Friday, October 16, 2009
Freedom pass
A trip to Earlsfield yesterday to inaugurate my new freedom pass. But a sullied inauguration. As I was about to engage with the ticket machine at Epsom station, someone tapped me on my shoulder and gave me a nearly new travelcard. I accepted, despite thinking that using someone else's travelcard was probably some kind of violation. Earlier moralising on such subjects as MPs' expenses notwithstanding. The combination of wanting neither to give offence by declining the travelcard nor to be mistaken for a prat, weighed more heavily than the theft from southwest trains. Then I wondered whether the ticket machine would object to the card's being used for two outward journeys from Epsom. As luck would have it the barrier was open. Then, careful reading of the travelcard on the train revealed nothing about non-transferability; unlike pay and display car park tickets which certainly do so reveal. Some even include bits of your car number just to be on the safe side. There was a general reference to rules and regulations paraded at great length somewhere else and it did say not for resale. So maybe I was not committing an offence after all? Decided that in the unlikely event of being challenged by a roving southwest trainer, I would brass it out. Sure someone gave it to me. Where does it say that he shouldn't have? Unlikely event did not come to pass and got through the barrier at Earlsfield OK. Walked one way to Tooting and bused back, as is my custom. Sort of inaugurated the freedom pass by flashing it in the bus, despite having the travelcard in my pocket. Barriers at both Earlsfield and Epsom open by this time so travelcard not further tested.
Various changes afoot in Epsom, first our Young's pub, the Kings Arms, has fallen for gastro. A pub which used to serve people who wanted to drink beer rather than people who wanted to ingest Thai fish cakes with glutone sauce. Pub shut while major building works carried out. Including a fifty gallon stainless steel jus container being installed in the roof and a similar drizzle container being installed in the basement. It seems that jus is best delivered by gravity, just dripping down from the roof, whereas drizzle is best delivered under slight pressure from the cellar, in the same way as fizzy beer. I think I also saw specialised wooden racks going in for all that shiny white crockery which is all the rage now. If stuck, http://www.ustores.com/de_gruchy.aspx in Jersey carry a goodly range.
We will see if whoever is pouring hundreds of thousands into yet another gastro pub will get his or her money back. Place a bit out of town although that does mean that it has quite a decent sized car park.
Second, our station. There have been mutterings about redevelopment for 20 years but it looks as if they are finally on the move. I had been concerned that they were going to erect some whacking great tower over the whole station, doing away with the handsome Victorian arcade roofs over the platforms. Making the place all dark and dingy like the western side of Victoria station, not to mention the view from the houses beneath, in Hazon Way. But reassured by the slimline exhibition - not a grand affair with computer mockups and models at all. Maybe developers are feeling the recessionary breeze - or perhaps this one has already been given the nod on the QT so does not need to go a bundle on this consultation lark. It turns out that they are not going to build over the platforms at all, just on the footprint of the station entrance building and a bit of scrubby car park. Cramming in car park, shops, station ticket hall, flats (with separate entrances for proper folk and affordables) and a hotel. And while we will lose some of the view to the east from the platform, their general feel is not going to change that much. Maybe you can't build over the platforms as they are on an embankment which would not take the weight of a real building. So I am content. Pity that the space has to be sweated in this way and we couldn't just settle for a new station entrance building. But I guess I have to move with the times. If the Hazon Way people want to protest, that is up to them.
# posted by Jim @ 9:02 AM 
