Top Deck Two
Thursday started just like Monday; the drive to Leominster in darkness to catch the train down to Newport, and then onto London in the company of hard-working business people tapping frantically into their laptops and barking orders down their mobile phones. Once again, we (my producer Jolyon Jenkins and I) were recording more stuff for the forthcoming Radio Four doco, ‘Top Deck’. Highlight of the day was a visit to CentreComm, the bus control centre above Victoria Coach Station, which is the most hi-tech place I’ve ever been, though Jolyon says this is because I’ve never set foot in an office before.
And then we went to Bromley to ride around on buses at school chucking out time with the ‘Safer Transport Team’, i.e. a PC and two Community Support Officers. Hopefully it will all make for a good show; we’ve got one more day’s recording in January; the show itself goes out on January 21st at 11am.
Excitingly, I’m off to Stonehenge on Saturday night, to see the sun rise at Winter Soltice. Apparently English Heritage open the site at 7.30 on the morning of the 21st. Whilst 20000 or so people turn up for the midsummer solstice, winter solstice last year saw 600 visitors. Given that the latest evidence suggests that Stonehenge is aligned to the winter rather than the summer solstice, this imbalance seems odd; were it not for the freezing cold and pissing rain. Mind you, you get that in summer, too.
Looking forward to the account of your Stone ‘enge encounter. I forgot to plug my blog; you might be interested in my night time musings on babysitting! http://www.thepodcastle.co.uk/. Don’t forget to subscribe yto my feed either Ian!
My memories of Salisbury Plain are coloured by Winter half-light schoolboy bus journeys between Amesbury and West Lavington; north at 7.45 each morning and south at 6.00pm. Obviously I went to school in Autumn, Spring, and Summer but once the clocks switched from BST it became a little less fun. Leaving home in the dark and coming home in the dark surely must be bad for the spirit.
I hope you enjoy your Stonehenge visit – for evidence that Stonehenge was designed with the winter solstice in mind see: http://sarsen56.wordpress.com