Aurlog

Simon Brunning points out a new service called Walk It which gives directions for pedestrians, much in the same manner as Google Maps does for cars. Mr Brunning gives a good overview of it, especially pointing out its fault in having no easy URL hackability. I must admit I still expected it to prefer a pedestrian option within reasonable limits, but no, it does the whole journey on foot, and gives helpful stats into the bargain. So, my trip home should take me a whisker over 12 hours walking fast, although I will burn off 3911 calories (approximately 17 Mars bars) in the process. The Google Maps equivalent is here (1 hour 24 minutes); the public transport version is 1 hour 20 minutes (using Transport Direct which doesn’t seem to have reusable URLs either).

I recently went on an innocent trip to a Sandy charity shop the other week with my three year old son. After I had idly scanned the bookshelves for a short while, the mildly scary lady serving behind the counter asked if I was looking for men’s books.

“Er…not really”, I replied, “I’m not really sure what you mean by men’s books anyway. Ha ha…”

“I’ve got a load out the back I can show you” she said. I think it was at this point I got worried. Only the presence of the aformentioned toddler reassured me that she might not be wishing to expose me to her special stash of second-hand charity shop mank.

Obediently, my son and I ventured into the back to be confronted with the predictable box of Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy clones*. “Men’s books I call them”. Some relief, I can tell you.

I always thought the back of the charity shop would be filled with untold delights that are kept back from the common herd. Unfortunately, I now know that I merely have to wait for the box of men’s books to clear before anything good appears. Sue Ryder is much better anyway.

* Not that I mind such things, being a keen Frederick Forsyth fan myself when he’s not being pants. I’ve also just read She by H. Ryder Haggard (bought from a charity shop) which is hardly pitched at the female market**.
** And is not, in my opinion, as good as Allan Quartermain, which is also better than King Solomon’s Mines***.
*** Which, I would agree with Mr Haggard himself, is much better than Treasure Island.

The Biggleswade Chronicle reports that Bedfordshire County Council, or rather their agents (presumably men in dark glasses and a local goverment pension scheme) are investigating the idea of spending £450,000 on developing Sandy Library. It probably won’t happen anyway, but hopefully, they’ll move Bedfordshire’s cataloguing division to the new site.

I urge you to look at the picture accompanying the article. I’m sure that beardy man doesn’t work in Sandy. It doesn’t look like Sandy library. Heavens, it even looks like a manual issue system which they don’t use anymore. Cripes, &c.

Although the picture is a stock one representing a vague subject, a practice even the BBC uses, do take note of the headline, which has been carefully thought out, and represents a fantastic addition to the corpus of library humour:

Hopes for new library volume

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, &c.

The BBC reports that the proposed Olympic rowing lake at Willington will go ahead despite the inadequate local transport and the fact it will most likely scupper the Bedford to Cambridge railway proposals. All for a crappy training lake- it won’t actually see any competition- which will probably be largely useless come 2013. At least it will be part of a larger park, although I’m not sure what the effect will be on the existing cycle path between Sandy and Bedford via Willington (which would of course be banjo’d if the railway was to come in any case).

In other Bedfordshire train news, the police have introduced a passenger metal detector scanning pilot at Flitwick station of all places. I appreciate Luton has rather put Bedfordshire on the terror map, but really. I like that Inspector John Seamarks of British Transport Police said that Flitwick is not noted for high levels of violent disorder or anti-social behaviour and this operation is aimed at keeping it that way throughout the summer holidays when many young people use the trains to travel from town to town. Obviously, it’s best to concentrate resources on places that have no crime in order to make sure that there isn’t any.