City Commuters Experience Best and Worst of UK Trains

The recently published Autumn National Passenger Survey 2008 shows a mixed bag for commuters coming into the City of London.

Commuters on the c2c service from Shoebury to Fenchurch Street have a 90% satisfaction rate, putting them amongst the most satisfied train users anywhere in the country.

It’s a different story for commuters coming into Cannon Street with South Eastern - they score only an 80% satisfaction rate, which is one of the lowest marks in the country.

The survey involved 25,000 respondents in total and was carried out last Autumn. What do you think of c2c and South Eastern? Post your comments below.

Contraflow Cycling in the City

Cyclists could be going the wrong way down one way streets this Summer in a pilot scheme to test contraflow cycling. The City of London Corporation is apparently keen to run the trial to encourage cycling in the square mile.

According to Bikeradar.com, the trial would run throughout this summer and be in operation in West Smithfield, Salisbury Court, Throgmorton Street, Cloth Fair, Finsbury Circus, Creechurch Lane and the east half of Fann Street.

The thinking is that it would allow cyclists to avoid busy roads and get an easier run down quieter one way streets. Find out more at Bike Radar.

Do you think this is a good idea? Would this encourage you to ride a bike in the City? Do you drive a car and think this could be dangerous? Leave your comments below.

Moorgate Musings - pt 1

The new Starbucks down at the Bank end of Moorgate, which seems to have taken for ever to finish, is now open for business. Whether you do or don’t like Starbucks it should at least demonstrate Alan Coren’s Sainsburys Effect on the neighbouring establishments:
“The only thing I know about Sainsburys is that it keeps the riff-raff out of Waitrose”.

Directly opposite Starbucks Bluu Brasserie is advertising 50% off wine so if you need something to get the taste of Starbucks out of your mouth then a quick crawl across the road can sort you out. I’m sure that “terms & conditions apply” so do read the small print before you crack open the Moet but as I haven’t been in there myself any of your observations are welcome.

Lastly, in the “old news” section I couldn’t resist a mention for the new Pret A Manger on Coleman Street which is not only very nice indeed but is also quite quiet being tucked away behind Moorgate in Coleman Street. They’ve demonstrated to Starbucks, who I hope were paying attention, how to open a nice new establishment without taking months to finish it.

One last mystery

From childhood to now seems to have been one long process of having the mysteries of life destroyed under the unforgiving eye of “evidence”. First to go was the delightfully nonsensical tooth fairy followed later, and somewhat more traumatically by Father Christmas. Admittedly I did set up a complex array of mirrors to catch them in the act but I mean how could my parents do that to me?? Then someone at school said that Sooty and Basil Brush were puppets with someone’s hand up their bums and from then on it was a torrent of disillusionment after disillusionment. Unbelieveably the IMF would have you believe that Gordon Brown is not the saviour of the world and some say even The Stig has turned out to be one or more guys who may or may not be from Bristol and may or may not be called Ben Collins. Is nothing sacred!?!?

Well there is one last mystery. It is this:

Who is the City gent who wanders round London wearing a bowler hat with photos plastered to the side?? I saw him first two weeks ago on Oxford Street attracting the bemused stares of all and sundry but couldn’t catch up with him to see what was on the pictures and our ways parted at Tottenham Court Road. Then I saw him again by Moorgate but couldn’t get the camera phone out (Nokia N73 in case you were wondering) in time to take a picture. It’s probably a good job too as it would have ended up as some blurry City version of a Bigfoot-style photo rather than the crystal-clear incontrovertable proof I was looking for but anything would have been good.

So who is he? Have you seen him? What are the photos about?

Learn How To Use A Defibrillator and Save A Life

St John’s Ambulance Team, No.4 Broadgate Circle on 29 January

A defibrillator could save your own life or that of a colleague if you had a heart attack, and thanks to this year’s Lord Mayor’s Charity Appeal, the St John’s Ambulance (Prince of Wales) is placing over 1000 defibrillators in locations across the City.

But you’ll need to know how to use them so go along to No 4 Broadgate Circle on January 29th (that’s today, by the way) to find out more about this worthy project and get the training from the St John’s Ambulance team.

More info

UPDATE: Our man at the scene went along at lunch time only to find out the session hadn’t lasted beyond the morning. A tad lame me thinks not to mention that important fact on their website.

Broadgate Tackles Diseased Trees

Broadgate Estates are taking action to repalce diseased trees in Exchange Square. The works started in January and will last through to April as the Estate Managers replace horse chestnut trees that have been tested positive for phytophthora, or bleeding canker. The condition has already caused two trees to die in the square.

The diseased horse chestnut trees will be replaced with Liquidambar, a specie of tree that is resistant to the disease. The work ha sbeen scheduled to take place at weekends to minimize disruption.

Find out more…

What is the world coming to?

If you’re anything like me your City routine includes picking up one of the free papers on the way home to make the journey more interesting or to line the cat litter tray when you get home. It’s normally a relaxing read on the train to help avoid inflicting that dreaded ill of “conversation” on fellow commuters but when I picked up last night’s Metro I was reduced to apoplexy by their front-page splash.

So what was the most important news of the day that the Metro wanted me to know about? The markets? Job losses? Gaza? Corruption amongst Labour Peers in the House of Lords? No. The banner story was “Kisses as Jade Goody greets her boyfriend outside prison gates“. My first reaction was that anything involving Z-list celebrities isn’t welcome on a front page at any time and my second reaction was that he only served 4 months of an 18 month sentence for assaulting a 16 year-old with a golf club! Only 4 months?!?! I’m surprised a welcoming committee of a different sort wasn’t waiting outside for him. I guess you get what you pay for when it comes to newspapers but the Standard was running it too, though I admit they they did get bought out for a quid.

…and breathe…

There are better things to think about this week and Chinese New Year gives us a suitable excuse to party so get on down to Chinatown, or Docklands, at the weekend and join the crowds in celebrating the Year of the Ox. I feasted on Wing Yip’s finest collection of delicious, if intimidating, seafood on Monday and I’m looking forward to a rematch on Sunday. If you’re interested then head on over to the TFL website who’ve got useful travel info and a list of events.

Oz & James

Yesterday saw those paragons of British manliness, James May and “TV’s Oz Clarke”, at Leadenhall Market for a book signing in Waterstones. There was a good crowd and the pair seemed to be on good form taking time to have pictures taken with those who had lined up in the light rain for up to an hour. Oz and James were their to promote their new book, “Oz & James Drink To Britain” which accompanies their new BBC TV series of the same name which is on BBC2 on Tuesday nights and repeated through the week.

I have to say there seemed to be a high proportion of women in the queue which I would have put down to “buying for the other half” if it wasn’t for one young lady who gave a flower to a slightly-surprised James!

Waterstones at Leadenhall Market don’t seem to have any more book signings lined up at the moment but check back on the Waterstones website to keep up to date.

Fit to bust

It seems that at the moment whenever I glance out of my office window or when I’m on my way to or from the office there seem to be an inordinate number of people trying to get me to sign up for their gym/fitness club/call it what you will.  At this moment I can see a gaggle of purple-attired LA Fitness folks trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to hand out flyers and the like to the lunching-classes and in the mornings I periodically get intercepted by folks from City Golf & Health Clubs, both of which I take as signs that business isn’t going so well. Now I hear through the grapevine that The City Point Club in Ropemaker Street, at the more exclusive end of the market, has abandoned its waiting list and has introduced a raft of offers to entice new and former members such as no-contract, no joining fee and top it off with a spa voucher.

So are we expecting any casualties in the gym sector? Any gossip to spread share?

Brolly Good Show

Isn’t it odd how rainy weather brings out the full selection of City umbrellas and no doubt there’s an amateur psychologist out there who’d be prepared to have a shot at analysing your personality based on your choice of umbrella (and get their own show on UK Living no doubt). The Telegraph recently featured a fully-fledged professional psychologist who claimed to be able to read the personalities of people depending on where they sat on the bus. His observation that “Forward-minded people tend to sit at the front of the top deck” could to some extent be tempered by the fact they were on a bus between Bolton and Manchester… arguably not THAT forward thinking then some Southerners might say? I shudder to think what he’d make of today’s collection of enormous golf umbrellas (carried by people who never play golf), flimsy foldaways of all designs and colours and the inevitable free Evening Standard umbrellas… Or is it more macho to go without?

By way of introduction I’m based near Moorgate, as you might have worked out from the pseudonym, and my aim is to cast my eagle-eye (thanks to Specsavers) over the day-to-day goings on of the City but less of the big stuff that the newspapers chase after but more like the kind of things that matter to your average City worker, if there is such a thing.

Next Page »