Last chance to see...?
I'm taking some time off in about a week to visit 
scottymcleod and Jan in London before their junior edition arrives, and spent part of today on arranging travel. (I've also renewed my passport recently :-) I'm taking the train mainly through force of habit, but wonder whether the age of the train for the trek south has passed. With flights from Dundee to London City Airport at prices that aren't all that much higher, maybe I should have made more of an effort to check them out.
It's a bit sad that I find myself thinking that. I'm a big supporter of the rail system - less polluting than the airlines, more comfortable than a bus - but like many other things started in the UK, we don't seem to manage to keep them going as well as other countries, and privatisation seems to have been the last straw. You know it's got to be pretty bad if the party who did it have as good as apologised...
I expect it's not really the "last chance to see" the railways in action, but it might be the last chance to see scottymcleod and Jan for a while, as it looks fairly likely that a move to Mexico is on the cards for them.
The picture accompanying this journal entry is the rune for G or F, depending on whether you believe Tolkien's fiction or history. I'm considering it as a G here, but created the graphic using the F from the Vienna Futharc font, one of four runic fonts I created about ten years ago for Paul Bibire (no definitive online reference for Paul, but plenty of hits on Google). It probably won't be your last chance to see this, or some revised version of it, as it's likely to prove preferable to having my face on every post. If I get a proper web presence sorted out, which I'm slowly edging closer to doing, then I'll also try to do something about tidying the fonts up and putting them online.
Did the return flight last year from London to Dundee to see Gavin, Paul and others and found it very comfortable and quick. Nice part is the flight north when the plane banks over Crail and Kingsbarns - very strange looking down on the part of the world where I lived (stops for water and mental calculation) for almost 12 years (1987 to 1999).
Gasp means I have been in London for 5 years now if you count the time in Mexico as in London as it's where Jan and the house are.
Anyway, back to railroads and planes. My days of getting the train north are over I think. Last time I went to see my parents I flew from Heathrow to Glasgow and it was a lot easier than the dreadful experience of the west coast line which I can recommend to no one unless it has improved a lot in the last couple of years.
City Airport where the flight from Dundee lands has the disadvantage of not being on either the tube or docklands railway so you have to get the shuttle bus to Canary Wharf or one of the underground stations. We got a car from the local hire company, not cheap but £40 for two is OK by me if it means not having to change three times.
They are building the docklands railway out to the airport but no idea when it will be finished. On a general point the docklands railway is actually pretty good and am glad it runs when the tube is nackered and I have to be in Canary Wharf for meetings or just hanging out with my mates in the HQ.