Things That Make You Go "Oooh!"

A few days ago, I was sarcastic about Merseytravel because they wouldn't send me any nice pictures but they were happy to plaster them all over the walls of Liverpool Central. Sarcasm really is the lowest form of wit, and I should have risen above it. Besides, the jokes weren't really that good.

Anyway, I'd like to make it clear that my beef was with Merseytravel, not Merseyrail. Merseyrail were lovely; their Customer Relations lady replied quickly, personally and was very very nice.

Also, they sent me stuff. Yay! I didn't expect it at all, and I certainly wouldn't have dreamt of asking for it, but those lovely people at Merseyrail sent me some little gifts which I'm presenting here for you, to try and make you jealous. I know that's a bit childish but screw it: I got Merseygifts and you didn't, so nur-nur-nur.

First up, we have a marvelous mouse mat and a couple of pens. This isn't the mouse mat that they use in the stations (one of which recently turned up on eBay; I'm not saying it was stolen or anything by an unscrupulous member of the station staff, just mentioning it in passing) but is instead a corporate mouse mat with the aims and aspirations of the company on it. There's a whole branch for customers, you'll be glad to hear; more excitingly, under "service" it lists "new rolling stock", "M to Go" and "Smart Card", all of which make me do a little happy dance. Something to look forward to. And you can never have enough pens.

Next, is a lovely Merseyrail train key ring, here displayed with the mass of metal I have to carry round with me. Trainspotters: it's number 508110, and I now have a sub-mission to find this train somewhere on the network, and possibly photograph it, or even better, me in front of it holding the key ring up and beaming. If that isn't crossing too far into anorak territory. Oh, who am I kidding? I crossed that line years ago.

Yes, that is a Lego Catwoman key ring beside it. It's Lego and it's Catwoman: two of the greatest things in humanity combined in one key ring. Awesome.

From here, we move on to the travel mug, which is absolutely lovely. Lovingly embossed with "Merseyrail" on one said, and "M to Go" on the other, this will be the perfect vessel for my lattes next time I'm out and about on the rails. Do Starbucks still do that thing where you get money off if you provide your own mug? Caramel macchiatos on the move sounds good to me.

The final item is the real doozy, I have to say. In fact, it's so good, it inspired me to break out the shorts and do my best Man at C&A modeling. Here's my attempt at Miss Tyra, America's Next Model posing: if I'd had more time I'd have broken out a fierce weave and a finger snap as well.

Look past my hairy shins and you'll see that I am, in fact, wearing Merseyrail flip-flops. How amazing is that? Not just that I have a pair of them, but that there was someone in Rail House who sat down and said, "you know what we need to do? What we haven't done so far? Combined the world of rail franchises with leisure footwear. That would be amazing."

Frankly this little parcel is the best gift I've received all year, and certainly better than any of the crap I got for my birthday and most appreciated. It's so nice when a corporate behemoth turns out to be human and, more importantly, so human it gives me stuff. It's really made me smile.

For future reference: I am very, very easily bought. Know this now. If there's anyone out there who fancies currying my favour, send me stuff. I have no shame. No scruples. I'll do anything. I am a corporate whore, and proud of it!

The Merseytart vs. Friendship

After my Ormskirk opening, I found myself taking a bus to Parbold. I'd promised to go and see my friend Jennie, who lives there, and my original plan had been to take the train to Burscough Junction, walking to Burscough Bridge and getting the train from there. Another couple of stations off the list.

The scrum at Ormskirk made me want to get out of there as quick as I could, though, so I dashed to the Bus Station. The Council rather grandly calls this a Bus-Rail Interchange, because there's a path connecting the two, which I think is stretching it a bit. The path actually used to be a siding; until the rationalisation of the station, when it was cut down to a single track, the pathway was where the electric trains would end up. In the original 70s plans for the Link and Loop, planning permission was granted for a brand new station which would have actually connected directly with the buses and been right in the centre of town; like so much else to do with the grand plans, it went out the window when budgets were slashed.

Still, a bus! Woo-woo! Bit of variation there. I can't remember the last time I bought a bus ticket. When it turned up, it was one of those little minibuses, which was a let down. No shiny double-decker or bendy-bus for me. Worse still, it was run by a company with the unfortunately spelt name Cumfy Bus. It rolled through the lanes of West Lancashire at a frankly alarming pace. The driver didn't seem at all keen on stopping. There were people at stops on the way past, but he just whizzed by, as though they were street furniture.

I was miles away, enjoying the scenery, when there was a ding! from the bell and we started cruising to a halt. With a jolt, I realised that we were actually stopping outside Burscough Bridge station itself. Instinct took over: I sprang off the bus, right behind a pencil thin student with an air that could only be described as "waspish".

Again, this isn't just your bog standard railway station: heaven forbid. This is the Burscough Bridge INTERCHANGE, because stations are so 20th Century, man. Stick a bus stop outside and suddenly it's a multi-modal hub.

Funnily enough, if various people get their way, it might end up being a proper interchange again. The Ormskirk Branch Line crosses the Manchester to Southport Line in Burscough, but there's no interconnection between the two: the tracks were lifted decades ago. However, the path of the tracks has never been built on (as you can see on Google Maps), and so could be reinstated at some point in the future. Lancashire County Council and West Lancs District Council are both keen for them to be restored; same goes for Merseytravel, but to a lesser extent. Reinstating the curves would mean having to electrify beyond Ormskirk, to Burscough Bridge at the very least and possibly even on to Southport, and who's going to pay for that? Once you cross the county border, things start getting complicated - it's to Lancashire's advantage to rebuild the curves, but Merseyrail are going to be running the trains over it, and they've already got a line to Southport, ta. Maybe, one day, but don't hold your breath. (If it were up to me, I'd electrify to Preston instead of Southport, and build a brand new station at the point where the two rails cross with a car park for commuters, but that's just because I've played too much SimCity 4).

There are two station buildings here. The current station building is a modern, glass and brick affair, which has a delightful retail park Pizza Hut vibe. Inside there's room for a cafe, but it looked like it was closed for good. This isn't surprising, as right behind the station is a Tesco superstore with a cafe of its own. I'm guessing that planning permission for the superstore was conditional on them providing a new station building.

On the opposite platform is the original station building, converted to a house and now up for sale. A poster in the window with a floorplan showed that it was "spacious", but since your front window is regularly used as somewhere for people to rest their arses while they wait for their train, it's not perfect.

And also on the platform: after all this time, an Attractive Local Feature board! Well, a quasi-ALF, but it's been so long since I saw one I was quite happy to snap a shot. It could do with a bigger, more interesting bird though. I texted Jennie that I was at the station and would be in Parbold in about fifteen minutes.

The train arrived, and travelled through the flat plains of this part of Lancashire towards Manchester. There are two trains that run this route, the fast one and the slow one which stops at all the stations en route, and as we slowed down outside Hoscar I realised I was on the slow one. I had an agonising few moments. I'd promised my dearest closest friend, and her delightful child, my Godson, that I'd be at her house in fifteen minutes time. On the other hand, I could jump off the train here and collect the as yet untarted Hoscar station, then walk the mile or so through the country lanes to Parbold. I had my OS map with me so I could easily find my way. What to do? What to do?

You thought I'd get off the train didn't you? For shame. I'm disappointed in you. It was very, very close, and to be perfectly honest, if I hadn't had that anxiety attack in Ormskirk I probably would be showing you a picture of my beaming mug under the Hoscar station sign. But I was tired, and what I needed was a cup of tea and a sit down. So I stayed on the train and continued to Parbold.

For this violation of the rules, the Gods of Merseytarting threw down a punishment, and made me look like an arse in front of the station sign. The problem with the screen on a mobile is you can't quite see the details until you get home and download it. Next time I go, I'll try and get a proper one.

Parbold, incidentally, is a lovely little village. It's the point where the railway and the Leeds & Liverpool canal coincide, and this means that it's popular with walkers and cyclists, as well as commuters for Manchester and Southport. There's an interesting mix of old and new buildings, including a windmill (without any sails) and a couple of good pubs. Even though it's fairly large, it still has that villagey feel, and I always enjoy coming here. Go and visit on a Sunday, and take a stroll by the canal. Be sure to visit Yours Is The Earth, the cafe there; it's run by someone I was at college with and his girlfriend, and the food and coffee there is delicious.

The village is bisected by the railway, and so grinds to a halt whenever a train goes through the level crossing. There's a subway for pedestrians, and again, kudos to Lancashire County Council: this too has been refurbished in recent years, as has the station building.

There's also still an old fashioned signal cabin here, which only adds to the olde-worlde village atmosphere, particularly since nearby is a Women's Institute.

I trotted off to Jennie's, where I was fed with home-made chocolate cakes and tea and we shared scurrilous gossip. Her son Adam and I also built this amazing Lego construction, as you can see. It's a house, with a bridge over the road to allow cars to pass underneath. To be honest, the main reason I go round to visit is for the Lego. The rest is just a bonus.

Really, to get the proper value out of my Day Ranger, I should have gone home via Wigan or something. It was six o'clock though, and it was raining, and I'd had a long, exhausting day (I spent most of Saturday in bed recovering from my exertions). So Jennie dropped me off at Ormskirk station, and I Merseyrailed my way home, breathing in the pungent aftershave of the men headed for a night out in the city. I presume their plan is just to stun the females into submission, like mustard gas in the First World War.

A strange day; a day of memorials to the past and celebration of futures, of building new stations and building Lego houses, a day where I'd gone from an absolute low to a chocolate cake-fuelled high. Another two stations down though, and my first on the Manchester to Southport line - a good start.

Pomp and Circumstance

It's never a good sign when the woman on the counter looks at you with confusion after you ask for a ticket. "A what?", she asked.

"A Lancashire Day Ranger ticket," I repeated, turning another shade of crimson.

"Can we do those here?" she asked her colleague, who was busy sticking down a date stamp on a Trio ticket. Two thoughts ran through my head. The first was righteous indignation: yes you can, woman, you can buy them from any station, and if you turned your eye to that computerised screen and turned on a couple more brain cells I'm sure you'd be able to find it. The other thought, running parallel with the first and occasionally overwhelming it, was: Oh God, maybe you can't get it from here. Maybe I'll have to go to Lime Street. Can I just slip away without anyone in the queue noticing? Oh God.

Fortunately her colleague had in fact received training on the computerised ticketing screen, and was able to find the Lancashire Day Ranger ticket and sell it to me. I was able to finally advance into Liverpool Central.

I'm going to pause now, for a bit of background. Over the last week I've sent out a few e-mails to some local organisations, explaining about the blog and asking for info on various different projects. One e-mail went to Merseyrail asking what was going on at Central, and if there were any artists impressions or diagrams that I could have to put up here as a point of interest. I got a lovely e-mail back from a lady in Customer Relations, saying she was going to speak to Merseytravel and get back to me (I also got something else, but I'll cover that in another post sometime). A day later, on the Thursday, she forwarded me some information that Merseytravel had provided for her, a Word document clarifying the details of the Central project. Unfortunately, Merseytravel couldn't provide her with any illustrations for "commercial reasons". Fair enough, I thought.

So I was a bit surprised to walk into Liverpool Central the next day to find this poster:

...that is, a poster explaining about the building work at Liverpool Central and featuring artist's impressions of the MtoGo shop and an overhead plan. If you can't quite see it in that picture, here's a couple of snaps I took of the five foot high renditions on the fences round the building work:

I'm glad Merseytravel overcame their fears about sending these diagrams to an interested blogger somewhere on the internet, and seized the opportunity to instead show this commercially sensitive material to the several thousand people who go through Liverpool Central every week. Bravo!

Anyway. I boarded the train to Ormskirk, and got in there about eleven-thirty. There's always been a ticket inspector here, but today, presumably in honour of the esteemed visitors to come, they were out in force - half a dozen of them, in fact. I managed to get by and headed into the town centre itself.

Ormskirk was experiencing that brief sigh of collective relief it gets for the period when the students are on holiday. I used to work with disabled children on the playscheme here in the summer, and so I knew Ormskirk out of term time is a completely different place. It's like the town is dusting itself down after a particularly rigorous boxing match, and is tending to its wounds, ready for the next round. I bet the pubs hate it.

I had a bit of a mawkish wander round, letting out a sigh of sadness at the empty Woolworths where I had bought GoldenEye on video, and trying to remember what used to be where there is now a Costa coffee. Mawkishness leads to melancholy, which leads to, in my current state of fragile mental health, a sudden precipitous drop into depression, insecurity and fear.

I was gripped with panic. What on earth was I thinking of, coming all this way to gate crash an official event? I'm criminally, painfully shy; I don't go to parties and talk to strange people, I stay at home and watch Coronation Street. I've been this way since I was a child, and most of the time I can just about get by, but here I was trying to introduce myself into a social situation all on my own with no-one to hide behind. I felt scared and alone, and the depression that I've been fighting the last few weeks swept over me until I was drowning in self-loathing.

I found a bench outside the registry office and phoned the Bf in work, to express my terror and to try and get some words of consolation. He was supportive, of course, and he said to me: "You don't have to go. You can turn round and come home and it won't matter."

Yes, I thought. I can do that. My legs were weak with the emotional barracking, but I managed to get up and stagger round the corner to see the station with, blessedly, a train waiting on the platform. It was 12:25, so I'd be able to slip onto the train and off before the distinguished guests arrived.

I was halfway down Station Approach, being pleasantly surprised by the new look of the station building when a whole load of photographers, dignitaries and a town crier came out for some official snaps. They were early! I froze outside, then gingerly crept forward. I could take a couple of photos from a distance, I thought, and I snapped one.

The official opening, by Sir William McAlpine, chairman of the Railway Heritage Trust, had already taken place, alongside other local notables - the Mayor of Ormskirk, and so on. Once the paparazzi shots were done, everyone went back inside to press the flesh. I carried on past the station, pretending to be terribly interested in the new cycle racks so no-one would spot me, and so that I could take a picture of the new glass porch over the entrance.

"Scott? I recognised you from your blog." It was Keith Lumley, Network Rail's Media Relations Manager, and the man who had told me about the event in the first place. I blustered a hello, and he explained that the opening had been brought forward as Sir William had to leave early. "Do you want to come inside and have a look round?"

I was still scared, I can't pretend otherwise. But Keith was friendly and open, and he took me inside the new look ticket office. I have to say I was gobsmacked by the transformation. Previously, the station had consisted of two halves. On the one side was the ticket office, and on the other was a news stand. The passenger area consisted of a corridor between the two, which lead to cramped conditions and at busy times (such as on a Saturday night), queues out the door and into the road.

The whole area has now been opened up, and feels light and beautifully spaced. Yes, the Colour Tsars have been in, and there's a distinct yellow and grey tone to the building, but it's not as in your face as at other stations. The station successfully manages to marry its 19th century roots with 21st century needs. I particularly like the large, glass fronted ticket office. There's even a toilet now, and space for a vending machine.

Keith showed me the plaque unveiled by Sir William, then pressganged the Town Crier into having his photo taken with me. Please remember, when you see this photo, that I was recovering from an anxiety attack, was extremely embarrassed, and was slightly scared to be stood next to a man with a moustache last seen in the Coleherne c.1978:

I said to Keith that I was surprised there wasn't a retail area in the station, given that there used to be a newsagent. He took me next door, to what used to be a waiting area. I'd never been in it before, as it had always been either locked up or occupied by bored teens, but now it had been stripped out and refurbished to form new commercial space. Keith explained that this space was to be rented out for what ever business wanted it: a cafe or a bar would be ideal, especially as you can be waiting for a couple of hours if you miss a Preston train. At that moment, however, it was being used for the catering, and the dignitaries were scrabbling for sandwiches and cups of tea. I felt even more out of place and gatecrasher-y, so I thanked Keith for all his help and made a getaway. (Sorry if I seemed brusque Keith - it was nothing personal, I promise you!).

The platform area has also been refurbished, and slightly ambitiously renumbered into Platforms 1 & 2: in actual fact it's one long platform with buffers in the middle separating the electrified from the non-electrified lines. The distinctive yellow and grey Merseyrail signs are fully in evidence here, and inside the station, there are "cactus" line diagrams showing the stations available - one for the Northern Line, and one for the Preston route and connecting services. Also inside the station is a distinctive piece of wooden rafting under the roof, which makes it feel almost Scandinavian.

I took one last photo outside of the new, vastly improved Ormskirk station: the glass portico's new as well. It's a worthy project, done well, and all the stakeholders in the project - Network Rail, Merseytravel, Merseyrail and Lancashire County Council - should be proud of their achievement. I suspect if this had been Ormskirk station when I lived here, I'd have started Merseytarting a lot sooner.

It was only as I walked away that I realised the man stood outside the station was Councillor Mark Dowd, Chair of Merseytravel: I briefly considered turning round and accosting him. But I couldn't think of any pertinent questions to ask him, and I didn't want to seem like a drippy fanboy, so I carried on. Besides, I had a bus to catch. Yes, you read that right. A BUS.

Huskisson!

Friday the 31st July, and it was the day of Ormskirk station's grand reopening following its refurbishment. Keith Lumley from Network Rail had told me when the ceremony was going to be, so I thought I'd nip over to Liverpool with the Bf in the morning and then slowly make my way there to have a look.

The ceremony wasn't until 12:30 though, which left me with a morning in the city. I wanted to test my endurance levels, really. As I've said, ad nauseum, I've been weakened from the half a dozen antidepressants I've been taking, and so I thought a stride around the city centre would be a perfect test to see if I was getting any better. After a bracing latte in Caffe Nero to give me a valuable caffeine rush, I started my morning's job: Huskisson Hunting.

You may remember William Huskisson from this time last year, when I visited the area around Newton-le-Willows. The former MP for Liverpool went down in history as the first man to get run over by a train, when Stephenson's Rocket drove over his leg on the very first passenger train service. Huskisson was rushed to Eccles, but passed away from his injuries. His last action as he fell under the wheels was to shout his own name, and this is possibly my favourite "last words" ever.

As you can imagine, losing your MP in such a fashion makes an impression on a city, so I thought I'd have a scout around to find some of the signs of his legacy. The centrepiece of this trip would be his mausoleum, in St James's Gardens beside the Cathedral; but my first stop was the top of Duke Street. Well, actually, if I'm honest, my first stop was the seating in Campbell Square, because I was already exhausted after half an hour of walking. The morning was hot and I was dripping with sweat.

Huskisson's widow commissioned a statue to stand in the mausoleum, but it was considered too fine a piece of statuary to stay there. The design of the mausoleum means that it was only visible from one angle, and so it was moved to a more prominent position outside the Custom House. That was bombed to pieces during the war, so the statue was moved again, to a site on Princes Avenue in Toxteth.

Then the Toxteth riots happened. Somehow, word got round that Huskisson had been a slave trader (which he wasn't) and the statue was torn from its plinth. It was rescued from the rubble a second time, and given to the National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside for restoration.

I found the new, resited statue inside a private development of apartments at the top of Duke Street. It's technically not a public space, but the gates were open so I had a wander in and snapped a shot. From war time destruction, through the Toxteth riots, through long and painful restoration, to finally being secured away in a privatised apartment development: it's like the last sixty years of Liverpool within a statue.

There is, incidentally, some debate as to whether it's meant to be Huskisson at all. Some sources say that he has been dressed in the Roman toga as part of the classical trend of the time; others say that the statue is meant to represent a guardian standing over the tomb. Either way, the plaque on the bottom now names him as William Huskisson, and I was impressed by it as a piece of art.

I continued up Duke Street, into Chinatown, and headed towards the Georgian terraces that surround the cathedral. I love Georgian architecture; it's a much cherished dream of mine that I will one day live in a tall Georgian house overlooking a leafy square, with one of those huge staircases running up the centre. There I can sip coffees in the window seat, reading a novel, while a soft breeze drifts into the room. Then Russell Tovey walks in, wearing only a towel, and... sorry. Wrong dream.

The streets around the cathedral were already starting to get touristy, and it was only just gone nine o'clock. A coachload of Americans, three Japanese people, a Spanish couple trying to get a photo through the railings; it was lovely to hear all the different accents and languages. I turned into Hope Street, walking parallel with the cathedral itself, and once again got a stab of envy at the lucky people of Gambier Terrace, who wake up in their 19th century homes to that view.

Huskisson Street, which runs at right angles away from Hope Street, was already under construction when William took his plunge under the train. It's just a coincidence that you can see his mausoleum from the corner. Whitewashed, elegantly proportioned buildings stretch along the length of the street; sadly, almost every single building had a entry buzzer with four or five buttons, showing that it had been subdivided into flats and bedsits. It's a shame there aren't any good, large homes for families in city centres any more, only apartments.

Down onto Upper Parliament Street, and then I was round and plunging into the dark green hole that is St James' Gardens & Cemetery. I had never been here before. Originally a quarry, the site was turned into the city's cemetery in the 19th Century, and then, when it became too full, it was converted into parkland. It's acquired an unfortunate reputation as a place where society's darker elements have congregated. I first heard of it when I was at college, as the place where an acquaintance would go to find prostitutes; it was also known as a hangout for drug dealers and users. In recent years there's been a concerted effort to clean the place up; a Friends society has been established, and the City Council has also put more effort into its maintenance.

The morning of my visit, the only upsetting sight was a man jogging in lycra shorts. Without wanting to sound like a raddled old Goth, I do love old Victorian cemeteries, with their air of quiet respect and awe for the departed. St James had a similar feel, enhanced by the high rocky walls of the old quarry; it was as though I had descended down beneath ground to where the dead lay. The only sound was the grinding of a lawnmower.

Huskisson's mausoleum lies at the centre of the gardens, surrounded by lawn and close to a natural spring found in the 18th century. It's recently been restored and, as temples to the dead go, it's not bad. It suffers, funnily enough, by being empty. I can understand the objections of the citizens back in Victorian times that you could only see his statue from the front. After all, they didn't have Total Wipeout to watch on a Saturday night, so staring at statues would be pretty good entertainment, and no-one likes to queue. Now though, you peer inside and all you see is an empty plinth. Perhaps it's time William was rescued from inside a yuppie development and restored to where he was intended.

By this point I was frankly dripping with perspiration, and feeling quite weak. I needed a sit down and a rest to recover. And where better to seek sanctuary than inside a Cathedral? With tired legs I mounted the steep tunnel in the rock to the entrance, and stepped inside the blessedly cool building. I tried to look as though I was there for some sort of theological reason as I collapsed into a pew.

I needn't have bothered trying to look penitent. I've said before that I'm a Godless soul, but even I can appreciate the beauty and the majesty of religious architecture. The walls soared above me, red sandstone with intricate carvings and lined with holy symbology. I stared up at the cross space above me and felt dizzy.

But it wasn't real. As my shirt dried and my head settled I became aware of other sensations beyond the religious. The signs asking for donations. The clink of coffee cups. The smell of toast from the "Mezzanine Cafe/Bar". My eyes rested on the seat in front, and the tiny plaque: Presented by Miss B Hasford. It may as well have said This seating experience is brought to you by nPower. It was obsolete as a place of God when they finished it in 1978; Britain had pretty much thrown away any pretence of being a Christian nation. So Liverpool Cathedral had to find a new purpose, and here it was: tourist mecca (well, maybe "mecca" is the wrong word). Alton Towers with crucifixes. Come in, look around, buy a souvenir key ring and a brochure and go home. Tick it off your Big I-Spy Book Of Liverpool Sights and head for the Beatles Story. The Cathedral swallows tourists, but still, the glass and steel bar seemed far more popular than the altar, all spending, spending, spending.

I mean, this is nothing new, I know; churches have always passed round the collection plate, held the annual fair, stuck a giant thermometer on the front door for the Roof Appeal. That's always had a sort of promise behind it, a quid pro quo; you give us fifty pee, we'll look into getting you through the Pearly Gates.

Now they've given up on the promise, because they know, and we know, that no-one believes it any more. The signs asking for donations do so "to maintain this wonderful building", not as alms for the poor. If you hand over your money now you won't get a pat on the head from a kindly vicar and a hint that he'll put in a good word upstairs: your gratification is now instant, because for £4.99 you can buy this lovely guide to the cathedral, or a double mocha, or an egg mayonnaise sandwich. The last great building of God built in this country, and even as it rose above the city, its purpose was dwindling. It's had to perform a paradigm shift, and really, they should just give up on all the religious stuff altogether and let the money lenders into the temple (they probably already have done; a poster near the entrance advises that the building is available for corporate events). They can't call it a House of God any longer. It's a net for catching money.

I love the Cathedral as a building and as an architectural masterpiece. I don't know if I love it still pretending to have any kind of authority. From what I could see, rather than turning to the Archbishop for spiritual guidance, we may as well ask Rafa Benitez; his particular house of worship seems to provoke far more reverence, and is better value for money too.

I'd dried off and recovered, so I nipped to the loo (I'd like to say this is the first time I've pissed in a house of worship, but apparently I mistook the font for a urinal at my christening) and then made my exit. It was getting on for 10:30; I needed to make tracks, literally, if I was going to get to Ormskirk by lunchtime.

I headed down Rodney Street towards the city centre, and paused at a traffic lights to wait for the green man. My eye was caught by one of those plaques the city has erected to commemorate its famous sons and daughters. Henry Booth, 1789-1869: Founder & Director, The Liverpool & Manchester Railway Company, Born Here. I was delighted. After a morning following William Huskisson, I had, entirely coincidentally, ended up outside the home of the man who indirectly caused his death. It was a strange sort of circle I'd walked there. I'd almost say it was divine intervention - but I don't believe in that sort of thing...

More Money Than Sense

I've pretty much stayed away from eBay, for one very good reason: sometimes lust for an object drives me into a buying frenzy, I get a red mist, and then a month later I get a credit card bill that gives me night sweats. I'd bought one item, total, from there: a CD of Shirley Bassey Sings Bond, where The Bass has a crack at the Bond themes they didn't let her sing the first time round. If I tell you that it features a reggae version of We Have All The Time In The World, with Dame Shirley belting out the lyrics over a Bontempi organ backing track, you may understand why it took me five years before I went back into that dark world of online auctions.

An idle afternoon at home though saw me tapping "Merseyrail" into the search box. Most of the results were either photos of various stations, or tickets for different destinations. None of these ticked my personal box. Two things did though - which is why I am now the proud owner of a badge saying "I get around by Merseyrail Underground". Yes, a badge: it's 1982 where I am. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Perhaps I could wear it out on my next tarting trip? After all, I've never been to casualty with a broken nose.

What's worse is I paid nearly four quid for it - about five minutes from the end some twat turned up and bumped the bid up. I ended up dripping with sweat, pumping away at the refresh button like a loon and almost hyperventilating. Again: I don't eBay very often.

The second item is rather more interesting (and actually ended up being cheaper than the bloody badge). The Story of Merseyrail, a booklet printed to promote the opening of the Loop and Link in 1978. The booklet covers the history of the railways on Merseyside, from the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway back in 1830 up until nationalisation and then, in the sixties, the plan hatched between British Railways and the Liverpool Corporation to create the system we know and love today.

It's a great little booklet, with some fascinating photos of the tunneling works in progress, and some curious little anachronisms. The map on the inside cover, for example, showing the various different lines, with the Northern Line ending at Garston and the Wirral Line ending at Rock Ferry. It was another fifteen years before the system reached its present size. It trumpets the reconstruction of Sandhills, just as another reconstruction of Sandhills is coming to an end thirty years later.

Here's a picture of Her Maj unveiling the plaque at Moorfields before being presented "with a commemorative ticket to Kirkby". Body language experts will be able to tell that she's thinking, "Oh, gee. Thanks."

It's also a little bit depressing, if I'm honest. The last couple of pages are entitled "Services", and this is where the PR comes in, telling you, the reader and future passenger, just what a difference the new Merseyrail is going to make to your life.

The essential advantage of a railway system for short-distance urban journeys is that it is not affected by the congestion to which road transport is liable, and it is for this reason that many major cities throughout the world have chosen railways as the answer to their transport problems...If the railway is underground the advantages are even more evident...they enjoy faster journey times, and their trains are less affected by bad weather conditions...

And then you get the really heartbreaking bit:

Present financial stringency has dictated a slowing down in the pace of development of local rail services but the changes that came to fruition in 1977 are intended as the basis for further enhancement of the system.

In the thirty years since this has been published, the pace of development hasn't so much slowed down as stopped. The whoops of joy that I and others I know let out when Lord Adonis announced that a piddly bit of the Liverpool-Manchester line would be electrified shows how low our expectations have fallen. Don't get me wrong, Lord Adonis has been deified in this house for his announcement, and he's welcome to come round for a cup of "thank you" tea any time. But back in the 70s, they were talking about electrifying the St Helens line and sending it underground, into the city, with new stations for the University and at Catherine Street. It was going to be a metro system, whizzing people into the powerful, rich city of Liverpool, because public transport was the future. At one point in the booklet, it talks of Moorfields, "which may well become the busiest passenger station in Great Britain outside London". In 2009, it's not even the busiest station in Liverpool.

That Bloody Woman became PM, and all of a sudden the wonderful, glowing Merseyrail system became an irritation, a place where the unemployed and the lower classes - and worse, Liverpudlians - congregated. Public transport was where you went if you were a failure, and Liverpool was the biggest "failure" of all.. Merseyrail became starved and was reduced to a husk.

It was a tribute to the planners back in the 60s that Merseyrail was conceived, it's a tribute to the workers in the 70s that it was built, and it continues to be a credit to the city in the 21st Century. The Story of Merseyrail is nice to have as a time capsule of optimism and hope. Plus, the back cover has the little swirly "cog" Merseyrail logo on it, and you can't help but love that.

The Power Trip

I passed my driving test - did I mention? It was in April last year. I'd reached 31, and decided it was about time I took driving lessons. I'd started having them when I was 17, for about three months, but then I ran out of money and so the lessons stopped. I restarted them in January 2008, and then passed my test first time, so you can either say it took me 14 years to learn to drive, or six months. I prefer the latter.

Anyway, I have my dream car: a Mini Cooper in British Racing Green. I have coveted this car since I was a child, even before the BMW remake. The Mini is such a fun, exciting little car, so full of charm and personality. And British Racing Green (always British Racing Green, never just "green") is a classy, elegant colour, which also carries with it the subtle understated hint of speed and glamour from decades of Formula One racing. That's Formula One back in the days when it was interesting, and cars that looked like they were made of sex were driven by men with pencil moustaches, just before they sipped champagne over the baccarat table in Monte Carlo.

This is all well and good, but as you may have noticed from the fact that it's taken me fifteen months to get round to mentioning it, I'm not a big fan of driving. I understand its practicality, and the freedom it grants you, but really, I'm a born passenger. How can sitting behind the wheel of a car on the M6, constantly on the alert and perceiving those hazards, possibly compare with the experience of watching the countryside whizz by from a Pendolino? How can you compare arriving in London from the North via the Edgware Road and the nightmare of one way streets - not to mention the horrors of finding a parking space - to stepping onto the platform at Euston and progressing to (be still my beating heart) the magical London Underground? And most important of all, it is utterly impossible for me to read while I'm driving. I get through a novel a week on my commute to Crewe. All that reading time would be lost to me if I drove, my literacy levels would plummet, and I'd end up a gibbering idiot, reading Dan Brown novels. The only time driving wins over a train is when I get a good stretch of empty motorway and I have Girls Aloud playing at maximum on the iPod; London Midland have asked me to stop singing Something Kinda Oooh at full belt on their trains, but I can let rip in the car.

So the poor Mini Cooper gets neglected. In fact, to my shame, I hadn't driven it since Christmas. In that time, the battery had wound its way down to zero, and so today the Bf and I decided we would have to give it a good run out to get it back up to full power. It also placated those terrible guilty feelings I'd had for ignoring it.

The plan was simply to drive around for a while and give it a recharge. We'd both woken up at four a.m. this morning, for some reason, so we were out bright and early; it was seven when we left the house. Which was lucky, because it meant there was no-one about to see me grunt and moan as I pushed the car out the front gates and down the road. Finally it whirred into life, and the dust that had accumulated during its exile in the garage was blown away.

We ended up on the M53, heading south towards Wales, and just cruised along. As I've explained before, the Bf is actually from North Wales, so he had a bit of a history trip through Flint and Queensferry, passing on scurrilous local gossip and rumour from the days when he was a Councillor there. We stuck to the local roads, rather than taking the all-conquering A55, and soon we were passing through the funshine worlds of Prestatyn and Rhyl, places which are somehow managing to continue to exist as holiday destinations in the 21st Century. I felt like winding down the window and shouting at them, "you can get EasyJet flights to Malaga for fifty quid! You don't have to spend your fortnight pressed up against one another in a flatulence filled caravan by a sewage outlet pipe! You can enjoy yourself in the sun!" Through the tunnels at Conwy - I love tunnels; Freudians, please don't write in - and then curving round the coast, accompanied by the North Wales railway line.

After my last post, the love letter to Mike Parker's Map Addict, I'd hunted out his Great Welsh Roads tv series on the net, and I'd enjoyed his exploration of the byways of the principality. In it, he'd derided Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch as not much more than a visitor's centre with a sign to recommend it. I told the Bf this, which lead to a debate about whether Llanfair PG was on the mainland or Anglesey, which lead to us wondering if the satnav would have the name in its index (it only got as far as Llanfairpwllgwyngyll before giving up), which lead to us programming it in, which lead to us turning up outside the visitor's centre at 9:30.

Technically - technically - this is completely out of the remit of this blog. It breaks all the rules. We arrived and left by car, without personally touching the railway (I walked onto the platform, and a service to Birmingham New Street arrived while we were there, so there was a bit of train action). It's not on the Merseyrail map. It's not even in England.

But it's also one of the most famous train stations in the world, a village contrived around a railway halt with a big old fake name. If you didn't know already, the name was invented in the 19th Century as a publicity stunt; the locals wisely realised it probably wasn't going to get famous based purely on its scenic beauty alone, because you can get that pretty much anywhere in Wales. They went for the outrageous boast instead, and the longest place name in Britain was born. Translated into English, it means "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave", and as a precocious child pronouncing the word correctly was one of my party tricks (the others were being able to spell supercalifragilistic-
expialidocious and twisting my elbow through almost 360 degrees). I've long since forgotten how to pronounce it, and instead I just do the same thing all English people do - go "Llanfairpwyllgwyn-mumblemumble
mumble-gogogoch". Everyone loves the gogogoch. Rather wonderfully, the station sign actually has a pronunciation guide there on the platform for you. I must lobby Merseyrail to include one of those at Meols.

So here it is: me at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndro-
bwllllantysiliogogogoch, under the station sign. Please ignore my hairy legs - if I'd have known I was going to be photographed, I'd have dressed appropriately.

After that, we had a wander round the featureless visitor's centre, a sort of shopping mall of twee (the station building itself was of no interest whatsoever). If I tell you that it had a Julian Graves and a Ponden Mill, you'll get some idea of the middle of the road target market. There was a little Hornby shop, and I stroked £185-worth of Eurostar train. The Bf and I once again debated whether we should use our cellar to create a model railway layout, before once again realising that we weren't much interested in playing with the trains. I wanted to build the stations, and he wanted to dabble with the electrics, so we stepped away from the shop quickly before credit cards started appearing.

After Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, we went back onto the A5 to Holyhead, so that we could say we'd been all the way to the end. Is this the only place in Britain where the single digit road (A5) is the local route, while the primary one (the A55) has double digits? I'll have to have a scout round CBRD sometime to find out. Holyhead had ground to a halt for some sort of festival, seemingly in honour of Abba, because it was lead by a van playing a CD of session singers doing the choruses to all their hits. Behind them was a slow moving parade which consisted of little girls in pink dresses sitting in estate cars with the boot open, Sea Cadets, and, somewhat improbably, a group of boys dressed as 18th century soldiers, looking like they were getting ready to board the boat to Ireland to take it back for King George.

After that, the rest of the town couldn't help but look a bit drab, so we turned around and headed for home. The Mini practically purred all the way from its day of attention, and as an added bonus, Any Questions on Radio 4 featured Peters Tatchell and Hitchens, both of whom were predictably entertaining (though for entirely different reasons). I hope the car enjoyed it, and won't feel too bad when I almost inevitably ignore it again for another seven months...

Maps and Legends

When I was 12, my mum and dad went to a parent’s evening at school. In between being told how amazing I was, they discussed my home life with my teacher, and especially my habit of sitting and reading maps like they were books. This caused them a great deal of bemusement and laughter.

The next day, Mrs Gan, my form tutor, asked me to stay behind in the break. She sat me down and told me never, ever to lose that love of maps; that I should basically ignore my parents and continue to pore over atlases and Ordnance Survey as much as I like, because it gives you a love for travel, and adventure, and exploration. Thank you, Mrs Gan.

I was reminded of all this by a fantastic book I discovered in Waterstones – Map Addict, by Mike Parker. In it, Parker recounts his own lifetime of map love, and how it’s shaped him as a person. He also goes into the history of maps themselves, in a brilliant, thoroughly readable way. I bought the book to read on holiday, and put it this way: I’d finished it before the plane landed in Preveza. It was funny, interesting and just really rather wonderful. The chapter on the shenanigans around the Greenwich Meridian are worth the price of admission alone.

I’m still being guided by maps; this whole blog’s about adding flesh to the Merseyrail map – filling in the gaps between the ticks. No tart is complete without me first planning my route through A-Z and Ordnance Survey. It was great to read a book by someone who shared that love of mile posts, lines of gradient, and coppices. Go get it.

While we're in the mood to talk about maps, here’s the latest state of the map update – to whit:

The majority of the untarted stations are now lying outside Merseyside itself, so they’ll need a bit of work to get at – no Saveaways for me. I’m also still ill, unfortunately, and part of the symptoms is that I nod off if I have to walk more than, ooh, about three yards. So I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get out there again – this is an extremely annoying state of affairs, trust me. I am determined to do some more tarting soon though, so watch this space…