h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The author of this rather sour little piece plainly has something against West London. Qhat on earth in the world could be so grandiose about "Western Avenue"? It's a big road which goes to the West (and to the East, although not all the way East. Many, many cities in English-speaking countries around the world have a Western Avenue. It's not a unique name, but there is no need for it. There is also an Eastern Avenue on the other side of London - I expect such pedestrian symmetry to be the subject of the author's next unintelligible tirade.

Ignorance must be such blissful release. Rather than open a map, the author has decreed that "Twyford Abbey Road" is unacceptably twee because Twyford is 30, or 80, miles away. Actually there is a "Twyford Abbey" about, ooh, 200 yards from HLGS and reached by - shock, horror! - Twyford Abbey Road. (It's now a nursing home, according to my very recent A-Z.) Still, never less pointless little facts get in the way of a good rant, eh?

(The author may want to take potshots at the erstwhile Piccadilly Rly for naming a station "Park Royal & Twyford Abbey", once upon a time. Plainly, the author was seen approaching, and the station was shut forthwith, "Park Royal" taking its place a little further along broadly speaking.)

I only hope the author enjoyed spouting half-truths and betraying considerable ignorance as much as I enjoyed picking his (or her) article to bits.

- Researcher 204077

PS what car - short of most Mercedes AMG variants and automatic Jags/Ferraris - is *consistently* capable of taking on a superbike up to any kind of speed? I can't think of any!

Actually I rather like West London. It's where I choose to live, after all. And in particular, I am very fond of the Hanger Lane Gryatory, which is why I wrote the article.


As for the bike thing, I think you must have misread the text. I never claimed that a car was capable, as you put it, "of taking on a superbike up to any kind of speed". Quite the opposite in fact: if you read the article carefully, you'll see that what I said was that a bike

"can leave any car for dead on a 0-60mph sprint."

Which I think is the exact opposite of what you appear to think I said.

I can make a strong case for the other point that I made (which is that bikes are slower than some cars *from a standstill up to very low speeds*). I was going to go over to your page to state my case, rather than argue it out here where it's somewhat off-topic. But you seem not to be open to discussion - I can't post a message on your page until you put some text up there. *sigh* But please come over to my page if you want to talk about his further.

Even a modicum of research would have also told you that the station was not "put smack in the middle of the meeting of several major roads and an assortment of minor ones".

The station and the railway line on which it is located, was mostly built before the local difficulty we experienced between 1939 and 1945 so not opened until c1947. The Gyratory was not built (if I remember correctly) until the 1970s.

I am intrigued as to why it is that so many people assume that what they see is the way it always has been, even though alterations are taking place in front of their very eyes.