Arcticterntalk.org

The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world

Archive for the tag “travel”

Cycling from London to Istanbul for Charity. Please support these students!


A week ago on 26th July 13 students from the University of Exeter commenced a 4500km cycle to Istanbul. Why? To support Help for Heroes. Many of these students had just completed their degree and graduated 2 weeks before. Somehow they found time to train,organise and generally prepare for this strenous trip. Aside from the obvious physical aspects there were numerous other planning aspects to consider. For example how to spend as little as possible on the trip, as this would reduce the sponsorship amounts for the charity. So, they spend most nights in tents and some nights in cheap hostels. The van they were donated is not of the Formula 1 category and rather like a beached whale is not deemed well enough to migrate the Alps, so will go around and meet the cyclists on the other side. To date they have reached Lyons and are having a well deserved rest day. My son Charles Bushe texted that he had spent a good day but things like washing needed to be done. They will have finished and be back in UK on September 8th. They deserve as much support as is possible. Even if you can only donate £1 then please do so and also importantly please pass on this message so that others can donate.

They are all good folks and already it is clear that they have bonded well together and are supporting each other when needed. For example the first day of their cycle down to Folkestone the temperature was well into the 30’s C, and there were obvious heat problems. A couple of them have had minor injuries such as a fall and tendonitis but they all keep going.

The links are below.

http://www.justgiving.com/Charles-Bushe  for Charles

 

for the others they can all be accessed here.

http://www.justgiving.com/teams/London-Istanbul2012

 

So, even if it appears a very small sum of money do please donate and help them to collect a decent sum for Help for Heroes. Do not forget that all the weather we have had here they have had too and have continued to cycle! Even Charles 11 year old sister has donated 5£ of her pocket money. Charles also gave up his olympic tickets to see the weightlifting to go on this cycle. Many thanks and again please pass this on to all that you know.

Charles and his 11 year old sister, who donated £5 of her money!

 

 

 

East Midlands Railway. A service from Stagecoach to be avoided. Stuck in the Broken Toilet


East Midlands Trains are on my mind right now. Scenario is this. Happy for them to take 56£ for a single first class ticket from Sheffield to London. Happy to check all tickets. But not happy to actually provide a train that has the right amount of carriages . End result train is packed and luggage is obstructing the aisles. Have I mentioned the broken toilets also? None working that I can find. I will never travel on this awful railway again. The staff are doing their bit but what really can they do. Little in the way of food or drink either free or to buy. The free wi-fi managed to hijack all my top sites and I can assure you that East Midlands railway are bottom in more ways than one. They also apparently are having industrial action next tuesday to thursday, but with this awful level of non-customer service, how will we know the difference? But as I repeat happy to take our money.

now you could not make this up but someone has got stuck in the broken toilets! they have also lost the passenger who was sitting in the seat in front of me and are worried he too has got stuck in the toilet! 

The guard has just announced that the train has toilet trouble.  Questions to the managers are these:

  1. Are you going to refund a significant part of my fare?
  2. What did you think when you started a train without functioning toilets?
  3. Do you care at all about your coal face staff?
  4. Why provide a ” different set”, your words not mine that describes providing 4 carriages when you have taken money for and sold seats for 5?
  5. Why did your wi-fi service hijack all my topsides meaning that I had to find these all over again?
  6. Why are the phone signals so awful? Virgin trains managed to have an enhanced phone signal service all the way from Glasgow to Birmingham yesterday.

    Luggage all over the train. Reminds me of a train from Florence to Milan in the Ash Cloud Debacle 2 years ago

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