>Colin wrote:
> > Just bought a Vauxhall Astra 1.7 Turbo Diesel, 5
> > gears.
Lori replied:
> What the heck is a Vauxhall? Never heard of it! What
> country makes it?
Well, Colin is correct to say British. Sort of. Vauxhall
is the same as Opel in mainland europe. The gently amusing
thing about this is that the whole shebang is owned by
your very own General Motors Corporation. We get the odd
few GM models sold through the Vauxhall/Opel dealers
over here (Seville, Camaro, but no damn TransAm :(
To own up to my own environmental damage:
BMW 730i - sensible car for pounding up and down the
motorway to client sites. Clients all over the country,
and public transport is a joke to get to a client site
and back in one day. I wouldn't choose anything else
for this sort of motoring: for selfish reasons down
to peace and quiet, comfort and emerging the other end
with my sanity intact. But: 100 dollars to brim the tank.
Silly car: TVR Chimaera 500. It's a drop top summer
sports car thing. Love it to bits, even if the dealer
is currently *taking* it to bits. (Like for the last
*five* weeks.) About 60 dollars to brim the tank.
Do I want to use public transport over here? Yeah.
Shame it sucks. Like, to even get on a train, I have
to drive for between 20-40 minutes, depending on
traffic conditions. When I manage to get on it,
it'll be overcrowded, hot in summer, even hotter in
winter (yes, really). I won't get a seat if I'm going
to London, because all the seats are full before the
train gets to my station. And if I'm not going to
London, I'll probably have to go *via* it anyway,
change trains, probably change *stations*, etc.
Oh yeah. I'm 6'4" tall. Buses don't have enough
legroom. Trains don't have enough leg or elbow
room, and don't even think about that fantasy
about getting the laptop out and working. Because
your briefcase ends up trapped somewhere inconvenient
and your knees end up interleaved with those of the
person sitting opposite. The New Jersey transit is
pure heaven by comparison.
And the kicker. A return ticket from Cambridge to
London (a journey of maybe 60 or so miles). About
55 bucks to you sir. This is because the train
prices *double* at peak morning periods.
<SARCASM> Presumably to discourage people from using
the trains and over stressing the capacity of the
network.</SARCASM>
The government currently seems to be stressing the
fact that public transport is the way to go, and
backing this up by pricing us out of our cars.
However, the public transport system is not being
improved in line with this, not in terms of capacity,
reliability, flexibility, safety or availability.
Oh yeah. My village is 10 miles from Cambridge, and is
prime commuter belt for Cambridge itself, which has
an IT industry that's growing like wildfire. There's
a trainline running into Cambridge. It's disused,
naturally. OFFS.
I'll calm down now, and go get a drink.
--Chris
