Ready for the pizza party!

I just came up with a new entertaining concept!
As I bake bread almost every week, I just thought about doing a pizza party -it's the same dough after all!
It's been a hit with the littlelings... and adults too.

SET UP
- dough mix: 1 kg strong white bread flour, 35g fresh levure, 3 tbs olive oil, 450 water
- knead (see previous posts on bread)
- let prove for 2h, cover with linen
- shape some dough balls, about the size of a tennis ball
- let prove 1h
- set-up all the ingredients, see picture
--> creme fraiche, chopped oignons, lardons
--> origan
--> tomato passata
--> seafood mix
--> chorizo, ham
--> mozarella, blue chees, goat cheese, emmental (not cheddar!), parmesan for a 4 cheese pizza
--> anchovies, capers, olives
--> spinach, mushrooms, peppers, fresh basilic (add at the end, just like rocket)
--> fresh and cooked eggs
--> etc, check the picture

THE PARTY
Start with baking small sough balls, about the size of a wallut, dunked in oil and chopped gardlic for the aperitif. You can also bake some brushettas by stretching some of your dough balls, brushing with olive oil and adding chopped tomatoes, oregano and basil, salt and pepper
You will then need two baking trays, abundantely floured or with a silicon cooking mat. Each guest makes their own piza and bakes it in a very hot oven. Just keep in mind that the best pizze are often the simplest one -avoid the dog's dinner by setting the example!

SOME SUGESTIONS (MAYBE BEST TO WRITE A RECEIPE LIST BEFORE)
- passata, anchovies, capers, seafood, origan, pepper (no cheese on seafood for traditional Italian pizze though I am not too sure about where this rule comes from)
- four cheese (see above), on a tomato base, no salt!
- creme fraiche (no tomato), oignons, parsley, pepper (no salt)
- tomato base, chorizo, mozzarella, peppers
- Florentina: tomato base, lardons raw egg (w/o the shell ;-), capers

ENJOY!

Are high-speed trains viable in the US?

Interesting article here:
tripso.com | Are high-speed trains viable in the U.S.?

Certainly thought provoquing in a country where "high-speed trains" mean 150 mph only.

Here are the comments I've posted.

To me, there are a few truths:
- Rail is less polluting in general (it takes less energy to move something on iron-to-iron railways), even more so if lines are electrified and electricity comes from renewables or nuclear

-  Rail competes with air easily for distances less than 1000 km / 600 miles

- The city-centre to city-centre networks work well in dense connurbations with adequate public transport between the city centre and suburbs. When megapolis have no centre, advantages are less obvious.

- For the end-user, convenience/speed and price must be right, unlike in the UK where people choose cars because public transport fails them, despite congestion and high cost of the personal convenience called "car".

- Railways are never going to turn up a profit, they need subsidies and have to be built upon long periods to become alternatives to automobiles. Just like roads and street lighting. Of course, single lines can be profitable under some cicumstances, but it's missing the point about the advantage of an integrated public transport network.

railways, rail, tranportation, UK, USA, richmondtransits.blog

Time to nationalise the trains?

Read in The Times this am:
National Express wants taxpayers’ cash to keep running East Coast trains - Times Online

At a time where rail fares have been increasing faster than inflation, I was reading this and thinking it was a further proof that the rail privatisation did not work, in the UK or anywhere else.

Its results are:

• a poor deal for the consumer with one of the most expensive transport system in the world, sending more people than ever on the roads (an overused infrastructure with little investment over the last 20 years)
• little progress in upgrading and investments, with for instance no high-speed links between London, the Midlands and Scotland ; I mean Crossrail and HS1 are not much in 20 years
  
• overall, the service is sort of improving but is running on many lines over-capacity 

In the meantime, the government continues with its double standards and taxes cars CO2 emissions while not taxing aviation fuel and not phasing out diesel train engines with electrified lines.

UK, rail, railways, transportation, richmondtransits.blog

My no-knead sourdough bread

I've now been baking bread almost every week-end for well over 3 years and have tried many different recipes, including this one or that one, but also ciabattas, lardons breads, walnut and apricots breads, etc etc etc.

I've got several books just , including the "ultimate" The Bread Bible, a very concise and good book in French called Les recettes du boulanger : Pains et viennoiseries.

My current routine is to refresh my sourdough starter which I keep in a jar in the fridge on Thursday night, mix the ingredients together on Friday and bake on Saturday. I always keep some dough if it's a white bread to make pizzas for the Sunday night.

So far, I was using the proportion that Joanna gave me:

• 675 g strong organic white bread flour + 75g organic rye flour, or any mix I like of different flours (such as spelt, malted, buckwheat, etc...) but keeping the total at 750g
• 270 g sourdough starter, usually using rye flour or wholemeal or white bread flour -I keep them at around 100-120% hydratation, which is same weight water and flour or a bit more water
• 495 g water
• 15 g salt -regular, coarse sea salt doesn't make a difference except sprinkled on the crust
• Note that you can also add up to 20% of "whatever": dried apricots and walnuts, sunflower and other seeds, lardons (pancetta cubes) and rosemary, etc...

The rest of the recipe is:

• Knead for 15 mn (that's a whole blog post on the subject...)
  
• Leave overnight to prove on a silicon sheet on an oven tray
• Pre-heat the oven to the max (275 Celcius for me)
  
• Bake for about 50-55 mn with a metal tray and 7-10 ice cubes on the oven bottom but NOT under the bread -makes it all soggy
• Reduce heat to about 180 degrees after 20 mn
• Wholemeal, spelt, rye breads take more time to bake: to see if they're done, tap on the bottom to hear if it sounds hollow, if not continue for 5-10 mn.
  

Now, 750 + 135 = 885 g flour for 495 + 135 = 630 g water, which is about 70% hydratation or 66% if you don't account for the sourdough starter.

Over this bank holiday WE, I've tried my new toy -a very nice electronic scale and have altered the proportions to go well over 70% hydratation:

• I've kept the flour at about 750 g (using a mix of my favourite Dove's Organic StrongWhite Bread Flour and about half of the lovely Bacheldre Smoked Malted Flour)
• However, largely due to a handling error I've ended up with over 320 g of starter
• Thinking back of the "no-knead" NYT article I had read some time earlier, I decided to experiment and added about 600 g of water.
• Now, this makes a very soggy dough which you can't knead -just leave proving for about 14-18 hours or thereabouts
  
• Shape as best as you can trying to to add too much flour or you'll see the seams inside the bread
• Mark and prove for 2 hours (on the photo, I had only the time to leave it for 1h but the result is still good).
• Bake as above (again, on the picture, I did not have time to pre-heat the oven really hot, so the bread is softer but it's still OK, kids loved it)

Notes:

• The NYT recipe suggests baking it into a cast iron pan. I've tried it and like the result but prefers my bread to be more wonky and hand shaped. The ice cubes (thanks god I have an fridge with an ice machine) seem to do the job.
• If you use yeast, either frest or dried, you need to reduce the proportions or your dough will deflate back due to the long proving time. You can also do a biga or a starter the day before with a bit of yeast and a 100% hydratation flour-water mixture.
• Sourdough can be started but you need a week to develop it.
  

Links:

• Recipe: No-Knead Bread - New York Times
• Apartment 2024 » Blog Archive » The Famous No-Knead Bread
• Joanna's French sourdough loaf (and lots of lovely holes!!!)
• Smitten Kitchen's no-knead bread

Earth day: NOx, electric cars and diesel

I was listening to Robert Evans from Cenex, a company developping fuel-cell and "low carbon" (whatever that really means) technologies in this podcast on guardian.co.uk.

He suggests electric cars are THE solution (he would says that, would he not?) as they cut pullution. The interviewer doesn't buy this and questions if it's not just moving the pollution to coal fired plants (in the UK between 60% and 33% of the electricity is generated from coal and the 74% from fossil (can't seem to cross-reference 2 sources), 49% of electricity is made burning coal in the US, while in France 78.1% comes from nuclear in 2006).

Evans answered that moving the CO2 emission from tailpipes up to a power station chimney reduces NOx emissions. Which brings the whole issue I've been raising about diesel.

The goverment has been focussing solely on CO2 emissions, via car tax bands linked to emissions for instance (note that airlines and ships are exempt of fuel duty), which had the effect to favour diesel cars: oil burners registrations have grown from 13.8% in 1999 to 43.6% in 2008!

The problem is while diesel engines emit less CO2 (about 20-30%), they emit much more NOx and particulates, about 24 times more according to this source. While CO2 is not an actual pollutant, NOX and particulates are and are harmful to anyone in the vincinity of traffic -in particular children in urban environments.

Just another proof that the government is using CO2 as an excuse to tax with no proven ecological reasons.

UK, pollution, environment, diesel, automobile, globalwarming, richmondtransits.blog

Scrap the VAT, introduce the PAT

I was tweeted this link yesterday: Health risks of shipping pollution have been 'underestimated' | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars. Low-grade ship bunker fuel (or fuel oil) has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US and European automobiles.

The fuel oil (bunker fuel) used by those sea-going levihathans, just like kerosene (the airlines fuel) are not taxed, as opposed to petrol and diesel used by cars. Ironically, cars have become much cleaner, even diesel with new particulate filters -although they're not quite ubiquitous yet.

My conclusion is simple: our government is taxing automobilists and smokers not for health or environmental reasons, but simply because it can. Taxing foreign ships and plane is more difficult but not less harmless.

How to solve this?

I've been wrestling with that idea for a while: it's difficult to tax things that don't fall under a national law. The current system to tax CO2 emissions for instance is profoundly injust as I put it above, and it misses the point as housing for instance is not taken into account. It also favours displacing CO2 emitted by post-industrial countries to developping countries who use old generation coal stations.

One thing that could be taxed is the good when purchased. So what I propose is replacing the VAT with a variable tax based on CO2, NOx and other harmful compounds "embedded" (in reality emitted during the manufacturing process) in the products we buy.

That would be a PAT: Pollution Added Tax.

I can only see benefits: it would give everyone an incentive to be more sustainable, and create a lot of jobs because it would be quite complicated to administer.

But my PAT would be a great way towards more GloCalisation.


Tags: environment, airlines, pollution, richmondtransits.blog, transportation, uk, politics, co2, green, vat

Comment on new cars vs. old cars

Interesting post here:
Re*Move: New Cars vs Old Cars II

And my comment:

Interesting conundrum.

1. Yes, rewarding for failure is wrong.
Let's just however point out that rescuing banks was not optional to start with and then that Western Governments have lent money to those failed banks. It's a bet of course, but the tax payer should, hopefully, get some return when they cash in those shares in a few years.
Note that some govermments have been smarter than others (UK, USA) by getting some right-to-say instead of just buying non-preferential shares.

2. The car industry has come a long way, people won't give up individual mobility easily.
While US regulators did not do anything to force their national manufacturers to reform, the story is different in Europe where there's some pressure to reduce emissions. This has resulted in quite some considerable technological advances, but ultimately it's down to economics: when oil will be rare, people will switch to electric because it will be economically viable.
On the other hand, public transportation offerings vary from poor (USA) to excellent (Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark). You can't expect people to switch in a nation like the UK where there's been virtually no investment in rail for the like of 30 years, no high-speed lines between regions, etc...

3. Cash for new cars, it's not about ecology stupid.
It would be carbon-efficient to let every industrial job go on the dole. People would watch their plasma screen but won't have the money to have cars. The whole economy may collapse and some will cheer at the decrease in CO2 emissions. Riots will ensure, and we'll need to develop tear-gas that don't contribute to global warming.

Another petition, for Bushy park

Just got this email from Mich Miller about Bushy park.

Not much to add, except that I still have to figure out why Royal Parks, local and national government have this obsession about taxing down to the individual users, via things as ludicrous as road charging: are we going to have to put coins in lamp posts for street lighting?

In my opinion, there are things to be enjoyed by all that should be financed by the Nation, such as coastlines (read: maintaining flood barriers), nature reserves (Royal Parks), a transportation system that reduces pollution (canals, trains, etc...). And it seems it's always about making one thing more expensive and not the alternative cheaper.

Rip Off Britain?

Could I draw your attention to another petition (mine) against the proposed car parking charges for the deer parks. Mine encompasses Bushy Park as well as Richmond. We are likely to be herded into a new (and I suspect smaller) car park round the new "visitor centre". This will mean having to cross the access road to get onto the grassy park - daangerous for toddlers and dogs. If you would include the link in your blog I would be grateful.

it is: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Deerparkparking

Cheers

Mich Miller

Sign the petition to keep Richmond park free

Probably inspired by Richmond Council's never ending quest to extract more taxes from motorists, the Royal Parks has launched a consultation on whether it should charge for parking.

After free parking on Sunday being removed, the steep increases for Kew Gardens concessions, it's another blow for our purchasing power.

The detailed documents are on Royal Parks' web site:

• Park parking consultation document
• Draft impact assessment

I'm not sure what the real intent is, apart from the stated goal of "encouraging people to travel by public transportation" (which is daft as no busses go to Richmond Park). What is true is that the car parks are full at week ends, especially since they made the one at Pen Ponds about half the size (and tarmac'ed) as before.

The impact of charges, apart from the obvious bite in people's wallet (especially for OAP's), would be:

• Parking congestion around East Sheen, Ham and Roehampton gates, where there's currently no CPZ (of course, this would be a great excuse for Richmond Council to tax us more with a CPZ extension)
• Parents with young children would also find it difficult to travel to the park by public transport

Here are my alternative suggestion:

• Remove the snack food outlets in Pen Ponds, Kingston gate and Broomfield parkings: those vans with German licence plates, complete with their Polish employees, do nothing for the public health, especially as they're powered by noisy and smelly diesel generators.

Go on and sign the Petition to take action against a proposal to charge for car parking in Richmond Park on Number10.gov.uk


Read also:

• Richmond Park Parking Charges Could Cause Chaos For Local (LibDems)
• Drivers' anger at charge for using Richmond Park (Evening Standard)

richmond, park, parking, richmondtransits.blog

Social city guides

One of my pictures went into the Schmap guides, under Borough market, in their market section: very difficult to navigate to but a good read nevertheless :-)

Aggregating internet users contribution and "rich media" content into "social city guides" is interesting but often failing in its execution. The idea is to aggregate content, just like Wikipedia, for richer guides with more up to date tips.
Zagat does this already for restaurants (subscription required), and Tripadvisor for hotels and holidays but in practice there are many small players and in the current context many may go out of business as VC funding runs out. In the meantime, check out TrustedPlaces.

Read also my previous post on Borough market...

Heathrow is just dangerous where it is

Last year, the BA038 flight narrowly avoided catastrophe when the Boeing 777 crash-landed just short of Heathrow's perimeter fence after nearly shaving houses, gliding only 6 meters above cars on the A30.

Yesterday, the Turkish Airlines 1951 crashed 3km north of Schipol's runway.

There are striking resemblances between both accidents: in both cases, the Engines stalled and as the BA038 AIBB report implies, it's quite a miracle in both caes that there was no fire after impact, despite the landing gear perforating the fuel tanks and the fire switch not being activated in the proper squence for the British Airways flight.

Where there are differences though, is in the configuration of the airports: Schipol has been built away from Amsterdam, to allow for approaches over the North Sea and minimise nuisances. In passing, Netherlands, and especially Noord Holland, is the densest European country.

This muddy field explains largely why most of the Turkish Airlines 1951 passengers escaped unharmed despite the fuselage breaking in three sections on impact. Note that Turkish has a good safety reputation and that the Boeing 737-800

If a two engine aircraft (I keep thinking four engines are better...) lost power in the same way while on final approach to Heathrow it would end up right on Cardington square, Hounslow. In the best case, it would be a small aricraft falling on a single nearly empty house like the Continental 3407.

Heathrow flight paths are directly above 2 millions people, a 747 crash on Richmond high street would be way more ugly...

See also: Heathrow is not safe: chilling crash map

Highway Robbery In Richmond

BBC NEWS | England | London | Loading bay takes £1,400 in fines

A London council has taken an average of £1,400 in parking fines per day from a single loading bay, it has emerged.

Over 20 months 10,000 fines were incurred at the St Margarets Road bay in Twickenham, south-west London.



Not much to add, the council continues to see cars as giant piggy banks.

Tags: richmond, parking, automobile, richmondtransits.blog

Why were school closed today?

The weather reports were not that bad yesterday, yet most schools in Richmond were closed.
BBC NEWS | UK | Education | More schools 'might have opened'

Has common sense been abolished, and is the "health and safety culture" prevailing on the needs of working parents?

Snow! How un-prepared are we?

It's lovely here today... if you don't HAVE to go to work: over 15 cm of snow fell overnight (the heviest for 18 years), more to come today.

But how prepared are we for something that may not be so frequent, though that may change with "global warming" bringing more erratic weather patterns?

Not that well it seems:

• The roads were pretty chaotic this morning, with several motorways closed due to jacknifed lorries. The question to ask: why allow articulated lorries to drive when it's snowing?
• London seems to have virtually no snow plough and gritting doesn't help much.
  
• This meant there were no busses, at all, this morning.
• Only one tube line was fully functional -even though I thought they were running underground and thus not affected by snow. The question to ask: are there contigency plans to get essential staff to their positions?
• Same for the trains.
• City aiport had to shut completely, Heathrow had only one runway operational early in the morning and quickly shut the other one and a large de-icing backlog and a planed slipped on the taxiway, Gatwick stayed about open,
  
• In terms of information, TFL was very good, National Rail was pointing on the operating companies' web sites which did not any good for South West Trains whose web site was down. Shame on them!
• On the school front, they were of course shut (never mind if some parents need to go to work) but some class reps send SMS'es early this morning and some updated their web site at 07:31! (note: sending an email at 09:30 doesn't help).

Tags: London, snow, UK, transportation, airport, Heathrow, Gatwick, railways, DfT, richmondtransits.blog

Should the UK follow Zimbabwe?

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Zimbabwe abandons its currency

Should the UK retain the Sterling? The exchange rate variations we see those days are hurting the British economy badly, whereas it's un-deniable that the Euro-Zone is much better off thanks to the single currency and the financial rules that it brought...

Monday -my letter to the MP's against Heathrow Expansion

I've bought in Greenpeace's airplot, genius idea, and still thanks to them, I've sent the following letter to the 57 MP's who have opposed Heathrow Expansion and will vote on this issue on Wednesday.

But as Gordon Brown, our un-elected Prime Minister, doesn't give a toss about democracy, this vote will be non-binding. It's important though to signal to the Labour party that this is a subject on which they will lose seats at the next general election: click here to act now.


Dear Sir,

As you will know, there is a debate and vote next Wednesday on the government’s plans to expand Heathrow with a third runway and a sixth terminal. You have already spoken out against Heathrow expansion, and now I urge you to vote with your conscience on Wednesday. I believe this goes beyond constituency matters and your vote will reflect how seriously our politicians are about tackling climate change.

The government has tried to dress this up as a ‘green’ runway, but nothing can change the fact that with a third runway, Heathrow would become the single biggest source of carbon emissions in the UK.

At the same time, the aviation industry doesn't pay any duty on kerosene -a flagrant injustice compared to the car owners who are taxed by every possible mean. House holders also receive no substantial grants or encouragements to "super-insulate" their homes.
Similarly, little is done to renew our coal power plants -the biggest source of greenhouse gasses by far- and invest in cleaner technologies.

The third runway decision severely threatens the government’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. It will worsen the already high pollution levels around the airport, and will provide little or no substantial economic benefit to Britain. With the challenges of climate change becoming more pressing, the government’s support for Heathrow expansion leaves its green credentials in tatters.

Opposition to the new runway grows rapidly. A recent poll of 6 Labour constituencies in west London showed that four would lose their seats and two would have their majority halved over the Heathrow issue. If the results were extrapolated across the entire area affected by expansion, Labour would lose many more seats.

Given the urgency of reducing our emissions and the challenge of realising it, I will be watching closely how you vote next Wednesday. The government’s response to tackling climate change is an important issue for me and one that will influence how I vote in the next election. I hope that your vote will be one for strong leadership on the green agenda, and against the third runway.


Tags:UK, politics, pollution, green, greenshouse, LHR, Heathrow, HeathrowExpansion, BAA, DfT, richmondtransits.blog

Essential reading: 2M Group on Heathrow Expansion

The 2M Group
has an excellent summary on the economics of Heathrow. No need to add much:

Current airport

• Fewer than 26% of users of Heathrow are travelling on Business(1).

•
35% of people travelling to Heathrow are interchange passengers – they
never leave the airport. Therefore they contribute little to the UK
economy outside of the aviation industry.

• 100,000 flights
a year, nearly a fifth of all flights, are to destinations in the UK or
near-Europe where there is already a viable rail alternative. There are
60 flights per day to Paris – more than any other destination. 36
flights a day go to Manchester, more than to Hong Kong or Chicago.

•
London’s airports handle 128 million passengers a year – that is more
than use the airports serving Paris and Frankfurt combined.

•
Ferrovial, the Spanish owners of Heathrow, make a substantial profit
from passengers using the airport. In the year since Ferrovial bought BAA (the operators of Heathrow) – capital investment fell by 15% but revenue grew from £1.077 billion to £1.232 billion.

Heathrow Expansion

• Only 1% of members of the Institute of Directors think airport expansion is a priority(2).

• 78% of London firms are against expansion at Heathrow(3).

• Fewer than a sixth of London firms would even consider leaving London if the airport did not expand(4).

Aviation generally

• £9 billion a year in tax subsidies is given to the aviation industry (It is zero-rated for VAT. It does not pay on fuel).

• Aviation fuel costs 26p a litre whereas petrol for cars is about £1 a litre.

•
£9 billion would pay for 22 new hospitals(5) – it cost £400 million to
build London’s University College Hospital – or 450,000 nurses (current
nursing positions advertised at £20,000(6).

• 89% of the general public think that businesses that create pollution should be more heavily taxed(7).

• 63% of the general public would be prepared to sacrifice one foreign holiday a year to save the planet(8).

• Only 17% of the general public are opposed to constraining growth in air-travel(9).

•
Tourists visiting the UK spend at least £15 billion pounds less per
year than UK tourists going on holiday overseas. Expanding aviation
simply means increasing the trade deficit for UK tourism.

LHR, BAA, HeathrowExpansion, richmondtransits.blog, ai, airlines, transportation

Just a reminder: London has FIVE airports, all competing against Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris

Read this
The Impossible Airport Dream? (Londonist)
and saw that
Frankfurt ready to fill Heathrow's shoes



(BBC)
this morning.

I find disappointing to see many mainstream media and blogs, relaying the main argument for Heathrow expansion: that, without it, Heathrow would be unable to compete against other European airports.

This is an easy argument to peddle, calls into National Pride and prevents the media from focussing on the fact the business case for the airport is tenuous at best.

As I've written many times in (before):

the DfT, BAA and BA are in collusion to preserve their own interests and not that of Londoners or the country

when they talk about Heathrow not being competitive compared to other European capitals, they conveniently forget that only London has FIVE international airports and that many other capitals have successfully relocated their airport"

Otherwise, it's good to see the Climate Sufragettes in action -watch this space.

BA, BAA, Heatrow, LHR, HeathrowExpansion, DfT, UK, politics, transportation, air, airlines, richmondtransits.blog, pollution

Hoon's farce as Heathrow expansion is announced

Geoff Hoon gave in the lobbies arguments and gave the Government's Go-ahead for new Heathrow runway.

His arguments are farcical for a lack of better words to describe their implausibility and the inadequacy of measures aimed at alleviating the impact of a third runway:

• The languge about the "the possibility of new high-speed rail links from the airport" means it's unlikely to happen. Same goes for the idea of "set[tting] up a company to look into creating a high speed rail line between London and Scotland - adding there was a "strong case" for a new high speed rail hub at Heathrow": it's just there to appease opponents.
  
• The 125,000 flights cap probably won't meet EU emissions regulations (thanks god to the European Union for making rules to protect citizens from their own government), even with his fictional "green planes"
  
• More passengers means more car traffic. The government's answer is to use hard shoulders. Brilliant, except anyone who's travelled on the M4 at peak hours knows that any little incident already causes a major congestion.
  

The only good news for Richmond residents was the concession to keep the "mixed mode" use of runways (plane noise only half of the day), however nothing on night fligts. But those living further West will be exposes to more takeoff noise thanks to the end of the Cranford agreement.

BAA and the DfT conveniently forget to state that there are FOUR other airports around London when making the case to expand Heathrow. An estuary airport would have been cheaper that T5 + T6 + a 4rd runway.

Finally, the economic case for LHR is based on un-proven assumptions.

Most major European countries have in the last 20 years:

• relocated their main airport
• invested in high-speed rail
• created multimodal nodes (air+rail)

During this time, British ones sat on their bottoms... (read also What if those who govern us had a long term view about strategic infrastructures?)

Here's the Decision text in full.

rail, trains, air, airways, BA, BAA, DfT, LHR, Heathrow, HeathrowExpansion, UK, politics, transportation, richmondtransits.blog

The parking rip-off continues in Richmond

It seems the bright sparks in our council are doing all they can to extract more money from motorists and kill local business:

• after charging for parking on week-ends (it used to be free, remember?)
• employing aggressive or scary parking attendants to enforce unclear rules
  
• charging for CO2 emissions when cars are not polluting (parking by CO2 emissions, just as a memo to the council, CO2 is NOT a pollutant)
• introducing spy cars, often parked illegally to fine you when unloading

... and now, Richmond Council proposes extending emission based charging. Of course, there are no details as to how this will be implemented, for instance for old cars, bought way before all that CO2 emission nonsense (read Focussing on CO2: good for bears, bad for humans?). More annoyingly, all cars will need to be registered first, at a cost of £2.50.

I predict this will put off many casual shoppers, who will go to Kingston insead -that's much revenue lost of local shops.

Being greener is a laudable goal, but I am annoyed at getting the tax stick every time. Here's what I suggest:

• introduce a proper, safe and segregated from cars, cycling network, without interruptions, for instance on Lower and Upper Richmond roads
  
• introduced safe (monitored and patrolled), sheltered bicycle parkings at all stations and public buildings (such as Richmond library or Sheen Lane Center which was revamped without such a parking lately
• remove many cul de sacs that force motorists to take detours and emit more CO2
• introduce shared spaces for car-pedestrian-cycle spaces in central Richmond, around the Green
• introduce a cyle-hire scheme, like the Vélib
• give council tax cuts for those insulating their houses or installing green roofs -the current national guidelines are far too low
  

Is that enough?

richmond, parking, environment, green, urbanism, traffic, richmondtransits.blog

Good running book: Injury-Free Running

Found this great book after an ITB problem prevented me from running properly the Richmond half-marathon a few years back:
Injury-Free Running (Runner's World Best)

As far as the IllioTibial Band is concerned, thou shalt:

• not run on banked surfaces (like sideways on hills) and only on the middle of the roads (not always practical, I know)
• stretch the ITB, harmstring and calves (the book has all kind of stretching exercices with photos)
• invest in good shoes and make sure you do a proper fitting session -Up And Running in East Sheen has a video camera linked to a computer to do a gait analysis ;  the Sweatshop in Teddington is also very good.
  

running, richmondtransits.blog

What if those who govern us had a long term view about strategic infrastructures?

I posted the following comments on this blog post of this morning:
The Toleration Of Public Transport on Jonathan MacDonald.com

These are the consequences of the refusal to invest in a proper public transportation system for 30 years: high prices and bad service.

They've tried to privatise and introduce competition, but the idea just doesn't work with infrastructure: you just can't make a profit, provide universal access, good interconnections and good service with redundant infrastructure.

If the government had taken a long term approach, the results could be:
- that the Eurostar platforms don't stand un-used for a year after they've innaugurated High Speed 1 and St Pancras International, when on the other hand trains are waiting for a platform on approach to Waterloo station
- that the Waterloo and City line would not be an isolated branch but would serve as a junction tunnel between the overground in Waterloo to the overground in Moorgate (strange that no one ever thought that trains could come from Reading / Portsmouth all the way to Stevenage / Cambridge)
- an airport in the estuary with 5 runways instead of 5 airports in dense conurbations, each with 1 or 2 runways
- a high-speed line to the Midlands and Scotland, with an interchange with the Eurostar
- Water pipes that are buried so that they don't freeze when the temperature drops

And so on... it's a long story of incompetence and short-sighted decisions.

UK, politics, transportation, trains, rail, ai, airways, BAA, DfT, richmondtransits.blog

The end of the hospital phone ripp-off!

It seems that at last, Mobile phones are finally passed fit for use in hospitals - Times Online

I've always thought that this mobile phone ban wasn't justified other than for the benefit of the bedside phones operators who charge an extortionate amount for calls while doctors and nurses used their owns. As such, I've always ignored that ban -especially for announcing births.

Seems common sense prevailed, shame it took over 5 years...

hospital, richmondtransits.blog

Happy new year and more foul play from the DfT on Heathrow Expansion

Grim news this morning as the impact of the proposed Heathrow Expansion is worse than planned:
New flight paths for Heathrow will bring jets’ roar to millions - Times Online

As I wrote before, there are alternatives but it requires planning for the future (20 years ahead), something that the Government seems incapable of:

• BAA wakes up to the sound of locomotives?
• Some Heathrow news...

Heathrow, HeathrowExpansion, DfT, air, airways, BAA, UK, politics, transportation, rail, railways, richmondtransits.blog.uk

Children friendly pubs: and the winner is...

The Marlborough sits chiefly on top of Richmond hill and boasts one of the largest gardens -complete with children playground- of the area, making it one of the favourites around, along with the Victoria in East Sheen (great food but overpriced), the Tapestry in Mortlake, The Crown in St Margarets, Stein's on the river and the Hare and Hounds in Sheen.

(I must say the Lass'o'Richmond is missing, I have yet to investigate this one).

So, back to the Marlborough: garden is great, wine and beer selection is adequate and the food good: fish in general is great, meat not so tasty and burgers are rubbery and overcooked, the mediterranean platter is great to share with friends.
Service is fine, though quite slow in busy summer days.
Pricewise, it's in line with the other pubs around -not the most expensive, but not particularly cheap. Kids portions are reasonable.

Verdict: thousand times nicer than ending up at Pizza Express and probably one of the best pubs for summer evenings with children and relax WE lunches all year long (book early though).

pub, restaurant, review, richmond, foodings.blog.uk, richmondtransits.blog

Children aren't the center of the world

The Times has more today on Childcare is bad for your baby, working parents are warned. If this doesn't make any working mum feel guilty, what will?

Beyond the tabloidic headline, there's more on the fallacy that socialising children in bad for them. But nothing on the benefits for mothers and the society of women in the workforce. And nothing either about brats spoilt by mothers bored at home...

It's quite amazing to read this in 2008...

UK, politics, children, richmondtransits.blog

Gastropub review: The Plough

The Plough (link to the Trusted Places page where you can leave your own ratings) in East Sheen has been "gastropubed" recently, refurbished from a traditional pub into something more in tune with its fancy sourroundings.

We ate there with the family back in August and had a sirloin (overcooked) and some Toulouse sausauges with lentils vinaigrette. The food was good but the portions small (even the additional chips was ridiculous), the kids meals were dear at £6.50 even if the mains were sensibly priced (£14.50 and £8.50 respectively).

Wine list and beer taps are middle of the road, so is service.

Verdict: value alternative to the nearby Victoria even if they miss a kids playground.

The Plough
42 Christchurch Road




East Sheen




London SW14 7AF
www.theplough.com (good idea to grab this domain name, even better if they actually had a web site!)

restaurant, review, sheen, gastropub, pub, richmondtransits.blog, foodings.blog.uk

Restaurant review: Le Bouchon Breton

Le Le Bouchon Breton is nicely located on the new mezzanie floor of Spitafields market -perfect for a city lunch and Xmas shopping in one trip. The seafood is excellent, the menu goes around all the French classics, even to the risk of being cliche'd (like the frog legs).
And as France is the largest country of Europe, inspiration doesn't stop at the Brittany borders: there's choucroute and meat.

I tried the oysters (very good indeed) and the choucroute -very nice despite being a bit watery- with an excellent Alsacian riesling.

The service was very attentive, they gave me the "champagne table" though a quite slow for a lunch. My partner in crime took a salade de pissenlits (dandelion salad) and some smoked eel -and loved it. We ended up with some profiteroles (too much ice cream to my taste) and a Coteaux du Layon. The lunch came at £160 which isn't cheap despite the high food quality.

Highly recommended!

Le Bouchon Breton
1st Floor, 8 Horner Square
Old Spitalfields Market,
London E1 6EW
08000 191704


See the other reviews:

• London Eating
• Gardian
  
• Time Out
  

Le Bouchon Breton London - French Restaurant Review, Online ...

1. Le Bouchon Breton Restaurant. 8 Horner Square, Old Spitalfield Market, London, E1 6EW - Tel: 0800 019 1704. Reviews, Menus, Maps and Book Online.
   - 47k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

2. Le Bouchon Breton Champagne Bar London - Pub & Bars Information ...

   11 Oct 2008 ... Le Bouchon Breton Champagne Bar London - Pub & Bars Information , 8 Horner Square, Spitalfields, 8 Horner Square, Spitalfields London - Pub ...
   www.viewlondon.co.uk/pubsandbars/le-bouchon-breton-champagne-bar-info-28155.html - 63k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

3. Restaurant review: Le Bouchon Breton | Life and style | The Guardian

   15 Nov 2008 ... Outstanding but with an eighth of the bustle and merriment of a cafe on La Rue Morgue.
   www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/nov/15/le-bouchon-breton-restaurant-review - 90k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

4. Le Bouchon Breton - - Review - Time Out London

restaurant, review, London, Moorgate, foodings.blog.uk

More on Manor road and Heathrow

Seems now the government is embarrassed:

Decision on third runway delayed(BBC.co.uk)

"Anti-Heathrow expansion campaigners claim the government is stalling"

"A decision on whether a third runway
should be built at Heathrow Airport has been put back to January 2009,
the Department for Transport has said."

And also, the impact of the Airtrack on local level crossing is making into national news:

BBC NEWS | England | London | Rail link 'may cause longer wait'


Read also my previous post: Airtrack and North Sheen Crossing

richmond, north sheen, footbridge, north, sheen, rail, railways, uk, politics, transportation, heathrow, lhr, heathrowexpansion, ba, baa, dft, richmondtransits.blog

This year, Father Christmas will be old fashion

I'm doing what most parent spend most of their free time in December and November and have decided to resolutely be old fashion: no wii or activity pads or else, I think it will rather be garden games, that we can play together and outside.

Darling and the impact on the Sterling

Read this morning Pre-Budget Report and Alistair Darling's £1 trillion debt gamble (Times Online)

What the chancellor, and the media, forget to say is that VAT cut won't help much in an economy that's hooked to imports.

More borrowing probably in fact will further weaken the Sterling Pound, resulting in more imported inflation and negating those 2.5% VAT cut.

Time to join the Euro?

UK, economy, politics, budget, euro, richmondtransits.blog

Traffic in Richmond park

Richmond park has come up with a way to limit the increasing Traffic in Richmond Park: The way forward for Case 17165.

In a nutshell, they're talking about closing the Pen Ponds (photo from Richmond Upon Thames Daily Photo) and putting a land train in place.

I find this just short of hypocritical and short sighted:

• hypocritical -if they want to restrict traffic to Pen Ponds, why then do they have a diesel-powered snack-food and ice cream van selling their wares there? (and also I wonder, why does it have a German licence plate?)
• short sighted -they've closed Robin Hood gate and displaced a lot of traffic onto adjoining roads, specifically the A205 is now quite terrible and the A3 was never improved either.

While I understand the reasons to restric traffic in the park, the "not in my street" approach is creating increased congestion on fewer streets each time a gate is closed, a street is made one way or transformed into a cul de sac (latest one to my knowledge is Well Lane in Sheen, which I find strange and not motivated)

Tags: car, traffic, richmond, park, richmondtransits.org

Restaurant Review: Club Gascon

I'm running way behing with my restaurant reviews and Cook Sister has already posted a very good review, so I'll simply link there: Cook sister!: Comptoir Gascon

I don't have much to add, apart that it's a very good address, a bit tough to get a table (book in advance) and another good reason to go to Smithfields.

Comptoir Gascon
63 Charterhouse Street
London
EC1M 6HJ

Tel. 020 7608 0851

restaurant, review, french, london, farringdon, smithfields, foodings.blog.uk

Parking in Richmond

Another parking post, after the one on Kingston hospital parking: I need not to add much to the picture apart that I was taking my child to the Doctor's surgery and ended up putting a pound for 15 mn.

It seems that councils are seeing parking as a goldmine: they're using private agencies to aggressively enforce it, brought in charges on Sunday and taxing cars that don't pollute as they're not moving when parked...

Airtrack and North Sheen Crossing

I picked up last week a flyer from the LibDems at North Sheen station, to read that at my great pleasure Susan Kramer has obtained that the footbridge to the South side of the track will be rebuilt.

This is not only a practical issue, as with the new train schedules the level crossing in Manor road is down a a lot (read in the RTT: Level crossing bottlenecks choking Richmond, apparently it could be 75% of the time in the future!) it is also a safety issue. Indeed, I'm glad to get someone chiming in on something I've raised over two years ago:

Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon discussed safety concerns to pedestrians brought about by the delays.She said: “People get so frustrated waiting for the barriers thatsome have been tempted to go round them and run across the tracks.“Children have been seen doing this and it’s just an accident waiting to happen.”

It's also unfair for local residents: we get all the congestion but only four trains per hour at peak time. At least, we should get four trains per hour off-peak as well.

(plus, let's fine stationary cars too: Stuck at a level crossing? Turn off the engine or pay £20 fine - The Times)

What's the link with this and Airtrack, the plan to improve Heathrow's access by rail? At first sight, it looks like a good idea, and I am always supportive for better public transport.

However, it's hard to read without being suspicious of BAA's intentions, here's my take:

1. BAA and BA build a new terminal in Heathrow (despite massive local opposition, read on BBC.com: Heathrow runway debate a 'sham'), claiming it's vital for the economy (without supporting this with any proof) and despite London being served by 4 other airports...
   
2. Oh, shoot, access to Heathrow by public transport isn't that good and, as opposed to what's going on the continent, there's no high-speed rail link.
3. And, bugger, if they extend the airport, they won't meet the new EU emission criteria, even with BAA's imaginary ‘green’ jumbo (The Times).
   
4. Easy: they just improve the public transport and create a car-free zone around the airport.
   
5. Expensive? Not really, they say let's just extend the existing train lines, charge more for parking and create a road tax on the model of Red Ken's London Congestion Charge.

The snag? The train network, for not having received significant investments in the last 30 years, is completely saturated in the South East of England. And those trains to Heathrow, they will have to run somewhere. Like through Richmond...

This is why I oppose Airtrack, unless they actually invest significantly to increase rail capacity: North Sheen should be buried underground, a car park created on top to encourage people to park and take the train and we should see 8 trains an hour.

You can make your views heard on Thursday

Read my other posts on the North Sheen footbridge and those on Heathrow Expansion.

And also: MPs attack Airtrack (RTT)

Tags: heathrow, heathrowexpansion, LHR, BAA, BA, DfT, UK, politics, Richmond, North, Sheen, North Sheen, footbridge, level, crossing, richmondtransits.blog