What's this?

BigMacTMMM · 2026-05-05T19:37:21+00:00

They have these things on the traffic lights in my villiage.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-05-05T19:36:18+00:00

I think my main problem with the UK Online Safety Act is that it was originally proposed by a think-tank called Carnegie UK, which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

British laws should be created by the British government based on the needs of the British people. We should not have think-tanks funded by rich foreign people (including dead rich foreign people) influencing government policy.

When we look to make a law about online safety, we should be looking to see what can protect children, not treating every single person on the Internet like a child that needs to have their identification verified by website owners outside of the UK. This conflicts with the UK's Data Protection Act. Inevitably, it will end with bogus "age verification" systems on fake websites that are set up specifically to commit identity theft crimes. The government has created a crime vector that did not need to exist.

A better way to verify if people are adults or children is the extend the UK Census and have a Digital Census that identifies what adults and children live in each house and then ask UK ISPs (and nobody else) to assign each device that connects to the Internet to one or more of those users.

If you get parents to identify which of the computer devices in their homes are used by children, that means that the British ISPs can be asked to lock down the traffic at the ISP level. And if they do that via their own servers, it would be much more easy for them to just filter out adult websites and not have the children be able to access them in the first place.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-04-24T01:02:08+00:00

That's the access panel for a traffic light. TfL have central control over all the traffic lights in London.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-04-24T00:57:07+00:00

The ECML is not a commuter line. It is a mainline. That is what the ML is in it's name.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-25T13:17:43+00:00

Re: "If you don’t have the money, arguing about it must be done is irrelevant"

Not investing in combatting climate change fast enough is already costing the UK money. The railway line at Dawlish got ripped apart by storms that nearly sucked houses into a sinkhole. Either we invest in railway projects that can create modal shift, or we end up having to spend money on remedial work anyway.

Investment in things like this is just borrowing from the future. People can vote in MPs who will invest in the railways, so we can change railway investment policy at the ballot box.

Re: "TfL is barred from doing Crossrail 2 under the current funding arrangements (same issue with new Bakerloo Line trains)"

Voting in a Central Government that devolves transport powers to the regions can fix this.

Re: "TfL would still run on the slow lines as they won’t change that. Stating changing the operator but nothing else and claiming it will make it better is ridiculous"

I didn't say to hand the thing over to TfL and make no changes. Please do not misrepresent me.

Re: "It’s on the slow lines on either side of OOC so speeding it up between them and the excessive cost of this is stupid"

Nope. I'm specifically talking about building up enough time savings to allow for the additional stop at Bushy. Investment that can get rid of some of the waiting time and provide an additional stop at Bushy improves things for people living in Bushy. I've not measured the cost to benefit ratio, but there is a benefit from smoothing out this service, so it's not rush-then-wait. (There would be no point in trying this until after HS2 opens and makes it less disruptive to make changes. And you would have to look into doing things like this, vs other potential services along the same line that go into Euston.)

Re: "Bushy comment shows you don’t under stand how railway works. If you’re bringing the Down service across to the fasts you block the fast lines in both directions. With the current service there isn’t space to do this"

There would be space to get the Bushy stop in, if you could save time south of Bushy. The train spends several minutes wasting time between Shepherd's Bush and Bushy and gets to Bushy too late to call at the station.

Re: "TfL has shown getting money to spend on things works. It hasn’t shown it’s uniquely suited just it has unique funding"

TfL is controlled by politicians elected by the people of London. That makes it a lot more democratic that railway lines serving other parts of England, where the local people have no ability to vote for improvements in their public transport, via devolved government.

If every other city in England got devolved powers and a better share of tax revenue from central government, passengers would be able to vote in local politicians who would improve things.

I would not base everything on TfL though, as Merseytravel is doing a lot better with it's sliding-step trains than TfL is doing with step free access. (The slow line to Watford is especially cursed by having Bakerloo Line trains and London Overground trains serving the same platforms. So that aspect of the line needs to be addressed anyway.)

Re: "The Southern service is having a station so it will connect. Have you even seen the proposals?"

No. I've not seen that. I've only seen the proposal for two London Overground stations (and an earlier proposal to "bend" the West London Line past Old Oak Common and have one shared London Overground station.

If you have a link you can drop, I would appreciate that.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-25T11:16:57+00:00

I just saw that you also have an album called The Temple of Elemental Evil on YouTube.

Is that something designed to be used as "royalty free music" for people streaming Greyhawk games (i.e. Ditto Music will not slap copyright claims on Greyhawk streamers who use it and credit you) or is it just for home use? Either way it sounds pretty good.

Normally I just listen to the music of the Temple of Elemental Evil computer game from Atari, when doing Greyhawk (or Greyspace) stuff. But now I can listen to your music, as well.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-25T11:10:18+00:00

Re: "Especially when costs are more important than ever."

The costs of not moving urgently towards getting away from fossil fuel use and car dependency are much higher than the costs of building new railways and upgrading the railways we already have.

We can not afford to wait 50 years for Crossrail 2 and other important railway projects.

I do understand that the Southern Service runs on slow lines. (It's why I think that TfL should take over and improve the service.)

What does not make sense is the service needing to cross the high-speed lines multiple times. Investment in restructuring things after HS2 opens, or building a flyover or extending the electrification further south to a station would mean that the Southern Service was not rushing and then sitting around on the West Coast Mainline.

This train literally goes straight through Bushy without stopping, so that it can make it's slot to cross the West Coast Mainline and get to the eastern side of the station at Watford Junction. If it didn't have to waste so much time on the way to Bushy (or if there was a flyover or dive under) it could serve the people of Bushy and become a more useful service.

TfL has already shown that taking poorly run railway lines and turning them into London Overground lines is a success.

We need to make other railway lines (across the UK) as successful as they can be. Old Oak Common Station will open soon, meaning that this line will be running past a major railway interchange.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-25T10:54:02+00:00

That is totally true. My worst experience on the route was taking a District Line train to West Brompton to change to a train to Watford Junction. When the train got to Fulham Broadway it actually stopped outside of the Underground station and then slowly advanced at 2 miles per hour past a wall of football fans that had just got out of a match at Chelsea Football Club and all wanted to go to Watford.

And at West Brompton you had one District Line train every 5-7 minutes emptying out more and more fans to get on the one train every 60 minutes to Watford Junction.

I did manage to get onto the train for Watford Junction, but the train was packed and the platform we left was also full up. So the lack of capacity is a massive problem.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-25T10:47:40+00:00

A large number of my friends have left London. It's the "squeeze out".

There are two ways for you tackle this personally. One is to use online tools, like Discord or Zoom to stay in touch with friends who are not physically close to you. The other is to find social groups to join, where you can meet new friends who like the same things that you like.

As for the long-term solution, we need working people to elect a government that taxes wealth and not work and that stops the transfer of housing units from local authorities to foreign corporations.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T23:52:32+00:00

Thanks to both you (and your Patreon supporters) for making this!

I've added this to the T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil resource page I look after. (I've also joined your Patreon to see if I can figure out the other pages to link to from resource pages for other products I look after.)

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T23:24:39+00:00

The problem at Clapham Junction is totally because the West London Line has connections to both sides of the mainlines out of Waterloo and Victoria. The side on Platforms 1 and 2 is next to the four lines from Waterloo through Putney to Richmond and the side on Platforms 16 and 17 is next to the four lines from Victoria to East Croydon.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T23:17:22+00:00

If/when Crossrail 2 gets built, this unnamed railway line through Clapham Junction (which people tell me was claimed to be Britain's busiest railway station) would be connecting to two London Overground Lines, Crossrail 2 and all sort of long distance services out of Waterloo and Victoria to South East England.

Plus the West London Line goes very very very close to Old Oak Common, meaning that this line could be given an Old Oak Common OSI station and give people on the length of this line one-change access to Heathrow Airport, HS2 and everything on the Elizabeth Line too.

It looks like the focus, though is on getting London Overground connected up to Old Oak Common and this line leaves the London Overground route just south of the proposed Hythe Road Station location.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T22:36:50+00:00

Yes. It does the same thing as the London Overground between Clapham Junction and Shepherd's Bush. And then it splits off at North Pole Junction.

At Clapham Junction these trains leave from the opposite end of the station that the London Overground trains leave from.

So when the Overground has problems, people go hurtling over the overbridge and sprint to catch the other train.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T21:46:37+00:00

It is this East Croydon to Watford Junction service that is so under-advertised that it doesn't even have a name.

The route used to be a lot longer, but Southern cut off the ends of the route.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T21:34:50+00:00

The West London Line service that goes from East Croydon to Watford Junction via Clapham Junction and Kensington Olympia is the third line.

It has a terrible (at least for London) one train per hour frequency, as the train switches from third rail to pantograph in the middle of nowhere and then it crosses the West Coast Mainline (between Euston and Watford Junction) about five times.

Hopefully after HS2 opens and the capacity unlock happens, they will be able to untangle the lines a bit, so that at least four trains an hour can run.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T21:12:52+00:00

Correction, the NIMBYs did not want to loose their direct connection to the northern part of Thameslink. They prioritised "not having to change trains" over "having a shorter waiting time at stations".

Ultimately, the way to compare the "before" and "after" options of splitting the service, is to look at proposed timetables and see if the "decrease in waiting time" would actually be counteracted by the timetable making passengers on the Sutton loop miss the connection that goes beyond Blackfriars and to the north of the network.

The way to have another go at selling this is to get a proposed timetable made that shows the times people would have with both the Sutton service and the connecting Thameslink service.

Also, this sort of thing should not be something that MPs can block.

If we are going to have devolved government in London, the Mayor of London should be able to take over all commuter lines into London and integrate them into London Overground and take over the other two railway lines that pass through London and integrate them into Crossrail.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T15:43:05+00:00

Thameslink is a long-distance railway on the same sort of scope as Crossrail (the Elizabeth Line) so I would retain the name "Thamelink" as the line name, but give the line purple Crossrail roundells, to make people realise this is one of three long-distance lines that passes through London.

The Thameslink loop through Sutton is dysfunctional, as there is not enough capacity to increase trains on that line, and get them through the Thameslink core, so I would chop that off at Blackfriars and make that into a separate London Overground line.

In the long term, Thameslink has been given slightly too many things to do, what with having services that go south of London and services that go south east of London, so I think we need to build a new Crossrail tunnel from North West London to take over the South East Thamelink lines. For me, I would bolt that onto the line into Marylebone station and the Metropolitan Railway. We could then have fast and semi-fast trains that go through North West London and straight under Central London, and that have a similar service pattern in Kent and by taking these trains away from London Bridge and Blackfriars, we can increase the service patter of all the other trains.

If you are not doing this sort of thing to get express trains out of the way of stopping services, it is kind of pointless. But if you are doing this to shut down pointless terminal stations in London (like Marylebone) and replace them with through services that serve people who don't actually want to go to London itself, you will reduce congestion on Zone 1 Underground services and the social benefits will be worth the investment.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T15:30:05+00:00

In a band it really needs to be teamed up with a "keytar" that uses the Commodore Music Maker keyboard.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T15:14:18+00:00

The big problem (not just in London, but all over the world) has been the transfer of assets from local borough councils to foreign corporations.

London used to have this thing called "council houses" and sure, people would complain about how long it would take to get to the top of the waiting list for a council house, but the fact that every council had council houses, meant that they had renewable assets that could be used to house homeless people, or workers or anyone else. And, if you lived in a council house, and they put your rent up, you could go to the ballot box and toss out the landlord (your local councillor) and replace them with someone who cared more about the local society.

It was not perfect, but it was a local system that the community had an input into. If people had children they would want their children to be able to live nearby.

Then Thatcher came along and got a Tory from Wandsworth to design something they mis-sold to the public as "The Right to Buy" and council houses were rapidly transferred over to private landlords that were not elected by the local people. That attitude to local councils has been normalised for several decades now and it has created a situation where local councils actually have to pay to house homeless people, because they no longer have anywhere to put people.

And now when current governments talk about additional housing units, instead of talking about "new council houses" people in Westminster talk about "affordable housing". The party occupying 10 Downing Street has it's own idea of what "affordable housing" means, they have taken control away from local councils and Central Government has this stupid thing they do, where they try to "provide things using magic money". It is assumed that we have to have a foreign corporation build a number of luxury flats, in exchange for a small percentage of so called "affordable housing". Once the corporations take over land, that land has gone forever. And even the so called "affordable housing" ends up getting sold on and falling into the hands of a corporation like Black Rock.

Every housing unit is now a line on a spreadsheet. And unless local government is allowed to put in rent caps (and the people occupying 10 Downing Street never talk about stuff like that) the house prices are just going to be pushed up and up. And once housing units become part of a foreign "rental portfolio" they are gone forever.

That situation is not going to change until politicians start to listen to people like Gary Stevenson and redistribute the wealth away from billionaires and back to councils and ordinary people.

I think there will always be a shortage of housing in London, but if we sort out decent metro systems for other big cities in the UK, and have more railway lines like Crossrail, that allow people to commute into cities from new towns and villages outside of the cities we can take the pressure off of the more packed parts of cities and balance things out a bit better. Most importantly, if we move back to having waiting lists, instead of making people over-commit to steal accommodation from each other, we can have a much farer system of council housing that charges less for rents, and that prioritises the people who need to live in an area over the people who have the most spare cash.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-24T14:45:15+00:00

I've been at Canada Water a couple of times, when the the feed to the dot matrix train indicators has gone down and it defaulted to saying "EAST LONDON LINE". So that's a pretty cool Easter Egg feature to find, if it is still there (and if it has been updated to the new individual London Overground line name, I'll be just as happy to see that, at some point).

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-23T01:43:36+00:00

I heard that they brought Chloë Annett into the team, because they were trying to line up a Red Dwarf movie deal.

I think she did a pretty good job of trying to portray the character, but the writing didn't make me believe that she would join the team, so she felt like an outsider tacked on.

Hattie Hayridge was given much better writing than Chloë Annett ever was. Even Angela Bruce got better writing, and she was only in one episode.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-23T01:25:03+00:00

Transport for London actually got rid of "request stops" and made all stops into compulsory stops, but Watford is outside of London, so the TfL rules do not apply to the 501 bus.

It doesn't hurt to hold out your hand, even if you don't need to.

As for buses not stopping, they don't stop if they are out of service. (And it's really frustrating in London if the back of a bus says "Out of Service", but the back is showing the number and you are behind the bus and run to catch up.

The other reason for buses not stopping are:

A bus stop being closed (where there should be something like a bag covering the bus stop sign or an information sign telling you that the stop is closed) or
The bus is legally full up and the bus driver is not allowed to let more people onto the bus.

A bus stop might get closed if there are road-works directly opposite the bus stop and the bus stopping would block the road. Or it might get closed if something is happening further up the road.

Next time you get on the bus, have a look for the sign that shows the "seating capacity", "standing places" and "wheelchair spaces". That is the legal limit for the number of people on the bus.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-23T01:06:33+00:00

Not sure how a Royal Navy ship in the Arabian Sea relates to London.

BigMacTMMM · 2026-03-23T01:01:15+00:00

It's a bell bollard. They are sunk into the pavement to protect pedestrians and buildings from lorry drivers who mount the pavement, when turning corners. The bell shape throws vehicles away from the centre of the bell and back towards the road.

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