This afternoon, we had fun with a crystal ball. I bet you didn’t see that coming.
This is the naturally beautiful Derwent Valley, inverted through my new glassy toy.
You can expect several (or more) images of this kind over the coming days, weeks, months or years.
“So, what did you get up to on your week away, then?”
“Oh, just ate some whale, watched the last ever concert of a band I’ve been following for 31 years, and placed a known mass of freshly picked rhubarb into swing bin liners.
It’s been great.”
I’m booking train tickets for a lightning quick visit to the UK, post the Cast In Steel 2016 visit to Bergen in May. And they’re expensive.
Of course, everything is expensive when you look at the tragic state of the South African Rand, but travel – especially train travel in the UK – is stupidly, near prohibitively, expensive.
But what are you supposed to do? You can’t walk.
Last time, with Mrs 6000 and the kids with me, it made more financial sense to hire a car and drive up the M1. And that’s 260km with petrol costing R24 an litre. Still pricey. But with just me going, that option seems less financially viable this time around.
It’s not just me though. Infamously, last month (as infamous as something that recent can be, anyway), Jordon Cox, aka “The Coupon Kid” travelled from Sheffield to Essex via Berlin – included a day out in the German capital – and still saved money.
Although his money-saving achievement was somewhat overlooked by The Guardian whose main concern was that it wasn’t environmentally friendly. Missing the point, much?
And then there was this, with the argument around football ticket pricing becoming a bigger and bigger thing:
And yes, maybe Mr Tyneside_Blades (if that is his real name) could choose a cheaper (and almost certainly far more enjoyable) hobby than watching Sheffield United, but saying that is merely employing Guardianesque diversion tactics. (Incidentally, someone had a go at that here, and was summarily defeated.)
The point here (again) is the comparison between travel to/from Essex/near London and travel to/from Germany.
So I looked, but I couldn’t find a suitable route via Germany. *sad face*
I did find one via Dublin though.
And here’s my maths (no, I don’t have time for stadium tours or a ham and cheese toastie):
My plane from Bergen arrives at LHR, so that’s my starting point for either journey. I don’t get to leave the airport at Dublin, so I won’t spend anything at the Guinness Brewery, and my Dad will pick me up from station or airport, so that bit is for his account, (but ok, for the record it’s basically 5 miles to the station and 25 miles to the airport).
A few other points:
Yes, this includes all taxes, and a minimum of 20kg luggage allowance for the planes. Heavy.
Yes, I have to allow about 3½ hours for the train journey, while the flights would take about 6 hours. Time.
Yes, the train would be more environmentally friendly. Smoky.
No, despite the graphics above, I’m not expecting to travel by Pullman Coaches or Boeing 747 on these journeys. Inaccuracy.
I probably won’t end up doing this, but the point is that I could. And it simply doesn’t make sense that I could.
I’m not really sure who to complain to about the whole thing though, so I just wrote a blog post.
Thanks for reading it.
Sheffield has a proud musical history, from Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, Joe Cocker, ABC and The Human League through Pulp to Michael Jackson, Richard Hawley and the Arctic Monkeys. But oft overlooked is the metalcore sound of Bring Me The Horizon. And given the city’s industrial historical speciality, that’s a bit unfair.
Herewith, Drown, from BMTH (may feature an exorcism):
Wonderful, but if you require a quieter version, here’s the Seafret cover.
I love this amazing Sheffield-themed design and digital art stuff from Steel City-based designer and digital artist Matt Cockayne, t/a Goo Design.
I freely admit that most of the mugs, t-shirts etc will probably mean a limited amount to anyone from outside Sheffield, but I was toying with doing this post when the man himself tweeted this, which swung it immediately.
That is, of course, R2-D2, clearly displaying amorous feelings for a Bessemer Converter – one of the staples of steel production in Sheffield since the mid-1800s. However, given the size difference (here’s my daughter standing underneath a reasonably sized model)…
…this probably “in’t t’droid he were lookin’ fer”.
Click here to have a look at Matt’s work and the products available on his shopify site.
P.S. Having been brought up around both the initial Star Wars franchise and the Kelham Island Industrial Museum, I am astounded, somewhat incredulous and somewhat disappointed that I had never spotted this now strikingly obvious R2D2/Bessemer Converter similarity before.