road to rail if greenhouse gas emissions from transport are to be curbed. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) says changes are needed to government policies on transport pricing, energy and town planning. A train journey can produce about one tenth of the carbon emissions generated if the same trip is made by air. The report’s authors say substantial investment in the railways is needed. And as part of the war on motorists, we read Cliff Perry, vice president of IMechE’s Railway Division and a former head of Thameslink under British Rail declare “Eighty-five percent of transport emissions come from roads, so if we are serious about doing something, we must hit road transport.” I bet.
But since when did AGW become a fact rather than a theory? Why does the BBC continually imply that AGW is undisputed science? Government is determined to tax us for using our cars and this report, given all due prominence by the BBC, is just one of many designed to create the right mood music to help support what will be further strident impositions on the motorist who dares to travel without government approval. Doing Brown’s dirty work seems all they are good for!
Off topic I know, but I was surprised to see the cosy interview of Gloria Hunniford on the ‘One Show’ tonight where she was discussing her involvement in the ‘Check for Change’ cholesterol awareness campaign:
http://www.checkforchange.co.uk/
Surely this could be classed as backdoor advertising for Flora dressed up as health campaign?
Eighty-five percent of transport emissions come from roads, so if we are serious about doing something, we must hit road transport.
Well according to the government, 747bpkm (92%) of passenger transport are by road although that includes bicycle (about 5bpkm (1%)). Eliminating bikes leaves 742bpkm (91%). That isn’t markedly different as a proportion to our starting 85%. Rail may be better than car regarding pollution but it isn’t vastly different. Any switch from car to train would only have a marginal effect on emissions.
What annoys me is the unsaid part. In particular the likelihood of a significant switch being just pie in the sky. Consider:
Let’s assume we switch half of road use to rail (assuming that was possible). If this happened then rail would have to increase from 55bpkm to at least 742/2 + 55 = 371+55 = 426 a 774% increase. It is inconceivable that the rail network could carry that volume unless we increased capacity by a similar ratio (although forcing travellers to stagger their work days might increase capacity by an amount). That isn’t going to happen.
We are not heading to a situation where people are forced to use trains rather than cars. The solution will come from absolutely reducing travel not switching the mode.
Transport stats
If by road to rail we mean, petrol driven vehicles to electric trains then yes, that would reduce carbon footprint, the reduction dependent on the source of the electricity.
However, since the majority of Britains trains are still diesel powered and getting heavier and thirsty by the moment, a change from diesel powered road vehicles to diesel powered trains is actually a step in the wrong direction.
Don’t expect the facts from the BBC though, simple solutions for simple minds…
The BBC knows which side its bread is buttered. The government is pushing AGW by all means possible, including sending Al Gore’s pseudo-documentay to all schools, to justify ever more taxes. Unless the BBC plays along it won’t get a nice favourable licence fee agreement from the government next time around.
Re climate change:
“Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down. ”
Not sure it’s had much airtime, but this link states that global warming may just have reversed into global cooling…And we’re talking official NASA and other science bodies.
The link:
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Widescale+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm
Sounds like a bit of damage limitation propaganda from Dicky Boy Black as this Al Beeb report states that the “Road charging plan ‘in tatters'”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7276634.stm
must be a horrible week for the eco fascists, first with the E Day flop and now this 😆
The ‘natural climate cycle’deniers are scraping the barrel now with ever more desperate ‘reports’ from the BBC.
The hundreds of real scientists who have been sidelined,bullied,insulted and smeared are finding their voice against the AGW CONsensus.
A conference is under way at the Heartlands institute that will sink the AGW bandwaggon and you can bet the BBC will not report on it!
.
Transport Studies GCSE. March 5, 2008.
Write on one side of your paper only.
1. Find reasons why making trains faster, more efficient and less polluting limit our freedoms
2. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) should not be covered by responsible journalists because it is:
a) A terrorist organisation
b) Fenian scum
c) neo-Fascist
d) All 5
3. When it issues a major policy report, it should be:
a) Ignored
b) Condemned
c) Kneecapped
d) Told to go back to North Korea where it belongs
4. The BBC’s report of March 4 (enclosed) is glowing because:
a) We want to see it that way even though it’s a straight report of a respectable professional body
b) It’s written on orange paper
c) It’s been stared at by David Vance’s special truth-seeking laser eyes and caught fire.
d) All 8
5. There is no need to respond to the overwhelming number of scientists who raise concerns about global warming because:
a) We know a few scientists who see it the other way
b) We’d rather sound macho about stuff than take reasonable precautions
c) It’s a Communist plot
6. Do we honestly think that motorists will have to dare to travel without government approval.
a) Yes. Are you a madman?
b) No, but we wouldn’t be able to thrash around against the BBC if we didn’t make stuff up.
Biased BBC: A test of our honesty
Our resident troll is getting desperate I think? Oh dear, poor little troll casting around for the same tired old lies and manipulation of the facts.
Same old tactics of smear,manipulate and deride?
The troll can hide from the truth and he can fantasise about the CONsensus but what you will never hear is scientific facts and figures and you will never hear rational and reasoned debate!
Heres a few titbits for the deluded troll..
CO2 PPM is rising yet temperatures are falling. OOOPS!
Ice core data PROVES that CO2 lags warming cycles. OOOPS!
Tropospheric temperatures are falling fast in line with solar cycles. OOOPS!
EVERY IPCC prediction proved WRONG and EVERY IPCC correction proved WRONG. OOOPS!
Record sea ice levels north and south. OOOPS!
Nearly ten years of data showing a marked slowing and decline in world temperatures. OOOPS!
Inhoffe and 400 scientists sign a letter stating they disagree with the theory of CO2 induced global warming presented to the UN and IPCC. OOOPS!
New data proving an exact correlation between past and present climate and the fifteen hundred year solar driven climate cycle. OOOPS!
Mars warming coincides with solar cycles. OOOPS!
We wait in vain for an answer to these and other questions and we will not be holding our breath.
The natural climate cycle deniers have no answers do they? The global cooling deniers only defence is evasion and insults and lies and manipulation isnt it?
I have only set out a few uncomfortable facts here and there are hundreds more that the AGW dogmatists have no answer to.
The troll betrays himself for the shallow and ignorant person he is?
HH
Very funny! I know I shouldn’t feed the trolls but that actually made me laugh.
Hillhunt: “The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) should not be covered by responsible journalists because…”
No reason, particularly, but then there are thousands of not very well known organisations like this one that don’t receive mainstream national coverage for their policy announcements, aren’t there? The only outlets that covered this as far as I can tell were the BBC and the Guardian.
Dear me Cassandra, you couldn’t even do the multiple-choice part of the exam.
Angry Young Alex,
Do you think I would engage in that childish nonsense? Dont be silly dear!
Why not answer a few points on my list? Oh yes thats right, ‘NEVER engage with sceptics’ isnt that what you are told?
Record snow fall?
record low temperatures?
Record polar sea ice?
Hmmmm? what did you say? I cant hear you?
HELLOO? anyone there? didnt think so!
What have any of your questions got to do with the BBC report?
What, for that matter, have any of them got to do with HillHunt’s perfectly valid points, apart from the fact that you put ‘troll’ a few times at the beginning and end.
You lot have serious staying-on-topic issues.
THE HEATLANDS INSTITUTE CLIMATE FORUM
Hundreds of world class scientists working through masses of data and evidence showing that climate change is NATURAL and cyclic.
The BBC will ignore it and bury their heads in the sand and hope that the story goes away? Of course they will because if it aint part of the agenda/CONcensus it aint news!
The BBC deaf,dumb and blind when it suits, its what they do(with extorted money)!
AGW=high taxes=more parasites=more marxists laws=less democracy=massive human suffering? but since when did the leftists ever give two hoots for ordinary people? Ask Stalin! Ask Mao! Ask Castro! Ask Chavez! Ask Hitler! Ask Polpot! Evil and callous killers who happen to be socialists, Go figure!
Well, Cassandra, you’ve managed to produce nine or ten inches of solid text today, in the kind of rage even David Vance could never match, and haven’t actually made a single point about the BBC’s coverage of climate change.
Cassandra.
Just a minor point, I remember a genuine troll who did not subscribe to the accepted right-wing slant of commenters on this site a few months ago who described Hitler as a socialist. He was then derided by the regular commenters.
Now… personally I think that totalitarian is wrong full stop and arguing over which “side” (left or right) should take ownership of particular dictators is a moot point BUT… since you mention it.. was Hilter really a socialist?
Yes I know that Nazi is National Socialism but Hilter purged (murdered) the genuine Marxists from the party after he gained power. His economic policy was certainly more slanted towards state control than others but allowed more free enterprise than a truly socialist regime would have tolerated.
Regardless of this will the same people who derided the commentator I mentioned in my first paragraph derided you for making the same point? (I will search out the link – I think it was in the castro post)
Angry young whatever wants me ‘on topic’?
The UK rail network is overloaded, it cannot cope with large numbers of extra passengers FACT.
Rail journeys are a living nightmare for the people who are forced to use them and rail has become the most expensive way to travel FACT.
Short of cramming people on cattle trucks at the point of a bayonet(socialists are good at that) people just will not tolerate a decrepit and overloaded rail system FACT. Socialists are masters at forcing ordinary people to suffer in the name of political dogma, they care nothing for people, to a socialist an ordinary person is a tool, a unit to be used and manipulated as the socialist elite sees fit.
You want proof? East Germany folks! The finest car that East Germany could come with? the trabant! Keeping ordinary people in with minefields and shooting them down like dogs if they tried to escape? While socialists in the West held up East Germany as a workers paradise!
The socialists of today want nothing more than to see Europe turned into another East Germany? or Cuba? or China?
Be afraid, be very afraid!
DAMN DAMN DAMN – can’t find the comment on any of the castro posts – must have been another post but it was on B-BBC.
It went somthing along the lines of:
Mr Anonymous poster says (I paraphrase)
“I love socialism
– socialist regimes that killed loads of people weren’t realy socialist
– Socialists like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pol HITLER were not true socialists etc”
Regular commenters respond with (again, I paraphrase)
“Typical lefty 5th columnist infiltrator scum – he even thinks Hilter was a socialist etc”
Anyone remember it?
(Yes Hillhunt I’m off topic too)
Cassatta:
Rail journeys are a living nightmare for the people who are forced to use them and rail has become the most expensive way to travel FACT.
Not the slightest touch of hyperbole there. Well done, but…
Could this argument possibly be why the IMechE argues for:
a) investment in infrastructure, including new high-speed lines that can carry more trains significantly faster than the UK’s existing stock.
b) proper pricing of all transport options to include environmental impacts.
I make this personal at my peril, I know, but I regularly travel long distances in the UK by car and train. Train is rarely as you describe – what’s more you arrive more quickly, fresher, with the freedom to work or relax in your seat, and straight in the heart of major cities without the need to navigate crowded streets or find parking. Depending on the car you drive and the times of day you travel, the costs work out much the same. What’s not to like?
Biased BBC: Where Richard Branson is a Communist
Simon,
What is the difference between a..
Socialist,
Marxist,
National socialist,
communist,
leftist,
Stalinist,
Trotskyist,
Crypto marxist,
Neo socialist,
The left is a wide variety of colours and shades, the National socialist hates the marxist who hates the Trotskyist who hates the communist who hates the leftist who hates Stalinist etc etc! WTF is it not clear that although a socialist may describe their ideology as united(they do share many core beliefs) they happily hate each other with gay abandon?
“What’s not to like?”
If you’d commuted into London for an hour and a half each way every weekday for five years on a crappy line, you’d know. Trust me.
HILLHUNT,
Living on fantasy Island are you? What you describe is a fantasy of epic proportions, all these ‘new’ high speed lines? any chance that local people will kick that idea into touch? Where will the tens of billions come from? Grows on those socialist money trees does it? WTF all these grand ideas dont mean squat without proof.
To say that because you just ‘happen’ to find the rail system a dream to use doesnt mean that millions dont you idiot.
Richard Branson? Gay Gordons pet capitalist? How about the record number of delays and complaints and record high ticket prices? Hmmm? What was that? Cant hear you? Anyone there? didnt think so! AGAIN.
HILLHUNT: I WILL NOT ANSWER DIFFICULT QUESTIONS AND I WILL AVOID ANSWERING QUESTIONS THAT DO NOT FIT WITH MY NARROW IDEOLOGY AND I WILL IGNORE THE SCIENCE OF NATURAL CLIMATE VARIATION AND I WILL PERSIST IN MY REACTIONARY AND KNEEJERK BLINDNESS BECAUSE ITS ALL I HAVE!
Hillhunt and Angry young whatever,
Still waiting for those answers to those simple climate questions I posed? Hmmm? what was that? I cant hear you? anyone there? SILENCE! I wonder why?
Hugh:
If you’d commuted into London for an hour and a half each way every weekday for five years on a crappy line, you’d know. Trust me.
Indeed. I’m aware that commuter travel may not be on a par with inter-city and cross-country, which is presumably why those ghastly Mechanical Engineers are calling for infrastructure investment.
Cassatta:
What you describe is a fantasy of epic proportions, all these ‘new’ high speed lines? any chance that local people will kick that idea into touch? Where will the tens of billions come from? Grows on those socialist money trees does it? WTF all these grand ideas dont mean squat without proof.
Dunno, Cass, have you ever looked at French, German or Swiss railways? Or those notorious commies, the Japanese, who’ve run one of the best rail systems in the world for years whilst re-inventing the manufacture of cars? It’s possible. If people want it enough.
“Angry young whatever wants me ‘on topic’?”
Yes, yes I do. And it would actually have been quicker and easier to type ‘Alex’ than ‘whatever’. Twice as quick, in fact.
Now you have made a wide variety of points, including trabants, natural climate variation, and vast left-wing conspiracies to, er, do something I can’t work out what. But none of it is actually anything to do with the topic of the blog – alleged bias in the BBC’s reporting of climate change, and so not what I come here to debate.
hillhunt have you ever travelled on french railways or just looked at them? you sound like a model railway fan. French trains are worse than here for reliability
Hillhunt,
You will to young to remember the Dr Beeching cuts I think? A great service smashed to pieces on the alter of socialism?
A state run disaster called British Rail?
Mass destruction by insane Union barons and incompetent management followed closely by
Penny pinching Tory and Labour regimes running it into the ground? Then an idiotic and ill thought out
privatisaion by ‘sell offs R us’?
Now run by crap firms on crap tracks maintained by a crap nationalised mess
for the sole benefit of offshore carpet bagger capitalists and foreign investors(vultures)?
Does that sound like the kind of setup that will come up with a hundred or so billion pounds to udate our rail system to Jap standards?
After fifty years of comical and tragic and plain insane management, do you think that all of a sudden, out of the blue we will get a shiny new rail system fit for the 19th century let alone the 21st century?
I think you have been listening to Gordon(wheres me rocking horse)Brown too much!
So when is the BBc going to shut down?
An organisation that we pay over £135 p.a. to pollte the planet should be abolished.
Win for planet – no CO2
win for us – £135 pa better off
Win for us & Gov – BBC assets sold of to benefit public purse.
Let me see some AGW fanatics fall on their own sword, and prove AGW.
If the science is so settled why do we still pay for climate research? Surely all these guys should have been told, thanks for your work, now go on the dole.
MRA non:
hillhunt have you ever travelled on french railways or just looked at them? you sound like a model railway fan. French trains are worse than here for reliability
Sadly no on the model railway front.
I have actually travelled on the chemin de fer with no bad experiences. It’s odd, given the unpredictability of urban traffic and – increasingly – motorway traffic, that people give trains such a hard time for not arriving as per timetable. And as for air travel…
.
Cassandra, yes factions hate each other I know. Based on hatred of other ideologies was General Franco a socialist? Mussolini? What about Galtieri or Pinochet? These dictators generally favoured a more corporate society than Hitler but all exercised brutal social control. Were these people generally of “the Left”?
I’m only pursuing this because the Hitler=Socialist claim was used as a stick to beat a left leaning commentator on this site but has now also been used by a commentator who conforms to the general concensus of opinion on this site.
Cassatta:
an idiotic and ill thought out
privatisaion by ‘sell offs R us’?
Now run by crap firms on crap tracks maintained by a crap nationalised mess
for the sole benefit of offshore carpet bagger capitalists and foreign investors(vultures)
I thought the prevailing notion on these threads was that the market is the ideal mechanism and that interference with private capital was interference with our very liberties?
And as for crap firms on crap tracks… the system has its flaws but on long-distance travel at least, it’s quicker and less stressful than road and far less hassle than air.
We’d all love to believe that the romance of the open road beats mass transit, and doubtless it does on glorious low-season days in remote bits of Wales. But have you navigated the M25 lately? Or the M6? Or the A1? Or the A34?
After fifty years of comical and tragic and plain insane management, do you think that all of a sudden, out of the blue we will get a shiny new rail system fit for the 19th century let alone the 21st century?
That’s one way of looking at it. So we make no effort to catch up?
.
PS,
Let me draw you a simple analogy here and see if you get it.
I take my Mk111 cortina 2.0GLS(met green with a natty racing stripe) into a garage and instead of junking it and getting a whole new car I ask for a spanking new 5 ltr suprcharged V12 to be shoehorned into it! Then I go away and lo and behold I find it goes fast but cannot stop! so I go back and ask for the latest brakes to be fitted and lo and behold it goes and stops but cannot go round corners! So I go back and ask for a whole new steering system to be fitted! so I end up spending many times more money than I would have done if I had just asked for a new car!
Ever hear of the phrase ‘you cant polish a turd’? IF our lame commisars had done what should have been done in the first place there would be in place now a first class rail system run by the old private firms and updated as the commercial needs arose! But oh no the dick head polititians just had to meddle on petty ideological grounds didnt they? and the stupid union barons just had to stick their ignorant noses in didnt they?
Our rulers both red and blue couldnt run a piss up in a brewery.
Leats see if our new rulers the EUSSR can do any better? I wouldnt hold my breath if I were you.
“Let me see some AGW fanatics fall on their own sword, and prove AGW.
If the science is so settled why do we still pay for climate research? Surely all these guys should have been told, thanks for your work, now go on the dole.”
Good point. The thing is that nobody can ‘prove’ MMGW or otherwise. It’s a risk. If you’re sensible you provide for risks on the basis of the best CBA available. I’ve never understood those who say ‘it isn’t proven, therefore we should do nothing’ but, for example, were happy to invade Iraq on the the basis of a risk that Saddam had WMD and was planning to kill us all. Equally if you’re mitigating risk in a cost effective manner you don’t assume the absolute worst so the Monbiot-ites demanding instant economic reversal are equally bizarre.
The whole thing has got ideological which is the enemy of intelligent decision making.
Cockney:
The whole thing has got ideological which is the enemy of intelligent decision making.
Amen to that
Simon,
“Yes I know that Nazi is National Socialism but Hilter purged (murdered) the genuine Marxists from the party after he gained power. His economic policy was certainly more slanted towards state control than others but allowed more free enterprise than a truly socialist regime would have tolerated.”
Stalin had Trotsky killed. Does that make either of them a Nazi?
The key difference between the communists and the fascists was about nationalism, and not much else. The communists saw things in an internationalist way, whilst the fascists were about the nation. Economically, they both believed in large degrees of state control.
The BBC frequently slur libertarian politicians by referring to fascists as “far right”. If someone like John Redwood is “right wing”, then someone on the “far right” should be a minarchist. But people who are called “far right” often have left wing economic policies (the Nazis had dividend caps, Keynesian public works projects, wage caps).
Simon,
Good points well raised and I cant speak for other posters and I often swim against the tide of current opinion, so to speak. Socialism is a cover all name for a whole range of views, it is statist by nature, but some strains allow for certain controlled aspects of private enterprise to exist. Communists in the classical sense hate private ownership but allow it under duress and out of practical need. Marxists will always try and swallow private enterprise and incorperate those structures into a state arm. National socialists allowed certain large private firms to prosper under strict state guidance and others it nationalised as it saw the need. Case in point, Cuba and its two tier health service ie one for the party members and one for the masses. No private enterprise was allowed untill the younger Castro brought in limited farmers enterprise markets and found it was a success only to discover that it caused problems of an ideological nature, Oh dear!
Soviet socialism died by making errors common in ideological nations ie state jobsworths lying through their teeth about ‘tractor production up 1000% etc! and a workforce who had no reason to work harder because all the propaganda about “onward to the glorious workers paradise” bullshit had been spouted for decades and proved to be as empty as the shops around them!
State run firms had no money to update so they ended up trying to make crap goods that nobody wanted for a price nobody wanted to pay and still they couldnt make enough to fill the empty shelves of the state run stores!
I have spent ten years trying to understand why people keep trying to make the same mistakes time and time again and why they do not learn simple lessons and I am more confused now than when I started! Go figure. I hope that answers some of your questions?
Tim – good point – I agree with you. The whole thing is a bit of a circular argument. I just chased this point (way off topic) because of a comment thread which I now cannot find!! Thanks for bringing it back into the context of the BBC though.
Cassandra – Just missed your comment responding to Tim there. As I said to Tim – I was only really following this on the back of some other comments from another thread which I do remember did not include you so I was not targeting you in any way.
I understand the principles of the libertarian/totalitarian argument, this was only a bit of accademic tail chasing.
Depending on the car you drive and the times of day you travel, the costs work out much the same. What’s not to like.
Do you work for the Governement or Mr Branson? You have to be really adept at time table planning to be able to achieve that. It is just possible if you travel in the one or two hours a day when low cost fares exist and book far enough in advance.
I travel regularly both inter-city, Eurostar and cross country. I regularly have to stand when travelling first class on cross country services to Bristol and trains are increasingly overcrowded with subsequently inadequate luggage accomodation.
It took nearly 20 years to build HS1, a relatively short distance, the prospect of building a major network of HS lines though this very crowded island is unlikley to proceed, even if the money was available.
The key point about the BBC article was its automatic plugging of the carbon footprint argument to support road to rail switching without thinking about it or actually looking att he data.
Socialism doesn’t work. End of.
Sad fact of life, no matter what way you look at it, is that if Trains etc were so good and efficient, the private transport would have died at birth.
There never was golden age of rail with some prat on a platform remarking that the “6;02 express from Badgers Bumshire was bang on time at 6:23”
Someone made the point about French trains, well I spent two years travlling from near Versailles to the centre of Paris and I can confirm that the French train system is every bit as bad as the UK one and that was when they were not on strike, in fact I marked it as worse compared to Great Eastern which had so many fires at Ilford I thought that horrible place would have burnt down by now.
Cassandra, well the point about the Nazi’s being socialists is being accepted by more and more people.
The biggest crime of the left is to tar people who believe in freedom, democracy and personel responsibility as far or extreme right.
Hillhunt
That multi-choice thingy is quite funny, but you evade completly the central point made by Vance, namely the IMechE’s statement assertion that “we must hit road transport”, and the BBCs obsession that AGW is all down to Greenhouse emissions.
What better way to get bums back on rail seats than make out global warming is all down to us selfish swines choosing to drive/fly rather than endure the pisspoor reality that is our present rail system.
Hillhunt
“Train is rarely as you describe – what’s more you arrive more quickly, fresher, with the freedom to work or relax in your seat, and straight in the heart of major cities without the need to navigate crowded streets or find parking.”
It seems you are a direct descendant of the queen in Alice in Wonderland, who said:
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many
as six impossible things before breakfast.”
No, he’s right. One of the nicest journeys I’ve ever made was an eighteen-hour train journey, which I spent sat comfortably, neatly wrapped in a blanket, sleeping, watching the scenery, practising my German grammar and listening to music. Wouldn’t be as fun in a car or plane.
One of the worst journeys I ever made was a 48 hour nightmare trying to get back home from Paris, oh how I wished I had used my car. The good thing about cars is that as you are the driver you don’t go on strike.
Angry Young Alex:
…practising my German grammar and listening to music.
——————————————-
Well, that just proves you’re a damned lefty. Any true Brit worth his salt would merely not bother learning foreignspeak and resort to SHOUTING LOUDLY at Johnny Foreigner and repeating himself, until the sausage-eating blighters understood…
Alex
“… neatly wrapped in a blanket, sleeping, watching the scenery, practising my German grammar and listening to music. Wouldn’t be as fun in a car or plane.”
If you’re in charge of a car I should jolly well think not.