From the BBC:

 
The last projected route I saw took it through the GWR park in Faringdon Road.  Be a strange irony if it did. 

 

Yes, but potentially the routes would be adjusted.
No, its a canal and not a river
Probably not.

Like in Melksham, a new route for the canal is planned through / to get it past Swindon and it wouldn't (no, let me say "won't") come past your back gate.  Now I confess I WOULD like to see it come through that way and along by the shopping centre ... tear up half of Fleming and along to the Magic Roundabout, across the the middle of it.  Would make it really magic!

 
The canal used to pass by my back gate but now provides a bit of green space close to Swindon town centre.

In some ways it would nice if it was still there but then I consider the practicalities.  It would make access to my local bus stops more difficult.  Would it flood in winter?  Would it encourage unwelcome wildlife in my garden?

There is also the practical consideration that one of the town’s main sewers now follows the route of the former waterway. 

 
Oops, to be fair, in their service update, CalMac have described it as a "bow ramp".

Mark

Monday 13 April

The repair to the Bow Ramp on MV loch Seaforth has been unsuccessful. Engineers are continuing to work on a repair. As a result, the following sailings are cancelled:

Depart Stornoway – 14:00

Depart Ullapool – 17:30

Parts are due to be returned to the vessel this evening following repair for fitting overnight.

Following this, a period of sea trials will be required on the morning of Tuesday 13 April to test the repair. As a result, the following sailings are cancelled:

Depart Stornoway – 07:00

Depart Ullapool - 10:30

There will be an update by 11:00 on Tuesday 14 April regarding the 14:00 sailing from Stornoway. Sailings remain liable to disruption or cancellation at short notice.

 
Oops, the media fixated on bow doors there: the Loch Seaforth doesn't have such an infernal invention.

Mark

 

3 hours drive to Uig for the alternative ferry to Tarbert (Harris) ... or about 24 hours by public transport according to Google.  One hopes that CalMac might lay on a bus, coach or taxi around

 
Oh, no. 

From the BBC:

 
A story out of almost nothing?  Cafes and restaurants at busy times have always needed to help tables turn over. Whether a customer is writing a letter on paper, reading a book, doing a puzzle, sleeping, knitting or using her or his mobile phone it has always been an issue that at rare times there's an issue to ask customers to let other make use of the business around them.    Been there on both sides.

 
Have been through Malaga this week. All very slick - nice lady helping with enrollment which took under 5 minutes for a family of 4 - then did e-gates no problem. Passport stamped coming in, but they didn't bother going back out again (hopefully that won't be a problem).   

Prior to that, the Portuguese weren't bothering in Lisbon at Easter, nor were the Swiss in Geneva at Christmas.

P.S. One noteworthy thing on the enrollment screens is that you have to confirm you have sufficient funds for your stay (c. €150/pp/day) and technically you have to be able to prove you have accommodation. If my Mum had followed the law, she would have needed to make an appointment with the Policia Nacional to fill out official invitation forms. 

 
Apologies for the thread drift but seemed appropriate. I recently travelled on one of the EMR new units. The riding seemed to be smoother, but I don't think we reached 15rmph. A big plus was the seats which were soft and comfortable. A downside IMHO was the apparent lack of traffic lights on the reservation system which was not actually in use.

 
From the BBC:

 
From the BBC:


My understanding is that grahame only uses such a tabletop to facilitate his rather unfortunate habit of spilling liquids across the keyboard.

CfN.

 
Monday 13 April

1W17 0851 Paddington to Great Malvern terminated short, at Oxford because, according to RTT, of a problem with on-board safety systems

Leading to:


and then

1W21 1053 Paddington to Worcester Shrub Hill was also terminated at Oxford, which, according to RTT, was because of the strange and very creative reason of "the late arrival of a service from Europe"

leading to:

 

... but then grahame woke up. 

 
An update, from the BBC:

 
From the BBC:

 

The issue comes where a dual citizen has allowed their British passport to lapse - or perhaps has never held one.   Take the example I quote (and I am redacting some identifying data) of someone who was moved as a child from the UK to (in our family example) the USA.   She still has very strong family links to the UK and visits every few years and has done so on her USA passport, her British one having lapsed towards the end of the last century.

She's looking to visit again - but this time she finds that her USA passport isn't acceptable into the UK; she can't now get a visa or visa waiver because she's also British, but rather needs to apply for such a passport - from where she is in the USA, and with a turn around of a couple of months, or perhaps an extended timescale due to difficulting of proving / checking ID after multiple decades.

 
It certainly is!

A coach used on a bus route (to me), is still a coach.

 
I is confused; I am pretty sure that 'Dual Nationals' are by definition citizens of, and therefore passport holders of, two sovereign countries.

So why would a UK (or RoI) + 1 other passport holder be affected in any way by this immigration process change?

 
The Wilts and Berks Canal uses to pass very close to our home - the hump mentioned on Spa Road where it used to bridge the canal is a feature, as is the aqueduct over Clackers Brook and the bridge arch set at the side of the road where there used to be a lock.  Features like The Wharf and Gallows Bridge have long since been lost, but names like "Rope Walk" where the rope factory used to sit are there as memories, and the route is waymarked as the lost waterway.   

There are some sections where the old route / towpath is a public right of way, other sections where it has been extinguished over the years and incorporated into properties and indeed built on and there is no practical way it could be re-opened; by my calculation it's now 114 years since the last boat passed.

But yet - a canal route from the Kennet and Avon canal at or near Semington through to the Thames at Abingdon would make huge sense.   And indeed some of the isolated and end sections make sense too - not the "icing on the cake" of the full re-opening but yet substantial benefit.  In roles in the 20 years before I retired, and right up to the end of my term as a Town Councillor, I was a proponent of the canal and options and opportunities for the re-opening - indeed I represented Melksham Town Council on the Wiltshire, Swindon and Oxfordshire Canal Partnership in which local stakeholders come together for some joined-up and indeed joining-up thinking.

There is no practical way that the canal will re-open on its old course.  However, a new route through the town - along the course of the River Avon is plausible.   There is so much that could do in regeneration and focus for the town and its economy, and the old Avon / Cooper Tires site alongside the river is such an opportunity.   On Saturday, I took the bus to Bradford-on-Avon, walked along the canal to Avoncliff and had a wonderful afternoon.   Lots and lots of people out, boats, wonderful parkland ... and we should remember that the Kennet and Avon, too was closed and a muddy (and in sections) dry and derelict ditch that has been brought back to life.

I - envisage - walking down to Melksham Riverside in a summer a decade from now.  Watching the boats go by, perhaps walking waterside all the way up to Lacock and seeing the summer holidaymakers turning their hire boats at Hire-trip-end. Seeing the village freed from cars with people arriving and leaving on the electric shuttle bus from Lacock Station, part of the Bath and Wiltshire Metro - and perhaps I'll take the train back from there into Melksham and catch the bus that connects with every train back home into the town.

 
There are ... multiple ... issues all in the one thread here.   

Headed out from the UK, the admission of people travelling on British passports into the Schengen area through the new biometric system is causing some headline generating blockages as it goes through what are hopefully teething problems.  The corollary to that is the Schengen area exit procedures which are also having some hiccoughs.

The second issue is for British citizens who are also citizens of another country (dual citizens) and can no longer enter the UK purely on a passport of their second county - they need to hold a British Passport or have a certificate of entitlement to enter (return) to the UK.  That is a new requirement too; from a personal  viewpoint we're an international family and with our particular metrics Lisa always carries both UK and USA passports as there's a similar issue in entering the USA.   Where it seems to be a particular issue is for certain family members of our generation who have lived out of the UK for half their lifetime,  travelled here in the past on non-British passports, and now find themselves required to get a British passport before they visit their fatherland.    The UK government says it has done a lot of publicity on the matter, but no amount of publicity will reach everyone - for example (in our family) the people who were born in Buckinghamshire, transported as children by their parents who moved to the USA, and have lived half their life in California - coming just for a visit to the place they were born is now steeped in red tape which has not made the headlines in the LA Times.

 

Not something that people are likely to be troubled by now.

 
As this topic has become rather more factual, I have moved it from our 'The Lighter Side' board to here - while preserving all previous posts, obviously.

Personally, I am familiar with some of those historic features:


CfN.

 
Looking at the last photograph, the phrase "Mind the Gap" came to mind. 

 
I have revised the 'topic heading' here, to make it rather less 'confrontational'.

 
Geologist here: but if you like fancy and rare rocks, when in Fuerteventura visit the seaside village of Ajuy on the west cost if you can. It is a special area where rocks of the Jurassic aged, Atlantic Ocean floor rocks and the Earth's mantle have been brought to the surface and outcrop in the bay and its surrounds. Even if fancy rocks aren't your sort, there is a lovely tapas bar there on the beach.

 

Thanks JohnD, good thinking. I'm off to Fuerteventura on Saturday. Just checked the scheduled arrivals and the previous Non EU arrival is 5 hours earlier and the next arrival after is 90 minutes later. So hopefully will not have to wait too long. I believe that I am already registered having had my photo and fingerprints taken in Vienna in January.

The downside is I am starting to hear about probable strike action at both Stansted and Fuerteventura airports from this Friday. 

 
Browsing around existing topics and previous posts here on the Coffee Shop forum, as I do, I note that we have recently been joined by some very welcome new members.

Please do take the following step of posting here: we are a remarkably friendly forum, and I would be delighted to have the opportunity to welcome a 'first post' from one of our new members.

CfN.

 
The BBC have updated their news article: