daveydave

Haymarket Bus Station is located at the north end of Newcastle-upon-Tyne city centre. It is a very busy station serving Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland and it is very badly run. I've used this place for years and never cease to be amazed at how shockingly bad the organisation is, and watching one girl miss her bus this evening has prompted me to vent. First, a little more background. The roads around Newcastle are not the best and they get busy. Once the clocks have changed and late Autumn arrives they get busier. If there is even the slightest hint of rain, they get busier still. Result: buses run late. So to this evening. The X1 was due to leave for Blyth at 17:25. It arrived in good time to deposit its passengers and meet that departure time. However Stand T, where it was supposed to park up, was occupied by the X4 that was running late. The X1 parks up at Stand S prompting the queue of people waiting at Stand T to push their way through crowds and round barriers to...

I meant to post about the new car when the '57' registrations came out in September (marking the car's 6 month anniversary) but obviously, I didn't quite make it. So having now owned the big brute for 9 months, what do I reckon. Without getting too gushy, I've got to say I love this car. It's roomy, comfortable, 100% reliable so far, has sufficient toys to keep me entertained during rush hour, is hugely relaxing on the motorway with its 6 gears and cruise control and is fairly economical too - a good thing at this time of ludicrously high fuel prices. There are only really two things that niggle: you really must keep the oily bits above 1800rpm when pulling away and the fact that it has a tendency to cancel your indicators at the most inopportune moments when negotiating roundabouts - a side-effect no doubt of there being no such things in Korea. But I think that's all pretty minor compared to the general niceness of the thing. I like it. Obviously I'm n...