PigBlog

Well, thanks to some immense traffic caused by an accident around West Bromwich today, our journey home took in a Black Country tour and a delightful journey across the new Arboretum junction in Walsall.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with it, here’s a Google Maps photo of the area in the early stages of construction of the new fuck up junction. It’s a fairly conventional junction that used to get badly blocked due to the road to the left being narrow, and indeed a good section of the town’s ring road being, well…. shit.

It’s been replaced with what can only be described as one of the worst, confusing, badly signed and ill-conceived junctions it has been my displeasure to drive over- and I was prepared for it and knew where I was going.

it seems it’s no better for pedestrians either.

There’s other bits that are crap and confusing too. Is it compulsory to cock up the roads in Walsall?

The comments are amusing on the Express & Star site, presumably more so if you’re not one of the suckers who has paid for it. I rather like this one.

Stop use of “chav”, says Tom Hampson.

“This is middle class hatred of the white working class, pure and simple”.

Fuck off Tom, in the nicest possible way. The chavs are rarely working class, because they don’t work a good proportion of the time. Real working class? Well, there’s lots near me, and I count myself in there. The clue? They work, and they too look down on the section of society that thinks that not working, and being anti-social, is an acceptable lifestyle choice.

Exhibit A: The new Arboretum junction is that bad that Morrisons car park is now the main route out of town from Lichfield Street, as you can no longer make the seemingly reasonable move of leaving Lichfield Street and going straight ahead or turning right onto the ring road. Only Walsall MBC can cock up the roads this well. To be honest, why not leave the island in place? The reason it got gridlocked was the pathetic single-lane bit to the west, which is being upgraded.

Exhibit B: That spangly new bridge at Brownhills, which was lovely and easy to cross either on foot, cycle, or, I’d imagine with a wheelchair, due to a choice of steps or wide, gradual ramps.

Well, they’ve fitted restrictor gates that mean you have to upend a bike to get through. Brilliant. It’s probably due to fuckwits on motorbikes, whose friends have scattered broken glass over it too. I presume a wheelchair still fits?

It’s time for a) Some planning, and b) a scumbag cull.

Well, on the day that the new car tax rates are in the news, and Walsall’s Arboretum island traffic light fuck up junction fails again throwing the town’s traffic into chaos, it’s announced that the Walsall-Wolverhampton train service is due to be axed because, according to transport minister Tom Harris, it “does not add value to the franchise”.

Whatever the fuck that means. I know a tendency to talk bollocks is required in politics, so as to avoid conveying any meaning, but would anyone like to take a stab at that one?

Once again, we’re taxed to hell and back for using cars, while our public transport so-called network gets reduced again.

South along the Killer Roads: the A99 then the A9. There’s been improvements here, so its safer than it was, but the combination of a few dawdlers and a few loons can make things interesting. The fact is, if you’re prepared to sometimes get held up, and judge the overtakes properly, it’s fine.

We make good time, go to Blair Castle (another possible lair), and stop for the evening at Pitlochry. Beer, Curry, Sleep. Pitlochry is quite nice once all the coaches leave. You’re not getting a Day 8 Post as it consists of ‘Drive South’.

A drive out to take in some Scenery around Tongue (I do like a bit of tongue…), and a big fail for visiting the Dounreay visitor centre, which has closed- apparently it was good for a giggle, if you found glossing over a few problems amusing. “Oh well, I’ll just pull over here, just by the approach, but outside the security fencing and we’ll look at the map. See if we get arrested” [*laughs*].

It took 20 seconds for the police to arrive :-). After ensuring we weren’t terrorists (”Dirka Dirka“), they left, and we found somewhere to drive to. Pheew. Lucky the C4 was in the boot.

Incidentally, the reactor housing is tiny.

We covered lots of miles, saw amazing scenery, and actually had an enjoyable drive, which is not something you can say about driving here.

John O Groats is less bad than publicized, as is Wick. Dunnet Head is cool. The A99 (noted for it’s casualty rate!) and A9 are bleak but fun ( the A99 provides some real hairpins and climbs/descents), and Dunrobin Castle is incredible. When I am world leader, this will be my Highland Evil Lair.

We started back out at a more respectable 09:30, and headed north again. The A9 has a bad reputation for accidents and for getting held up, but we had good luck and made good progress. by 1pm we’ve made it to Lybster, even with the fog (in June).

Lybster isn’t picture-postcard: it’s a bit run-down in places but still OK: put it this way, I’d visit again. We’re stopping in a converted church hall, handily opposite the rather nice Portland Arms hotel. There’s other pubs/hotels in town, but this is the nicest.

edit: scrub that. If you’re a non-resident, they don’t give a shit. Cue 4 days lost business :-). Commercial Hotel wins, Portland Arms: all aboard the failboat. Oh, and Aviemore is shite, and the roads and scenery up here are fantastic.

The day starts early:04.50, and we leave at 05:24. M6 Toll, M6, A74, breakfast around 8:30 at Annandale Water, M80, M9, A9. We managed Grantown-on-Spey for our overnight stop by 13:30, stopping at a very nice B&B. We met friends (the ones that are lucky enought to have retired nearby), avoided the Neds, and retired to bed.

Yesterday saw us in Coventry, at the Ricoh Arena, for Bon Jovi’s midlands date of their Lost Highway tour. It was pretty good. The arena isn’t a bad venue, but the stairs with no rails are a bit precarious. The bootleg police were in full force stopping anyone recording, but I wondered why- the quality would be awful and unsaleable. Mind you, that also begs the question “why record it in the first place?”.

I have to say as well, my previous image of Coventry as a craphole has been dispelled: The hotel for our overnight stop was pretty good, the nearby pub was OK too, even with a few students, and we didn’t get stabbed or shot walking to the arena. The only problem is that since the Luftwaffe kindly flattened a lot of the city there’s too much 50s-60s concrete.