About public transport in the UK (23) [Despre transportul în comun în UK]

As a foreign observer, I don’t know if going on strike to demand a special Olimpic Games bonus (of £ 500 to £ 700) is reasonable or not, but this is what London bus drivers plan to do.

If you asked a far-from-perfect driver like me, I’d say that all bus drivers are some kind of artists who’d definitely deserve to have their skills and hard work rewarded.

However, thanks to the London Congestion Charge, driving a bus in London seems to be a piece of cake – compared to doing the same thing in Bucharest or, say, anywhere in India.

The only thing that really made the life of british bus drivers harder (in Brighton at least) was the fact that passengers could buy tickets directly from them.

It’s not difficult to imagine what a mess it would be, it tourists from all over the world were able to this during London 2012…

How many would carry the right change in their pockets? I’d say that most of them would mostly have 20 GBP banknotes, wouldn’t they?

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

About public transport in the UK (16) [Despre transportul în comun în UK]

Thanking again to my reader C.L. for the pictures (not that I wouldn’t have a dozen unpublished pics of British buses :-), here are some more or less funny bus jokes – read more here, here, here, here or here.

Is it typically British that their humour is rather approximate to many foreigners?! Could I be regardes as having a pro-British bias for finding jokes like these pretty funny?

Some policemen (from Romania, let’s assume, so that none of my foreign friends are offended) take a trip on a double-decker bus. Officers sit on the lower level, while agents on the top level.

Not long after the bus takes speed, worryingly screams are heard from above. “Why are you screaming like this?,” officers ask.
“We don’t have a bus driver!!!,” the passengers from the upper deck shout.

A man standing at a bus stop was eating a hamburger. Next to him stood a lady with her little dog, which became very excited at the smell of the man’s supper and began jumping up at him.

“Do you mind if I throw him a bit?” said the man to the lady.
“Not at all,” she replied, whereupon the man picked the dog up and threw it over a wall.

Passenger: “Does this bus go to Manchester?” Driver: “No.” Passenger: “But it says Manchester on the front.”

Driver: “There’s also an advertisement for baked beans on the side, but we don’t sell them!”

Roger was sitting in a very full bus, when a fat woman opposite said: “If you were a gentleman, young man, you’d stand up and let someone else sit down.”

“And if you were a lady,” replied Roger, “you’d stand up and let four people sit down.”

Finally, here’s bit of a politically incorrect (ethnic) joke. A British company hires 44 drivers from Poland, and is very pleased with their driving skills, as well as with how quickly they pick up English and even Glaswegian.

Guess what happens on the first day of work. The first thing they do after getting in the driver’s seat is to start asking the passengers: “Do you know where we are?”

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

God’s place in a humanist society (8) [Locul lui Dumnezeu într-o societate umanistă]

What I had in mind when I started this series was to try my best to describe how an ordered (for how long though?!) and rather amoral society (like Britain – but other countries could fit the description as well) functions.

And things work as long as the Nanny State manages to provide rules (laws, instructions, regulations, prescriptions) for most spheres of human life, so that people could be told what is good and bad, and be spared from the effort of judging by themselves.

“If it’s not expressly illegal/forbidden, it means it’s not bad/immoral” – this is the mindset of most Brits, the same as that shared by millions of people from the contemporary supposedly civilised world.

This is why one can see in the UK little announcemens or large billboards where you are given advice, interdictions and recommendations. Nowhere else is this visible than in the means of public transport.

Messages like these are being poked into your eyes because godless people are more and more less able to understand why something is (more or less strictly) forbidden, and something else is, on the contrary – recommendend.

As long as God’s voice in ourselves (our consciousness) has been suppressed ever since early childhood, a human being becomes a sort of Pavlov’s dog, conditioned to behave ethically only by interdictions and/or sanctions, plus immediate rewards, accessible like those on a supermarket shelves.

This is precisely why these poor civilised Brits, who have thown the Lord away from their hearts, now need a Big Brother, to constantly tell them what to do and what not to do, what is permitted and what is forbidden...

Or just to assure them that they are being watched. And that being watched is by no means an intrusion, an infringement of their rights, but some kind of a blessing. They are watched for their own good – so they are told.

These people believe that God’s presence in their consciousness is a hard thing to bear, yet inherently they need assurances – they fear for their lousy animalic lives, for the safety of their petty ambitions, for the comfort of satisfying their hedonistic aspirations...

Obviously, one doesn’t need God for these, thus Big Brother eventually becomes a necessity for any godless society. Something (anything but God!) must keep the society working.

The absolute madness of mass abortions, sexual education, gay rights (privileges, in fact), binge drinking, the global warming hysteria, consumerism – all these need to take place under watchful eyes.

These mad people rejected the eyes of the Supreme Being (The Holy Trinity), and replaced them with the look of an amorphous entity, this politically correct Big Brother.

All these atheists who want ‘to seize the day’ for their vain delights are foolishly gambling it all on ‘here and now’, on this absurd assumption that there is no God, there is no afterlife, no Heaven or Hell, no absolute Truth, thus no responsibility.

I am sure that they just say I’m just another madman, but I dare saying to them: “Beware! This gentle and apparently benevolent Big Brother is just a forerunner of the Antichrist!”

I don’t fear any of their labels, as we were warned centuries ago, by the Holy Fathers of the Lords’s only One Church, that such times will come, when the world will be so full of mad people, who will call madman enyone who refuses to join them in their insanity.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

About public transport in the UK (8) [Despre transportul în comun în UK]

Another article of faith which today’s Britons are told they should live by is – according to my friend & fellow blogger from Scotland – “Privatised transport is the best in the world.” Is it really so? Can everything be so simplistically reduced to ‘privatisation = good, while state ownership = bad’, as the ideologues of ‘free market no matter what’ claim?

First and foremost, I must say that, undeniably, British public transport is incomparably better than it’s Romanian counterpart. There’s absolutely no term of comparison between the two, in spite of having encountered some common ‘bad examples’.

If I were to use a gold standard for public railway transport, I’d name the rail system of France. The TGV is a masterpiece of contemporary transport technology, trains are safe, comfortable, punctual, and not excessively expensive.

In the UK, travelling by train seem to me undoubtedly comfortable, but relatively safe, sometimes only relatively punctual (see what a little snow can do!), and dreadfully expensive. An Easy Jet flight from Gatwick to Edinburgh is cheaper (currently from £ 40.99 to £ 78.99) than the cost of the Caledonian Sleeper (£ 54 to £ 185.5) on the same route.

Therefore, due to budgetary constrains, I opted for what is many times cheaper than the two mentioned option – a Megabus night bus for only £ 24 (half this sum if you pay with weeks in advance!). I survived three times the experience, and – with the Lord’s help – I’d do it again.

But I wouldn’t recommend night bus travel to those who have a sensitive stomach. If you’re not some kind of tough traveller like I become, and if you don’t like chatting with strangers (one even posted a comment on the current series – here), bus travel could really wear you out.

Train travel in the UK could have been the most pleasant, if privatisation had driven the costs down for the passenger. This has not happened yet, and it probably never will :-(

As it can be read here, among the effects of rail privatisation in the UK one could find more set-backs and disappointments than straightforward successes. I wish I had any readers (British or not, but using British trains) left to comment on this topic…

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

About public transport in the UK (7) [Despre transportul în comun în UK]

I don’t know if I’ve grown tired of keeping this blog – in spite of having little stories to tell + photos for at least 100 other posts :-) – or whether my thirst for vainglory is upset with having so few readers (one notable exception though!), but I think my words are not as important as sharing pictures from the UK.

Moreover, little photostories were the main purpose of the current series, as I am not particularly fond of techical aspects of motor vehicles. I just want to share some images you can’t regularily find on British city streets anymore, since these ‘classical’ double-decker buses are no longer being produced.

It’s too bad that even most city sight seeing buses are more modern versions :-(, nevertheless, in London tourists can still travel with such a bus on London Route 9 and London Route 15 – two ‘heritage routes’.

The original double decker (AEC Routemaster) remains a symbol of London, after decades of service (1956-2005). Beyond looking good – like steam locomotives looked good, didn’t they? – of course that there are various aspects worth considering whether these buses were really among the best solutions for public transport in the world or not.

Anyone interested in an extensive history of these buses – click here. For more (and better than mine!) pictures of these lovely Routemasters – click here, while for seeing dozens of models of double-deckers derived from the original AEC Routemaster – click here or click here.

For diecast metal or plastic scale models (hopefully some of them not ‘made in China’ but in the UK), for magnets, postcards etc – I recommend patiently investigating through souvenir shops in London. At first glance, a tourist could feel overwhelmed with the ‘same things’, but nice surprises (higher quality little toys) are alwyas possible.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

About public transport in the UK (5) [Despre transportul în comun în UK]

For anyone who might have thought that I was just writing crap in the first episode of this series, here’s a photographed hint about how dangerous it could be not to listen to the advice given on the walls of mosts buses in the UK.

At least in this little aspect, I can only completely agree with Big Brother when he says: For your safety, please do not stand on the upper deck or stairs.

Honestly, it’s not worth not taking my advice and trying to keep one’s balance without using one’s hands.

And beware: sometimes one hand simply won’t be enough not to fall like a fool, especially when the bus turns or stops suddenly!

These stairs are too steep, too narrow and too bent to imagine one could comfortably ride the bus while standing relaxed (?!) on them.

When you hold heavy shopping bags, have a loaded backpack, while paying more attention to your photocamera (as any photoholic :-) than to anything else – that’s a sure recipe for disaster :-(

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

[EN] Worth trying in the UK / [RO] Merită încercat în UK (5)

[EN] Tourists waste money on meals, drinks, dubious souvenirs, photo albums that they soon forget about etc, yet a city tour in a bus is one of the few things that, in my view, are worth every penny. [RO] Turiştii irosesc bani pe mâncare, băutură, suveniruri dubioase albume foto de care uită repede etc, dar un tur al oraşului într-un autobuz este unul dintre puţinele lucruri care, în opinia mea, merită fiecare bănuţ.

[EN] Don’t throw away money on travel books for which there is rarely time to read, just travel! [RO] Nu aruncaţi bani pe ghiduri de călătorie pentru care nu este timp de citit, doar călătoriţi!

[EN] An adult ticket (adult, senior student, with 24-hour availability) seems to cost more in southern UK (£ 8.50-10.50 in Oxford, and £ 20-22 in London)...[RO] Biletul pentru un adult (adult, pensionar sau student, cu valabilitate 24 ore) pare să coste mai mult în sudul UK (£ 8.50-10.50 în Oxford, £ 20-22 în Londra)

[EN] ...and less in the rest of the country – £ 8-9 in Edinburgh, £ 7-9 Glasgow, £ 6-8 in Cardiff, £ 6-7 in Manchester, or even £ 5-6 in Liverpool. [RO] ...şi mai puţin în restul ţării – £ 8-9 în Edinburgh, £ 7-9 în Glasgow, £ 6-8 în Cardiff, £ 6-7 în Manchester sau chiar £ 5-6 în Liverpool.

[EN] Prices vary from one service provider from another, but one of the firms present in most UK cities is this one – and, as former customer, I fully recommend their services. [RO] Preţurile variază de la un furnizor de servicii la altul, dar una dintre firmele prezente în cele mai multe oraşe din UK este aceasta – şi ca, fost muşteriu, recomand deplin serviciile lor.

[EN] Other firm seen almost everywhere is this, and, recommendable as well are: this (Edinburgh) and this (London). [RO] Altă firmă văzută aproape peste tot este aceasta şi, recomandabile de asemenea sunt: aceasta (Edinburgh) şi aceasta (Londra).

[EN] And what can you get for the price you pay? [RO] Şi ce poţi primi pentru preţul pe care îl plăteşti?

[EN] Well, first it’s the superbe view, then some interesting facts and little stories, either through earphones (cheap Chinese ones that one can take away) or directly from a guide, who can usually answer to any question, not just a series of prerecorded ones. [RO] Ei bine, mai întâi priveliştea superbă, apoi câteva fapte interesante şi istorioare, fie prin căşti (ieftinisme chinezeşti pe care le poţi lua cu tine) sau direct de la un ghid, care de obicei răspunde la orice întrebare, nu doar o serie cu unele preînregistrate.

[EN] What one should be aware of:
+ how easy it is to lose one’s balance on the upper deck of such a bus;
+ anything deriving from the above caution: eating is certainly not advisable, taking beautiful pictures is dificult during the cruise (then, when the bus is stopped, you always get something in front of the thing you’d shoot!), kissing – maybe it works;
+ of the British rain;
+ that smoking is forbidden (and how great thing I find this to be!!! :-);
+ of the branches of the trees which can take caps away, and, occasionaly, even leave little wounds on one’s head…

[RO] De ce ar trebui să ai grijă:
+ ce uşor este să-ţi pierzi echilibrul la etajul superior al unui asemenea autobuz;
+ tot ce derivă din precauţia de mai sus: mâncatul sigur nu este recomandat, a face poze frumoase este destul difficil din mers (apoi, când autobuzul este oprit, sigur nimereşti ceva în faţa obiectivului pe care l-ai poza!), sărutul – poate merge;
+ la ploaia britanică;
+ că fumatul este interzis (şi ce treabă grozavă mi se pare aceasta!!! :-);
+ la crengile care pot smulge şepci şi, ocazional, chiar să lase mici răni la cap...

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

[EN] Worth trying in the UK / [RO] Merită încercat în UK (2)

[EN] For glimpses of how the British are in their personal space, anyone needs a few rides in a double decker bus. [RO] Pentru imagini fugare despre cum sunt britanicii în spaţiul lor personal, oricine are nevoie de câteva călătorii într-un autobuz supraetajat!

[EN] Hop on such a bus to practice yourself the typically British patience to queue, to see how the Brits look and smell, if they are polite or not, what they’re talking about, what they’ve just bought, what they eat or even where they’re going out in the evening! [RO] Suie-te într-un asemenea autobuz să exersezi tu însuţi răbdarea tipic britanică de a sta la coadă, să vezi cum arată şi miros britanicii, dacă sunt politicoşi sau nu, despre ce discută, ce tocmai şi-au cumpărat, ce mănâncă sau chiar unde ies seara în oraş!

[EN] A bus is a better place for this purpose than a train packed with commuters, absorbed into reading their papers and books, while having breakfast. [RO] Un autobuz este un loc mai bun pentru acest scop decât un tren plin de navetişti, absorbiţi în citirea ziarelor şi cărţilor lor, în timp ce iau micul dejun.

[EN] In the morning, most have earphones stuck into their ears or/and eyes glued to laptop screens. In the evening, one has a better chance to engage in nice chats. [RO] Dimineaţa, cei mai mulţi au căşti înfundate în urechi sau/şi ochii lipiţi de ecranul laptopului. Seara, ai o şansă mai bună să intri în discuţii drăguţe.

[EN] Even if not everyone likes conversations with strangers (like I do :-), I recommend a double decker both for usual transportation needs and as a sightseeing tour. [RO] Deşi nu tuturor le plac conversaţiile cu străinii (cum îmi plac mie :-), recomand un autobuz supraetajat deopotrivă pentru nevoi de transport obşnuite şi un tur al oraşului.

[EN] Sitting like the Frenchman in the picture (locals do it as well :-) makes travelling more enjoyable, while the perspective upon the urban landscape from that height is unique. [RO] Şederea ca francezul din imagine (localnicii fac la fel :-) face călătoria mult mai plăcută, în timp ce perpectiva asupra peisajului urban de la acea înălţime este unică.

[EN] As far as I know, there’s no other country except Japan to have so many buses of this kind, but the Japs use them primarily on long distance journeys. [RO] Din câte ştiu eu, nu există altă ţară cu excepţia Japoniei care să aibă atât de multe autobuze de acest fel, dar japonezii le folosesc cu precădere pentru călătorii pe distanţe lungi.

[EN] Therefore, I think that these buses could be regarded as another typically British thing. [RO] Prin urmare, cred că aceste autobuze pot fi privite drept o altă chestie tipic britanică.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]