Boaty McBoatface

Blogging is a dying art.  You know it, I know it.  Actually, as I write this, I'm not even sure anyone is going to read them.  Who can be bothered reading all those words in 2025, when you can get soundbites and micro-blogs and Threads fed to you?  In fact, never mind having to read at all: break out the cameras and the microphones and let's go full influencer.  That's where the money is.

I've long resisted videos based on the fact that, well, I know what I sound like when I talk.  I've known for forty eight years that I can write but I can't speak.  The internet came along in the 2000s and gave us socially awkward losers hope that maybe we could be useful members of society; our brains were valued more than our looks.  What we said was more important.  Then came YouTube and cameraphones and always-on high speed broadband and you didn't need to be able to say anything any more, you just had to be pretty and boisterous and outgoing.  And preferably have big tits.

I've tried doing a couple of videos before, where I played with some not-Lego.  I thought I might try to push this a bit further on the Helsinki trip.  I didn't want to do the whole week as a video, but I did have an experience that I thought would make interesting content.  I was going on a boat.

There's an overnight ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm every night and I thought it would be fun to take the ferry and do a kind of video blog of it.  Stick it on YouTube, see what the reaction was, see if it worked.

I went to the Viking Line port at Katajanokka in plenty of time for my ship, as advised.  "The gates will be open two hours ahead of sailing," it said, so I turned up two hours ahead of sailing, because I am a very well-brought up young man and I do as I am instructed.  A quick scan of my QR code at an automated terminal and I was issued with a credit card-sized piece of paper.  This was the key to my berth on board (oh yes, I know the lingo). 

I followed the crowds up and round to the departure gate and this was where I was hit by my own naivety.  I'd thought that as it was a ferry, and we all had our own cabins, that we'd be welcome on the ship any time.  I thought we'd wander across when we wanted so we could partake of the delights of the ship.  

Nope.  Instead we were held in a tight lounge, decorated to look like a Moto service station but without the joie de vivre, with a single bar and not enough seats.  Not nearly enough seats.  The MS Viking Cinderella has a capacity of 2,700 passengers and they were all brought up into that little airless room.  For two hours I leaned up against a column and cursed everyone who worked at Viking Line from the CEO down to the lowliest waitress.

Finally we began to shuffle towards the one (1) access point for the ship.  Apparently we needed to have our IDs checked first, so the Viking Line laid on a couple of members of staff to do so.  And when I say "a couple" I'm talking literally: two men checking each and every passport and ID card.

Worse, there was no official queue, no roped off route for us, so people fed into the scrum from every direction.  We shuffled forwards, slowly, the time of departure getting nearer and nearer.  I'm afraid I got very Brexit in my head, calculating how the space could be reorganised so there was a proper line instead of this awful European throng.  In England there would've been a single file snaking through miles of rope fences and it would've worked a lot better.  I was about three rows back from the gangway when a senior looking man appeared and basically said "fuck it"; passport checks were suspended and the crowds were allowed to push through, IDs be damned.  If an international terrorist made it from Finland to Sweden that night he's the one to blame.  I'd used my waiting time to look up the schematics of the ship and learn what deck I was on and how to get there and I practically ran there to get ahead of the slow moving throngs.   

There it was.  My neat little cabin.  I'll let Video Me take over here:

I'm sure you'll agree the presenting and editing jobs will be flooding in from there.  Can I explain that the yellowish tinge to my glasses is because of the sunlight bouncing in?  I don't want you to think I have tinted lenses like Cliff Richard.  

There's also a guided tour of the cabin, if you want to hear from Video Me again:

Thrilling, I'm sure you'll agree.  I hope you enjoyed that because that's the last we'll hear from Video Me.  As you may have guessed from the several hundred words preceding the videos, I realised that I didn't actually like filming anything.  I didn't like talking to the camera, I didn't like videoing.  I'd thought I'd wander round the ship filming it, so you the reader-slash-viewer could experience it too, with my thoughts and ideas, and I realised I didn't want to do any of that.  I didn't want to be noticed.  I didn't want people to stare at me.  I didn't want people to hear me chatting to myself for "content".  In short, I didn't want to look like a cunt.

I wish I'd realised that before I bought a gimbal, mind.

I headed to the main entertainment deck.  There were restaurants and bars here, plus a theatre with some kind of show to keep the kids entertained, and even a casino.  It was, as I said in my video, a proper ship.  It was huge.  I was overawed by it.   

The restaurants were absolutely rammed; it seemed you'd be wise to book a slot ahead.  I couldn't see any spare tables so I did my usual trick.  I went to the pub.

The Admiral Hornblower promised a "truly British" experience and it certainly reminded me of a British pub: specifically The Favourite, the now-demolished flat-roofed establishment on my estate in the 1980s.  It had a plasticky, inauthentic feel, as you'd expect from a "British pub" on a ferry in Scandinavia.  I ordered a pint - they even had nonsensical imperial measures - and took up a spot to watch the entertainment, a little blonde man with a guitar singing No Woman No Cry.    

He ran through a selection of rock classics, mostly in English but with a peppering of Finnish ones too, which the crowd sang along to.  I sat in my seat (bolted to the floor) and supped my beer and watched.  He stepped away after a while, and an extremely jolly and extremely annoying woman came out to launch the karaoke night.

By this point I'd had enough beers to stop me finding it hopelessly embarrassing.  It was actually quite charming when they sang a Eurohit song I didn't know.  I wasn't really interested in the blokes doing My Way - I can get that in Liverpool city centre any time I want - it was the local songs that got everyone bouncing in their seats that I enjoyed.  This diva, for example: 

I subsequently ran into her outside the toilets and I told her I thought her singing was amazing.  She looked properly thrilled.

A few more songs and I decided to call it a night.  I was a bit worse for wear and I'd only eaten a bag of peanuts.  I decided to go up on the top deck to get a bit of air, definitely not stopping to sing Diamonds Are Forever or anything insane like that on the way.  I went up in the lift and stepped out into the twilight.

Out there, away from the land, surrounded by nothing but sea, all I could take in were the skies.  The incredible burnished skies.  Shifting layers of colour and shade.  Clouds that merged with the water. 

I stood there for a long time, until I began to feel chilled; I was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts.  I couldn't stop staring at the water and the light.

I went back up there when I woke the next morning.  The skies were heavier now - it had rained over night, and there was a dampness in the air.  The deck was slick with moisture.  By now though, we'd reached Sweden, and so instead of open water there were a hundred tiny forested islands drifting by.  We were working our way inland through deep inlets formed by glaciers thousands of years ago.   

Behind us was another ferry.  There are two companies who go overnight from Helsinki, and it seems they follow each other exactly.  It's strange how, as an island nation with a legendary naval history, we've sort of lost the idea of taking a ferry in the UK.  The minute aeroplanes were invented we decided we'd much rather do that, thank you very much.  There's still the ferries to Ireland, of course, plus Bilbao and the Hook of Holland and what's left of the Dover routes, but these are very much the bargain option.  If you haven't got a car people would think you were mad to take them.  

While I enjoyed the laid back journey, and it was very good value for money, I don't think I could stand it for more than one night.  Taking the ferry effectively killed any interest I may have had in going on a long ocean cruise.  After ten hours on board I already felt stir crazy; walking up and down the stairs, wandering around the decks, trying to find something new to look at.  There were the changing views now we were close to land, of course, but imagine being halfway across the Atlantic and all you can see is the water.  No wonder people spend the whole time getting drunk and filling their faces with buffets.  There's nothing else to distract you.

I packed up my bag and headed to the exit.  As with getting on board the boat, this was a long tedious wait in a chairless space.  We docked in Stockholm and then there was a length stretch of nothing while we watched an army of cleaners come aboard.

Again we had the advantage of coming ashore right in the city centre.  The Viking terminal is on Södermalm, and it was a twenty minute walk from me along the front to Slussen Tunnelbana station.  When the Blue Line extension opens there will be an even closer station at Sofia, ten minutes walk away, but that won't be until 2030.  Oh darn, I'll have to come back.

Slussen is still undergoing major building works; the new bus terminal is due to open in 2026, but it's a mess of routes and diversions.  It's still an improvement on my visit last year, when I couldn't even find the entrance.   

 

 

So here I was in Stockholm again, a year after my last visit.  There was only one thing to do.  And it wasn't break out the video camera.

Read It and Weep

I was at the Pier Head the other day, looking at the new landing stage for the ferry.  It's nice enough, though I can't help thinking that those open sides will make it a pretty unpleasant environment come January.  And why isn't it physically attached to the Ferry Terminal?

Anyway, while I was there, my eye was caught by something at the head of the stage.

Computer!  Zoom and enhance!

That looks an awful lot like a Walrus reader to me.  It's a preview of what the standalone readers will probably look like when they're installed across the network.  Though the underground stations (and Southport and Conway Park) have had gates with card readers in them for a long time, we've not really known what's going to happen at the ungated stations.

The assumption is that there will be a similar solution to the one used on the Docklands Light Railway.  These little readers will probably be installed at the entrance to the other Merseyrail stations, and maybe on the platforms as well, so that you can check in and out of the network as you come and go.  I haven't seen them being installed anywhere else though - if you have them at your local station, please let me know so I can go and have a look.  According to the official Walrus timetable, they should be replacing annual Railpasses with a smartcard in the next few weeks, so you would expect them to be implemented pretty soon.

Down by the Riverside

You wouldn't know it to look at it, but Woodside in Birkenhead was once a thriving, hectic spot.  The square of land by the river used to host a multitude of transportation options, local and national, land and seagoing.

It's all very different now.  I headed down there on a crisp Thursday morning to have a look round.  Of course, Hamilton Square is still there.  At that time of the morning it was regularly pumping out commuters, dishing them out onto the street like a suited man vending machine.  It's a lovely station, Victorian enough to pique your interest, but modern enough to be efficient.

The underground station used to have a mainline neighbour, Birkenhead Woodside.  This impressive terminus was sited close by, and carried mainline trains to Chester and beyond - including daily services to London Paddington.  The trains tunnelled under the town, via a route I followed a couple of months ago, and emerged in a cutting below Church Street.  The tunnel entrance, now bricked up, is still visible:

It looks strangely sinister there, like the entrance to a troll's hole.  If you'd stood on the other side of the bridge fifty years ago, you'd have seen directly into the rear of Woodside station, with the platforms poking out of a twin-barrelled iron roof.  Today, you see this:

The former grand terminus was completely demolished in the sixties.  Dr Beeching - him again - decided that if people from the Wirral wanted to go anywhere beyond their borders, they could cross the river to Lime Street.  Mainline services were pulled out completely, while the local trains were cut back to Rock Ferry.  Now the tunnel's throat has become a bus parking area - a distinctly ignominious replacement.

There's still a tiny hint of the former grand terminus in the wall along Chester Street, the only part of the station that still remains.  The carved ornaments at the top are far grander than you'd expect for a place for bus drivers to have a fag.

The station used to go right down to the riverside, with a side entrance used for access to the ferry terminal.  Famously, this was a mistake; the railway company wanted the ferry companies to build their termini on the south side of the station, where there was a grand entrance and fancy waiting rooms.  The ferry companies refused to comply, though, so a minor back entrance became the way in and out of Woodside.  A bit embarrassing.

I stood by the Mersey Ferries building and tried to imagine what the station must have been like.  It's actually quite difficult to picture a bustling station filled with steam and passengers when you're staring at a couple of tedious red brick office blocks.

That's the HQ of the Child Support Agency, with the local Land Registry offices next door.  Not exactly the most prestigious tenants.  Wilfred Owen's father had been station manager at Woodside, and I pictured it in its turn of the century heyday, all women in big hats and smart porters.  The luggage would be carried separately to the ferry for shipping across the river, ready for transfer to the liners and hotels in Liverpool.  Moving down to the riverside, I was pleased to see there was a cruise ship docked across the way.  It's always a wonder to stare at the Liverpool skyline.

Passengers getting the Mersey Ferry across to Woodside must be horribly disappointed.  Yes, there's the German submarine at the terminal building, chopped up in three like a giant metal salami, but you don't want to go too far beyond.  The tram terminal is here, a couple of sad little buffers that promise a great deal but don't really deliver.

When Woodside terminal was here, a dozen tram routes also finished in this little square; in fact, I would have been able to have got a tram from here right to the bottom of my road without a change.  A number of Wirral bus routes still end up here, but few passengers ever alight.  Birkenhead has a much better central bus station next to the shops.  It's a step up from the draughty building in the centre of the gyratory here, with nothing in the way of passenger facilities - even the toilets are boarded up.

There's one final piece of railway architecture here.  If you've been paying attention, you'll remember I wrote about the Mersey Railway's pumping house, on Mann Island.  On the Wirral side is its much larger cousin.  (This is in the grand tradition of putting nice, neat little facilities on the Liverpool side and huge ugly ones in Birkenhead; see also anything associated with the Queensway Tunnel).

It looks like a superannuated version of the one across the river - almost as if they were born twins, but one ate way too much fast food growing up.  The pumping facilities are still here, keeping the tunnel safe.  For a while this was opened as a tourist attraction called The Giant Grasshopper after the nickname for the pumping engine.  Calling it that was just setting yourself up for a fall.  "Hey kids!  Let's go and see the Giant Grasshopper!  No, it's not a massive insect, it's a fine piece of Victorian engineering.  Stop crying."

It's not open any more, of course, as the cuts meant Wirral Council couldn't afford to run extravagances like museums and libraries and so on.  Then they voted for a cut in Council Tax.  I despair sometimes.

I followed the tram lines away, through the old entrance to the dock estate.  There are large freight warehouses here, which have been converted into offices.  Is there a more potent symbol of Merseyside decline than a warehouse, by a dock, which used to be occupied by Littlewoods Pools?

On the plus side, the building looks like it's being redeveloped (again).  Which is more than can be said for its close neighbour, the former Pacific Road Arts Centre.  Once the tram terminus, this was made into a performance venue at the turn of the millennium, and hosted music and comedy events.  Naturally, this sort of frivolity can't be tolerated, so the Council closed it down after a dozen years.  The rumour is that they'd decided to pump their money into the rebuilt Floral Pavillion in New Brighton instead, because of course a borough of 300,000 people only needs one arts venue.  Now it's just sitting there, awaiting a sale, while its assets are quietly shipped up the peninsula.

The tram tracks carry on past the new Twelve Quays hub for Wirral Metropolitan College, reminding me that they could actually serve a useful purpose if someone decided to use the trams properly.  Now that Merseytravel have backed out of taking over the line though, you're left to wonder if anyone else will bother.

While the tracks turn left for the Wirral Transport Museum, I turned right, to see the Egerton Bridge.  This is a bascule bridge, one which levered open to allow ships to pass underneath, and which was restored in 1993.  It's a fine piece of dockside architecture.

In what seemed to be an all-too depressing theme, this used to be open as a tourist attraction too, but was closed a few years ago.  Now it's just an over-elaborate road bridge, with its window broken and weeds growing over the steps.

Heading back towards Hamilton Square, I passed the most impressive piece of railway regeneration, the Cheshire Lines Building.  The massive goods warehouse has been sympathetically converted into a top-class office block...

 ...which was then occupied by Wirral Borough Council.  Something something noses something something trough.  It is a lovely building, though.

Which is more than can be said about Woodside in general.  It's just such an ignored district of town.  With Hamilton Square's Grade 1 listed magnificence just moments away, and the ferry and Merseyrail bringing a regular stream of Japanese tourists across, there should be so much more to it than a tram route past a sewage works that only operates weekends.  Part of the problem is that it's a dead district - there are a couple of pubs, including Britain's only pub/barbershop, but that's about it, and hardly anyone lives round here.  I've stood at the bus stops here on a Saturday night and not seen another soul.  Some good quality apartment blocks round here, cheaper than the big city ones across the water, but blessed with that magnificent view, would be a massive boon.  Build that and you could get a few decent restaurants perhaps (though the excellently-named Station, by Hamilton Square, is really good), a couple of cafes, that sort of thing.  The town centre's shifted away from here, down by the precinct, so this needs to have a different offering - a far more exclusive, boutique-y feel perhaps.

There should be some attraction here to get all those Americans taking the famous ferry to spend some cash.  Something better than a giant grasshopper anyway.  An aquarium perhaps, or a proper transport museum (or perhaps a well-funded arts centre).  Birkenhead should be the Gateshead to Liverpool's Newcastle, but the Wirral's far too caught up in its own petty dramas to even bother thinking about that sort of thing.  It might not be a transport hub any more, but it still could be important to the town.