Priority boarding queue

Arrived at the priority boarding queue only to find that there was a queue of about 20 people, not good news. I guess the school holidays have started and the Olympics start at the end of the week, so there are more than the usual quantity of people trying to get away and others trying to arrive. The queue caused all but a minor delay.

View of Belfast International Airport run way

The queue for a newspaper was equally bigger too, but at W H Smith’s there was something that could bigger some about it. The self help tills are just crap, they ask stupid questions about whether you bought a bag or require a large slab of chocolate, but in a way that it is easy to press the wrong button, then the user gives up and a member of staff is required to enter a password to reset the machine before someone else can have a go. So that was five minutes of my life I won’t get back!

You see some strange and interesting people at airports, I guess it is not often these days that you get a chance to just sit and watch the world go about its business. I spotted a hamster with big gold sovereign rings on, a family on the Belfast flight dressed for the beach, complete with flip flops, to mention a few.

I had a bit of luck at the Avis car rental queue they have a deal where if you are a registered Avis customer and you have to wait more than 2 minutes you get a Marks and Spencer voucher worth £20. There was a long queue so I went to the counter to get my stopwatch to start the timer, but before I had a chance one of the employees was asking my name and handing me the car keys. Result.

The weather n Belfast was awful, when I got off the plane it was drizzling, and the rain continued and become heavier as the day went on. Considering that the weather in Aylesbury was cloudless skies and 30 degrees centigrade was predicted. In a way I am am probably better off in Northern Ireland and it will be difficult to sleep at such temperatures.

I checked the statistics on the blog earlier and noticed that the number of visits in July  is over 1,000 a new record and the month is not over yet. This is a result of posting on the Raspberry Pi forum on how to do the temperature logging.

I ate with a colleague fairly early on, and I had a new meal from the menu, Pale Smoked Haddock on a bed of spinach and curried sauté potatoes, which I enjoyed. I had and early night and was up early for the usual breakfast, then it was back to the off for more of the same.

I had a couple of meetings arranged, one of which was had been put back to late in the afternoon so I had had to book another later flight at 21:10. The cost of changing my existing flight was more than booking a new one so I kept the existing flight. It turned out to be a wise choice, as at about 14:30 I found out that another meeting was over running and so the 16:00 was likely to be cancelled. I thanked my lucky stars and left for the airport, I would be able to get the 17:15 and be back home at a reasonable time.

This blog is turning out to be a record of the the queues I have been in recently, today’s entry will be no exception. The electronic fuel gauge in the Fiat 500 I had hired registered petrol usage so I was going to have to fill out the hire car, which I did at the first opportunity. Trouble is it was a filling station with an attached independent supermarket, and everyone was out doing their shopping only one till was in use so I had to queue up with shoppers with trolleys full of goods, when all I wanted to do was pay for £8 worth of unleaded.

Finally at the airport there was little or no queue to get through security. I grabbed a coffee and got on with a blog post while I looked for things to photo to add some content. This posted is being typed whilst tethered to my Android phone. As you can see from the image I have got reasonable speeds. My mobile phone operator is Giff Gaff and I get unlimited data and texts for £10 per month.

The plane arrived back on time and the weather in Luton was as if someone had turned the heating up just in time for the Olympics.

I rode the dangleway and joined the Navy

The Cutty Sark Greenwich

Today I am off to London to do a couple of things, a trip on the Dangleway which opened in June, and hopefully a look around a Royal Navy boat which has been moored up near Greenwich since Friday. The boat is part of the Olympic build up, it will be used by helicopters. I found out about the boat from the Ian visits web site which is always worth a look of you are planning a trip to London and want something to do whilst there.

I anticipated that the boat tour would be popular so o got the 08:39 train from Berkhamsted, then the southbound northern line to Bank, make sure you get the right platform, then the docklands light railway to Greenwich.

The queue for the Tour round HMS Ocean was about 400m long but I decided it was worth the wait, as the ropes were only available for the one day, and I had arrived early enough at 10:05.

Whilst waiting I checked out Wikipedia to find out a bit more about HMS Ocean, HMS Ocean of the Royal Navy is an amphibious assault ship (or landing platform helicopter) and is the sole member of her class. She is designed to support amphibious landing operations and to support the staff of Commander UK Amphibious Force and Commander UK Landing Force.

HMS Ocean and river boat

She was constructed in the mid 1990s by Kvaerner Govan Ltd on the Clyde and fitted out by VSEL at Barrow-in-Furness prior to first of class trials and subsequent acceptance in service. She was commissioned in September 1998 at her home port HMNB Devonport, Plymouth.

The queue went through a couple of tents the first was filled with chairs and was showing a Royal Navy promotional film, however no one day down they just stayed in the queue we didn’t want to join the navy we all wanted to have a look round the big boat!

I reached the front of the queue a surprising 30 minutes later, and it soon became clear why, the 2 boats ferrying us to the vessel were quite big. We looped round the back of the vessel before pulling along side so we could disembark. Once on board we were ushered up a stairway and into a large area within the heart of the boat, there were demonstrations going on you could, put on an army pack, or learn about reasons and guns. Took the opportunity to climb up the ramp to get some pictures of the helicopters on the deck, then went back in to follow the Tour round the rest of the boat. We were told all about the landing craft that they had strung up on the side then we ended up in an even bigger hangar arts on the bowels of the vessel, where there were more demonstrations and helicopters. I took as many pictures as I could buy the light was very poor.

In the bowels of HMS Ocean

Then it was time to get back on the little boat and go back to the Greenwich quayside, where I took a few pictures of the Cutty Sark, before heading off along the Thames path towards the dome. The path is a bit in a state of disrepair and in one place I even saw someone lose a show in the mud, o think the whole thing needs some money thrown at it to bring it up to the standard of the path on the other side of the river. Once at the Dome I stopped off to have some lunch, a humous sandwich which because it was a cafe rouge came with French fries, and welcome it was too. Next stop was the dangleway.

You might be wondering what I am talking about well it seems that the Dangleway is what people have started to call the Emirates Air Line, which is a cable car which goes over the Thames.

Emirates Air Line (also known as the Thames Cable Car) is a Transport for London (TfL) gondola lift cable car link across the River Thames in London built with sponsorship from the air carrier Emirates. The service opened on the 28 June 2012.

On 4 July 2010, TfL announced plans to develop a cable car crossing over the River Thames. It is the first urban cable car in the United Kingdom. Designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects, it crosses the river at a height up to 90 metres (300 ft), higher than that of the Millennium Dome. The cable car provides a crossing every 15 seconds carrying up to 2,500 passengers per hour in each direction, equivalent to the capacity of 50 buses. The cable car can also convey bicycles and passengers are able to use Oyster Cards to pay for their journeys.

Southbank of the Thames

A planning application was submitted to the London Borough of Newham in October 2010 for the “erection of a cable car for the length of 1,100 metres [3,600 ft] over the River Thames from North Woolwich Peninsula to Royal Victoria Dock at a minimum clearance of 54.1 metres [177 ft] above mean high water springs”. The application listed the structures planned for the service on the north side of the Thames as an 87-metre (285 ft) north main tower at Clyde Wharf, a 66-metre (217 ft) north intermediate tower south of the Docklands Light Railway tracks roughly mid-way between Canning Town and West Silvertown stations, a two-storey gondola station and “boat impact protection” in Royal Victoria Dock. South of the river there is a 60-metre (200 ft) main support tower and a boarding station within the O2 Arena car park.

When the project was announced, TfL initially budgeted that it would cost £25 million and announced this would be entirely funded by private finance. This figure was revised to £45 million, and by September 2011 the budget had more than doubled to £60 million, reportedly because TfL had not taken account of the costs of legal advice, project management, land acquisition and other costs. TfL planned to make up the shortfall by paying for the project out of the London Rail budget, applying for funding from the European Regional Development Fund and seeking commercial sponsorship.

In January 2011, News International were planning to sponsor the project but subsequently withdrew its offer. In October 2011, it was announced that the Dubai-based airline Emirates would provide £36 million in a 10-year sponsorship deal which included branding of the cable car service with the airline’s name.

The Dangleway, Emirates Air Line London Greenwich end

Construction began in August 2011 with Mace as the lead contractor.[13] Mace built the cable car for £45 million and will operate it for the first three years for a further £5.5 million. TfL stated that the initial construction funding and Emirates sponsorship will cover £36 million of the cost; the rest will be funded from fares. The cable car will be the most expensive cable system ever built.

In May 2012, TfL said that the cable car would be ready for people to use by summer 2012, and that while there were originally no plans to have it open before the 2012 Olympics, there would be plans in place in case it was opened in time. The public opening took place at 12:00 BST on 28 June 2012. TfL reports that the total cost of the project was about £60 million of which £45 million went towards construction. TfL estimates that the service can carry 2,500 people per hour.

The queues were long and there was some confusion, first you needed to join a younger queue of which there were two, one for humans and one for the ticket machines, I did not realize at first and ended up in the human queue but soon transferred to the ticket machines queue when it became obvious it was shorter and quicker. In all it took me about 45 minute to get a ticket, then I was able to join the boarding queue!

The Dangleway, Emirates Air Line London in flight

Once there it was all over in a flash, we were ushered up the stairs and into a pod then at 8.6 miles per hour we were up and over the river and disembarked on the other side. The journey is really smooth apart from when you go over a pylon, and the view is great liking down on the Dome.

Next it was back on the docklands light railway to head back home. I quite enjoy the DLR as most of it is over ground, do you get to see where you are going a bit like when you take the bus in London. Anyway the journey home went well all train waits were about a minute or two and then when I got to Euston the next train was in five minutes so I was was back to see the end of the days stage of Le Tour.

The bells the bells

The Bells The Bells

With the weather not at its best I started the day off tinkering with my computer. I had taken delivery of a current cost electricity monitor which is capable of sending the readings down its serial port using a specialist cable that converts the serial signal to USB.
The monitor in question is the CC128 which believe was given out by EON to its customers a few years back. I eventually got it working with the help of Google and my basic scripting skills.

After some lunch I made Helen a sandwich and headed down to the village church to deliver a marmite sandwich to Helen who was manning (or is that womanning) the bric a brac stall.

The pulling room

I had a quick look around then headed home to catch the Tour de France on ITV4. Helen then phoned to let me know that they were doing trips up the church tower, Le Tour would have to wait I have lived in the village for quite some years but never been up the church tower. I grabbed my camera bag and quickly cycled round.
When I got there I was slightly disappointed to find that it was only as far as the bells that was open, and that my hope of pictures from the top of the tower PhD the village was not going to be,I was however going to make the most of the opportunity to have a go at going one of the church bells.

The steps/ladder up was a bit of a challenge especially with a rucksack on my back. The first and longest ladder leads to the room where the actual pulling off ropes happen to make the bells ring.the next shorter ladder leads to another room which is empty apart from from the bell ropes running from floor to ceiling. The final and even smaller ladder lead to the bells themselves.

I had think there was a total of 8 bells each attached to a large wheel made of wood.the guide explained how they were makeof mahogany rather than the traditional wood. Then we were treated to the deafening sound of a bell being rang at close quarters, very loud! I quickly grabbed some photos and headed back down the ladder to have a go at bell ringing.

A different angle

A patient gentleman explained how it all worked then pulled the Sally while it took care of the easy end of the rope, I guess that that they only let you go solo after a few lessons. It didn’t seem that difficult, but then I was not having to synchronise with seven other bell ringers. After that a had a chat with some of the other ringers and they showed me the computer program they used to show them the right bells to ring when and also stopped the scripts for them to follow. The bells had magnetic sensors to help them get their timing correct.

Back down to earth I hung around for the raffle draw, then headed home. We had fish and chips for tea and went to bed early I was off to London in the morning early to have a go on the dangleway, and take a look round a Royal Navy boat parked up on the Thames.