Cutting back route 25

If it cost two fares to get from Ilford to Oxford Circus, the fact that the "Hopper" would work on the way back is academic, as you would have already hit the cap (equivalent to three fares).

For some, the smaller cost differential between the bus and the Tube will attract more people to the Central Line - which hardly seems to be a good idea, if my recent experience of it is anything to go by (had to let four trains go at St Pauls before I could even get to within touching distance of the trains)

However, if it really takes 24 minutes for a bus to travel the half mile from Centre Point to Oxford Circus, that's an average speed of 1.25 mph (Google Maps suggest it only takes 10 minutes to walk) so there seems little point in using, or indeed providing, a bus along there.

You could probably get from somewhere east of Stratford (although probably not all the way from Ilford) to Oxford Circus on one Hopper fare by using the 425 and 55, changing in Clapton.

Going to the tip

Because the opening hours and geography were more convenient I used to use the tip in a neighbouring borough, but most local authorities have now erected import barriers and that's not been possible for a long time now.

A residents' parking permit used to be enough to get you in to ours, but as the parking permit scheme has gone paperless you now need to apply for a a special vehicle permit to visit the tip (joined up thinking there....)

My local tip also banned pedestrians for a while, but seems to have seen sense now.

Split ticketing

T&C 14.2 is a special exception which only applies if one or both tickets is a season or rover ticket.

Charles & Di

It was the divorce in 1996, not Henri Paul's mistake a year later, that left Charles free to marry again.

(Although it would be a further seven years until he did so).

Sequential consecutive buses

There are about 400 non-lettered routes. Even if an average route met fifty others (surely an overestimate?), if they were randomly distributed you would expect only one route in eight to meet the route numbered one higher than itself. So statistically you would expect 400/8 = 50 such pairs, about six (400/8x8)runs of three, odds of better than 3 to 1 on there being a sequence of four, and only a 10% chance of there being a sequence of five.

160/161/162 all run along Chislehurst High Street

196/197/198 - the 196 terminates on the west side of Norwood Junction station, the 197 calls on the east side. The 197 and 198 meet in Croydon

230/231/232 all meet at Turnpike Lane station

There is no U6 or U8, but you can do the other U routes in sequence, and even go round again as the U10 meets the U1

H9-19 is broken into a sequence of five and another of three, because the H13 does not meet the H14 and the H15 and H16 no longer operate.

Crossrail ticketing

Woolwich may not be open, but Abbey Wood is. However, the only routes to Abbey Wood at present all go via Woolwich Arsenal, and are on the TOC scale, not the cheaper TfL scale that a ticket to Abbey Wood "via Liz Line" would be sold at.

The US political system

Does the US electorate really have the skill and knowledge, and above all the time, to make a reasoned decision on all the candidates for all those posts? Or do they just plump for the pretty face, the well-known name, or the party?

And how can the judiciary be independent when they are political appointees? (What judge will take a correct but unpopular decision if he knows he's up for re-election next week?) And is it right that the elected representatives get to choose the boundaries of the electoral areas to suit themselves?

First past the post can produce some perverse results too - it is possible for a US presidential candidate to lose, even though he won 74% of the popular vote (100% in 49% of the colleges, and 49% in the others).

Even more curious, 9% of the popular vote could be enough to get a majority in the Senate (winning by a slender majority in the 26 least populous states)

The advantage of not having a written constitution is that you never have to admit it needs amending!

Twilight

The contrast in the duration of twilight is even greater at the solstices when, at high latitudes, the angle the sun travels across the sky is much closer to the horizontal, so spends much more time just below the horizon.

The UK lies almost entirely between 50 and 60 degrees from the equator, whereas even the southernmost part of the Australian mainland is less than 40 degrees from the equator.

Double Summer TIme

"The year they experimented by leaving the clocks at BST over the winter" was actually three winters - the clocks went forward in March 1968 and didn't go back again until October 1971.

I was in Orkney last June, and recall being woken up at 4am with the sun streaming through the bedroom window. And owls hunting in broad daylight (they'd starve if they stuck to the hours of darkness).

Bus engine cutout

Regarding the 'engine cut-out when bus doors open', I assume that feature is the same as the "Stop Start" feature on many modern cars, and is designed to avoid wasting fuel by idling the engine. Modern batteries, especially on hybrids, can easily cope with the extra load (and the engine doesn't cut out if the battery is low).

But I suspect I am not alone in being conditioned to expect a long wait if we hear a bus engine stopping - traditionally it means the driver is going off shift and we'll be stationary for up to ten minutes waiting for another one to saunter up to take it over.

Over 60 Pass

The very first bus I used my Over 60 pass on is only two years younger than me. And I made a point of jumping on while it was moving, to prove I still can!