This is the 500th posting since ‘another day on the buses’ was born on the 7th February 2007. The very first posting may be read here. In that first post I wrote “How long will this blog last”. The answer seems to be nearly 5 years at the least.

The previous posting to this is the one about the new BBC homepage. Within a couple of hours of posting it I suddenly saw a huge rise in visitor numbers, a closer look at my analytics showed an incoming link from the BBC itself!

The link appeared on the BBC web page until yesterday evening when it finally scrolled off the bottom as they selected newer stuff to link to. However, I’m still getting a significant number of visitors from google.co.uk who have used the search term ‘bbc homepage’ on which this site is currently in position 13 out 67.5 million results. It just shows how powerful a link from a site such as the BBC is for google positioning. It’s been fun for a couple of days, I hope those who got here spent at least a few minutes having a look at other things, but I doubt they have much real interest in buses and my life.

For sometime the BBC homepage has contained a link to view a beta release of a proposed new homepage with a request for comments. They certainly received my input but it’s not made a scrap of difference. Beta testing must be over now because visiting the homepage today immediately takes you to the new page :-(

The ‘old’ homepage was extremely configurable; users could remove sections in which they had no interest (Sport, Weird & Wonderful etc. in my case) and expand those in which they wanted more detail (Business & Finance being one of mine).

Here’s how my customised ‘old’ page looked. It’s logical, tidy and contains lots the information in which I’m interested.

Here’s the new dumbed down homepage with the only customisation possible, location, having been carried out.

Everything seems to need a picture alongside in case the words are not enough. It reminds me of a typical Kebab & Pizza takeaway where everything they offer needs not only words but a bright, backlit, gaudy image in case the words alone don’t convey the message. The BBC homepage used to present a classic menu, now it’s dumbed itself down to a kebab shop style menu just like this one!

So says a letter to the Evening Telegraph.

It goes on to say:-

On boarding a bus recently, I was left aghast when the driver informed me the only reason he had stopped was to allow passengers who had boarded in Perth to get off.
He explained that as he was running late he had been instructed by his supervisor not to stop to pick up any passengers so he could make up time.

If this is so that they can ‘tick the box’ on punctuality then I find it disgusting and the bus firm should be ashamed that it could treat customers in such a manner. — A. Payne, Invergowrie.

Here we have someone ‘on the bus’ complaining vociferously, and quite wrongly, on behalf an imagined group people (those who they think the bus left behind by taking a direct route) who in actuality have no problem at all! Without a doubt the driver’s controller did say “just drop off” and probably added “don’t bother with the villages”. Once a bus is so late that the following on time bus is only a minute or two behind the late bus there is little point in the late bus and the on time bus joining and becoming one! Better do something to get the late bus back on time.

By coincidence I had a very similar situation today where a group of disembarking passengers were extremely rude to me and were all complaining on behalf of imagined fellow passengers who would be inconvenienced. I wont go into the rather complicated situation but those who were complaining were where they wanted to be, when they wanted to be. And those not present, but on who’s behalf they wanted to rant and rave at the bus company, were being picked up by a bus at the time and place they expected to be picked up!

A final point about being late is how unhelpful it is when each boarding passenger says “You’re late what’s the problem”? Don’t they realise that having to explain that there are roadworks at ‘x’ etc to every boarding passenger is just adding to the delay. Board 20 people and answer that question 20 times, even if it only takes 10 seconds a time to do so, and you’ve lost more than another 3 minutes!

We’ve just got back from a few days away without the kids – wonderful!

The oldest left home last month and moved to Canterbury to attend the University of Kent, the other two wanted to see her again and were invited to visit during half-term so Essy and I hatched up a plan. Since Canterbury is only 30 minutes or so from Dover we could deliver the kids to their older sister and then take a short trip on our own before returning to collect them. So Sunday lunchtime we took a Norfolkline line ferry to Dunkirk and then drove the 50 minutes or so up the coast to Jabekke in Belgium. We took the caravan and stayed here. The site was excellent and one we shall use again.

On Monday we drove to Sluis, a town I’d not visited before, which is just over the border in Holland. Here are a couple of pictures from there. The first was a typical Dutch lunch snack of chips with fritesaus, a sort of mayonaisse with a little more vinegar in it, and a frikandel speciaal. Frikandel is type of Dutch sausage unlike anything you can get in the UK, it is split down the middle and served with mayonaise and curry ketchup sprinkled with chopped raw onion. The second picture is of Essy outside a rather attractive shop front.

The next day went to Knokke which was a bit out of our league. As you pass through the outskirts of the town it becomes apparent that this is a town for the seriously wealthy – immediately after the Bentley dealership is the Mercedes Maybach dealership, then the Porsche dealership. The motor dealerships are then followed by the very upmarket kitchen design shops, bathroom showrooms etc. In town nothing became any more affordable for us as the designer shops lined the main street. An interesting place but not one I’ll venture into again for some time.

The media seem to pick any archive photo of a bus to illustrate a bus related story. Here’s one from BBC South today Portsmouth v Southampton derby fans face ‘coach bubble which says that “fans having to buy joint match and coach tickets, and being escorted by police to a secure area in Portsmouth” and illustrated with this photo.

Taylors Coaches, who were based in Sutton Scotney, ceased trading nearly 7 years ago in December 2004!

It was only a couple of weeks ago that a local press headline read Civic chiefs aiming to save bus services in Alresford which was accompanied by this photo.

More is a Go Ahead division and Bournemouth based, you can even see that this one is destined for Boscombe. Nothing to do with Alresford!

First UK Bus has launched a new mobile website designed to enable its customers access First bus information from smartphones. Full story here. Having just got a new smartphone I felt I had to take a look. My initial reaction? Very impressive! I’ve not had time to look further than the timetables section but that’s what led me to say ‘very impressive’. I always hated having to look up First Bus time tables on the old site using my PC, now with a screen a fraction of the size of my 22″ home screen it’s the easiest thing in the world to check times. If you’re using a smartphone, rather than presenting timetables as pdf files, the system is interactive requesting route number, when are you travelling, direction of travel, going to etc. That may sound as if it would take time entering it on a smartphone but everything is selected from drop downs so it’s a very quick and easy process. Times are then presented very simply showing the departure time from your selected stop and the arrival time at the selected destination.