Raoul Moat - You couldn't make it up...

...this story is just *extraordinary*...!

As if him turning out to be a cross-dressing police informant wasn't a strange enough story twist, can you imagine being one of those armed police, locked in a tense negotiation with a suicidal murderer for hours (in the rain) when suddenly, up pulls a car and out jumps Gazza clutching a fishing rod, some KFC, a loaf of bread, a white dressing gown and a can of lager, yelling "Come on Moaty, it's Gazza"...and he honestly, *honestly* thinks he can defuse the whole thing with a little bit of a chat and a light hearted spot of night fishing..."Oh fine Mr Gascoigne, not sure why we didn't think of that! Yes of course, through you go then, we'll come back in a couple of hours and pick him up"...

Shortly afterwards he was interviewed on the local radio station...

It's the answer to the question - if we think *really* hard about what would be absolutely the last thing in the entire world that would help in this situation, what would that be...?

Gazza's agent was later quoted as saying "He's doing what? I'm speechless"...

WTF???????????

Escalator policy London Underground

What is it with escalators at the moment? At Canary wharf they've been building scaffolding around the "DLR level" to "Mid shopping level" escalator for a few days now (started last week), meaning it's upward partner has been stopped and turned into a narrow flight of stairs (left hand side is up and right hand side is down...not the kind of thing you see every day) -

- big queues at the top and bottom at busy times, but then they just occasionally turn it back on again so everyone wastes their time heading for it before having to reverse course and use one of the DLR staircases (yes, very sensible, commuters can put up with more than most people, but some consistency, please)...and to watch them wasting their time turning it into an advertising poster site while they should be working on fixing it is actually probably rather more frustrating...



Next up is London Bridge...they have taken to switching all the escalators one would normally take up towards the mainline station to coming *down* to the platform (at exactly the time when no-one is trying to go in that direction)...this has been for almost two weeks now (update - finally fixed today!)...with no sensible reason why the trickle of folks coming in this direction can't do it via the stairs from the Northern line...

This makes the evening rather inconvenient as it means me getting onto completely the other end of the train at Canary Wharf (the end, of course, where all the escalators are all going the wrong direction - i.e. upwards - again, at this time of night would it not make sense to turn them back the other way?) and then coming out to the secret Borough High street exit...about a 6 minute walk from London Bridge mainline (at top speed)...*very* annoying! :(

I'd love to understand the logic behind the latter contraflow (you can understand closure for maintenance from time to time), but surely it would be sensible to always weight (consistency again) the majority of the escalators in the direction of the majority of the foot flow? Would it be so hard to do that?

"Whiskey tango foxtrot, over" ;)

A *three* "WTF?" weekend...

Woke up to glorious sunshine on Saturday morning, had a quick haircut, did something extremely secret for the wedding (which took about an hour) then whizzed over to Gatwick, stopping when we spotted this incredible VW Beetle Trike to go and shake hands with the owner-



- into Hobbycraft, where I had not one but TWO "*WTF*?" moments -

- the first when I saw this £9.99 Batik Tjanting, turns out it's something to do with putting wax onto fabric, and the second when I saw this -

- which I think I can safely leave without comment, from there we went on to do the Tesco shopping in Hookwood -

- spotting a couple of funny(-ish) T-Shirts, then being asked nicely by security what I was doing waving around my camera (I told them I was Press) -


- nipped over to Capel to pick up the car (door lock had frozen on the drivers side so it needed car-hospital) back to watch the boxing (Amir Khan), woke up this morning with a nasty sore throat (and a grumpy Flyingpops who I had kept awake snoring), zoomed over to Tandridge to hear the bans of marriage being read out, passing this little bit of sweet irony, a Horse carrier being slowed to a crawl by horses, heh... -

- popped over to see my folks, and noticed that Dad had a large number of "dog" themed "Get Well Soon" cards, he is going a bit stir-crazy now, feeling better but duty bound to sit still and having now read the entire internet twice (promised him some more fresh links tomorrow) -

- went and did some more secret wedding stuff, then popped into Priory Farm just in time for another "WTF?" moment -

- Yes, Onion goggles (for goodness sake)...and I just know someone will buy these (and stand there in the kitchen looking like an idiot, even at £16.00)... ;)

Just cooking dinner now...*firmly* sans goggles...