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The BBC mentions that Network Rail are finally looking at putting in a flyover across the East Coast Main Line at Hitchin so trains to Cambridge will no longer have to cross three tracks, including the express lines. Cool beans. The Network Rail site has pictures, track plans, lots more detail, and a video.
Aside from the practical benefits of fewer delays, alternative routes, and so on, it looks quite impressive too. It is due in 2014 if all goes to plan, including planning applications in 2009.
@ostephens on Twitter asked an interesting question:
How do you know the correct form for changing a place name to an indicator of it’s denziens? Eg London -> Londoner, Bolton -> Boltonian
I did manage to find some helpful-looking articles on Wikipedia:
- An article on demonyms (”name for a resident of a locality which is derived from the name of the particular locality”)
- A list of adjectivals and demonyms for cities. Sadly Bolton isn’t included in the list or any others I could find.
However, the first article on demonyms has, if not rules, then patterns of demonym formation for English names. The examples of Washington and Wellington (although not British place names) would suggest Boltonian (although the example of London>Londoner does not). A Google search would seem to suggest this is being widely used, and this is confirmed beyond doubt by an Urban Dictionary entry for Boltonian.
What, though, is the demonym for Sandy? What are people from Sandy, Bedfordshire called? @ostephens suggested Sandian, Sandite, and Sandpeople. I have been thinking about this and compiled a list of candidates, some of them based on the suffixes in the Wikipedia article:
- Sand
- Sandian
- Sandyan
- Sandeian
- Sandyean
- Sandine
- Sandyine
- Sandite
- Sandyite
- Sander
- Sandyer
- Sandish
- Sandyish
- Sandene
- Sandyene
- Sandard
- Sandyard
- Sandese
- Sandyese
- Sandi
- Sandic
- Sandyic
- Sandivian
- Sandinavian
- Sandwegian
- Sand People
- Tusken Raider
- Harenosian
Notes: Sand is formed after the pattern of Germany>German, Turkey>Turk. Sandeian is based on the form of the name used in the Domesday Book: Sandeia. Sandyean is based on the old name of Sandy before the railways changed the spelling: Sandye. Sandwegian would probably better suit someone from Sandwich. I am not sure what the singular of Sand People would be: Sand Person? For Tusken Raiders, see Wikipedia again. Harenosian is from the Latin for a Sandy place: I have probably completely misunderstood the translation of this word.
Interestingly, a Google search for the word Sandyite shows it to be used quite a bit for Sandy, Oregon. A similar search on Bedfordshire doesn’t do anything. Neither do any of the other plausible ones (that I could be bothered to look up). However, I do have three favourites:
- Sandyite. Sensible favourite. It seems weirdly natural and is also being used in another Sandy. However, sounds a little like ready-made mortar.
- Sandeian. Elegant/historical favourite. It suggests a nicer pronunciation: San-day-un rather than San-dee-un. It is also pleasantly hard to spell. Plausible alternatives I like are Sandyean (also pleasantly hard to spell and with some historical overtones), and Sandian.
- Sandinavian. Say no more.
Any suggestions, comments, or actual knowledge?
I don’t think the Bedfordshire on Sunday quite meant what they wrote when they published the following paragraph about the upcoming Central Bedfordshire local elections (my emphasis):
The runners and riders for June 4 Central Bedfordshire Council elections have been announced and all potential councillors are being offered the opportunity to sell themsleves [sic] to voters on the internet.
I wonder if it would be an eBay-style format. That would indeed be a scandal to put the expenses controversy to shame.
Yay: a new café called the Perfect Cup opened on Monday in Sandy, taking over the former premises of Stead and Simpson across the road from Budgens, and I went to have a visit. It’s a very good location to have a café which makes good use of its enormous windows for people watching, although it’s hard to avoid the feeling you’re being watched when you’re inside. There were a good number of people doing double takes when they noticed the new café, which was fun to watch.
Initial impressions were good: it is very spacious, is nicely done out and has nice wooden furniture and a few sofas to fight over which my children tried to smear with chocolate muffin. They do a variety of coffee, off-the-shelf soft drinks, sandwiches, and cakes (muffins, millionaire shortbread, etc.) very much along the lines of a Costa Nero. The staff were very friendly too. There were a few signs that this was their first day, such as there being no stirring sticks laid out, although I sprinkle my sugar on top of frothy coffees rather than stirring it in, so this wasn’t an issue, and I could have asked I suppose.
From the point of view of someone bringing their children there, which is a big issue in Sandy, it was a mixed bag. There was a high chair and lots of space to park pushchairs, both by the door and between tables. It’s also easy to get to as it’s right in the middle of town. The drink selection was not ideal: they did a babyccino (frothy milk without the coffee underneath), which my eldest didn’t want, and some large Oasis bottles, but some fruit juice or milkshakes would have been nice. The cakes and biscuits were also a bit major, although my children had no trouble with a large chocolate muffin which they were also kind enough to share with the sofa. There were also baby change facilities, but I didn’t use those so I’ll have to spare a graphic account of that.
I’d say the coffee wasn’t as nice as Archie & Mabel’s down the road, which does one of the nicest coffees I’ve ever had. The large amount of toys and books to keep children amused at Archie & Mabel’s is also something that Perfect Cup doesn’t have, and the former also has better artwork (by local artists), which you can buy if have quite a bit of money spare. Since I last wrote on Archie & Mabel’s, you can now also get savoury snacks like crumpets and toast, as well as sandwiches. It will be interesting to see how the café market goes in Sandy. Sandwich Express has closed down and there was a sign outside it on Monday pointing punters towards P.J.’s on the High Street, which I thought was funny. I do hope that Archie & Mabel’s isn’t affected too much as it is too much of an asset to the town and, while I also would like to see Perfect Cup do well- the more choice the merrier, and the location if nothing else is excellent for a café or restaurant- Archie & Mabel’s is a more personal and charming little café that gives Sandy some personality.
There is, however, still the Mystery of the Other Room. The space that Stead & Simpson occupied is only partly occupied by the Perfect Cup. However the only entrance to the other bit appears to be through the Perfect Cup. I have heard rumours that it might be a children’s soft play area, like Café Kidz in Biggleswade. That would certainly change things. It would make sense as there are what look like boarded up windows along that side of the cafe, which presumably could be opened up a later date.
Who knows?
More pictures on Flickr.
Sometimes for the sake of it and sometimes not, I have been creating Sandy, Bedfordshire sites all over the web on social networking sites. I started with Facebook, as documented earlier; I have also created a group on Flickr, as promised. Below is a list/directory of Sandy sites I have set up:
- Sandy, Bedfordshire group on Facebook (password needed): has 10 members so far but almost no activity. I’m not sure Facebook groups are designed to have actual content on them anyway, so perhaps this doesn’t matter.
- Sandy Bedfordshire network on Ning: a social networking site, much better for setting up this kind of thing than Facebook. You can bring together RSS feeds and feeds from Flickr groups into one page.
- Sandy, Bedfordshire group on MySpace. A do not have enough paracetomol to begin to think about editing a MySpace page. It’s there, anyway.
- Sandy, Bedfordshire group on Flickr. Flickr seem shy about RSS feeds for these, although Bloglines managed to find an Atom feed and an RSS 2.0 feed, the latter of which I have just subscribed to. I am not utterly convinced it will work.
And a couple that I haven’t set up:
Go thou and contribute. While we’re listing Sandy things, some sources of Sandy news:
Any further suggestions welcome.
I have started putting some pictures I have of Sandy onto flickr. They are all tagged sandy and bedfordshire and all appear in the Bedfordshire group. I might look into setting up a Sandy group at some point.
The Sandy entry on Wikipedia, which I try to contribute to, also has a long-standing request for a photo. I’m not really sure which view of Sandy really sums the town up best.
Dismayed by the poor geographical coverage of the UK on Facebook, I requested Sandy as a new geographical region. After several weeks of silence, I am presuming that they are not going to approve that one. This week I asked for Bedfordshire. Surely they can’t turn that down. In lieu of a proper network, I have set up a group called Sandy, Bedfordshire. I expect this to fill up quickly.
Hooray, there is a new café in Sandy, Archie & Mabel’s. We went in there on Friday to see what it was like, and again on Sunday in order to make sure they are encouraged to stay open on Sundays, there being almost nothing else to do on a Sunday in Sandy, excepting the pubs and Budgens. I also made this point to the proprietor, although there seemed to be enough people in there at the time to justify some hope. In addition, there were lots of people floating past the window while out walking who looked interested.
Anyway, the cakes are lovely, the coffee is very nice, and the people/person (Archie and Mabel’s mother according to the menu) is very friendly and, along with the decor, gives the place a very welcoming air, especially for families. There are toys, a chalkboard, and books, and so forth. We now have two children so descriptions like “child friendly” are a good thing. One lady came in on Sunday asking if this was a creche or parents’ morning, such is the clientele and ambience. There is also artwork for sale from the Artists Network Bedfordshire, although not really my cup of tea or price bracket, as well as a selection of gifts and things, which I predict will be replaced by a chiller cabinet at some point in the future.
The only real problem (aside from the slatted tables that make balancing cups difficult) is that they don’t serve lunch, although in an overheard conversation the owner suggested that she was aware of this. Perhaps she wants to get the basics working right first.
I would recommend Archie & Mabel’s. Go there on a Sunday!
There is of course another recent eatery, Gaffneys, which I haven’t tried yet. It aspires to be fine dining, which the prices on the menu appear to confirm. It might be wonderful for all I know and I would like to try it; however, I wonder how such a place will thrive or survive in Sandy. The most high-brow place in Sandy before Gaffneys was China Express which, although also expensive, has an extremely popular, high quality, and not particularly expensive take-away business on the side as well as Sandwich Express, another busy café round the corner. Whereas China Express often seems busy, Gaffneys looks empty at Sunday lunch time, unless there is more seating hidden away from the public gaze somewhere. I predict Gordon Ramsay will be paying a visit…
There was a water cut in Sandy yesterday. I thought the shower had just conked out. We had some water in the tanks for the bath and so forth so I didn’t think much of it and went to work. It was then interesting to see how far I could follow developments at work. I first found out about the cut, and could tell my wife about it, as the RSS feed I have set up for Biggleswade Today had the information in my feed reader when I came into work. Hurrah.
To follow developments, I looked up the Anglian Water site. A search for Sandy gave me an incident page which, although grammatically awful and low on detail, at least had the main points and was time-stamped. I had a meeting from about 2 till 4. When I got out, Biggleswade Today had triumphantly added another news item saying that the water came back at 3 (again, I could tell my wife at home and she could start actually using the water); the Anglian Water page just disappeared: there was nothing to say there ever was a problem and had that been my only source of information, I wouldn’t have known what that meant. A bit rubbish. As for the BBC, they had eventually put an article via RSS saying that there was a water cut. It still says so now and they haven’t issued any updates yet.
Conclusion: hurrah for Biggleswade Today; almost good but boo for Anglian Water; ho hum for the BBC.
On Christmas Eve, I noticed that Pete’s newsagent/off-licence/corner shop, the Sandy landmark at the end of our road, has now changed hands. It is now open till ten in the evening (not till eight as before), and was apparently open on Christmas Day of all things, which means there was no need for me hurry out at seven to buy eggs (for the next day’s Yorkshire pudding) on two counts.
I will be sad to see the former occupants go. Since I started taking my young son in there regularly, they were a lot more friendly as they obviously like children (or she did anyway) although they seemed to forget who I was if I went in alone. Never mind.
The big question with Pete’s however has always been Is it still Pete who works in there?. I have it on authority from a former Potton resident who went to school in Sandy that it was called Pete’s some years before we moved to Sandy in 2002. We can be pretty sure it is not Pete in there now unless:
- One of the new people is also called Pete
- Pete, whoever he is, still owns the shop and the new people are simply new managers
These things are important.
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