Journal Entries
has Goo gone?
Posted Aug 19, 2013
my bookmarks that go to my space in goo throw up errors. Has it gone now or is it just a glitch?
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Latest reply: Aug 19, 2013
back on the train :(
Posted Aug 15, 2013
so my car has decided not to work and to need loads and loads of expensive repairs. Since the other car blew up at Easter and I have no money and no chance to get another car we're back in the world of the car less 
which means I'll be back travelling by train and probably means I'll resurrect my blog.
On the upside: I'll get a LOT of reading done. I didn't have a Kindle last time I had to do this.
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Latest reply: Aug 15, 2013
Bike, Train, Bike, Train, Bike - collapse in a heap
Posted Aug 12, 2013
I've been on holiday for the last week, with another week to go. We (that is 
and I) decided that we'd like to get out there and do a few bike trips.
We've exhausted the bike routes round here - we did two 50km rides last week, and did a much longer one alone on Friday - so somehow we got it into our heads that what we really ought to do is cycle from Cologne to Düsseldorf (or vice versa).
To do that we first had to cycle the 5kms to our local station, and wrestle our bikes onto the train to Düsseldorf. You can buy a day ticket for your bike for EUR 4 - which means you can take it on trains, trams and buses in this area as often as you like for the day. We have the double decker trains here, and there is always one carriage with spaces for bikes. Instead of the usual groups of 4 seats, they have the flip down seats arranged along the sides of the carriage. With the seats in the folded up position, you can lean your bike against them and use a special seatbelt thing to hold your bike more or less in place when the train is moving.
It was my first time taking a bike on the train but it worked really well and before I knew it we were at Düsseldorf main station. The platforms are on level one which meant that we had to take the bikes down in the lift. Which isn't actually long enough for the average bike (and didn't appear wide enough for anything other than a very basic wheelchair) so manhandled his down the stars while I wrestled with mine in a glass box.
Düsseldorf, like most other German cities, is very easy to cycle around, and soon enough we were down at the Rhine and heading off towards Neuss, the first town on the way. Although the description of the route seemed pretty straightforward (the NordrheinWestfalen tourist board website) and was advertised as "being so well signposted you won't need a map" we found it difficult to get going - although we wanted mostly to be close to the river the signs we did see took us in a completely different direction which meant that the first part of the trip was frustrating and a little boring.
But soon enough we got back to the river just before Dormagen and the route was fabulous. It's cycle paths all the way anyway, and this part takes you along the Rhine along the tops of dikes built to keep the floodwater at bay.
Just before Leverkusen, feeling peckish, we stopped at a restaurant (next to the little car ferry) for food and Kölsch (the local beer in Cologne) before peddaling off again. There is a short diversion away from the river as you go through Leverkusen (the Bayer chemical work goes right down to the river as they transport a lot of stuff by barge.
Soon enough we were in sight of the cathedral and the train station. We parked our bikes and went off to the English shop for some Wensleydale and Branston pickle followed by more Kölsch in a great little pub.
Then it was back on another of the fabulous double-decker trains and home.
Apparently on Wednesday we're cycling to Düsseldorf, having dinner and - using 's magic season ticket (after 7pm and on holidays and weekends he can take one other adult and up to 3 children with him for no extra charge - we only have to pay for the bikes) - coming home again on the train. We'll see how my old knees are doing (and if my posterior is still sore)
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Latest reply: Aug 12, 2013
Happy Yorkshire day!
Posted Aug 1, 2013
we need a whiterose smiley...
Discuss this Journal entry [12]
Latest reply: Aug 1, 2013
*sigh* I have now seen it all
Posted Jul 28, 2013
I am in the Everyday Sexism project group on facebook.
I joined because I follow them on twitter and I've seen their site and it's an interesting thing to see just how many of us are confronted by greater or lesser degrees of sexism in our daily lives.
What has rapidly become clear to me is that this kind of project morphs into something were whatever gets written, especially the posts about abuse (which i may contend isn't everyday sexism but a part of sexism that happens every day), become subsumed into "why didn't you put a trigger warning" and suchlike.
Now I don't want people to be confronted by things that bring up all kinds of stuff. Really I don't. I've been lucky enough not to have to face most of what I read about in that group, so I tend not to comment or anything.
But this evening someone posted a link (without a trigger warning) to a "debate" on Debate.org about decriminalising rape.
Now. I don't believe in unfettered freedom of speech because of the usual caveats. But I do sometimes think that some people need to be given enough rope to hang themselves. And I also think that some of these "debates" are something akin to what I'd think of as sixth form grandstanding - because sixth formers know everything, right?
And that's what this debate seemed like: someone had taken a subject and tried to make an argument for it, while not actually believing it, and trying to shock.
It's distasteful at best, sickening at worst.
But the storm that has gone on on the facebook group about "why wasn't there a trigger warning" and "he's a rapist, how can we stop him?"
seemed a bit weird to me.
And my questioning (carefully) of why, if you are the kind of person who would need a trigger warning for this subject, you would even click the link and read it, was that I "don't get it"
Sure, I do get it. I know how debating works. But I really don't get why people would read that debate if they need a trigger warning for mentions of rape.
I may have to leave the group because it's getting more like that and less about, say, coping strategies for how to stop people in the office calling you "love" etc.
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Latest reply: Jul 28, 2013
Sho - employed again!
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