In message , Steve Walker
writes
In message , Ian Jelf
writes
"The Difference Between America and England is that Americans think
100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long

I *do* like that! :-)) Is it your quote, Steve?!

No, it's, Earle Hitchner, whoever he is.
US/Irish author and columnist, I believe.

or "I'm going to Edinburgh, which way out of this ********?"

At the risk of rising to the bait, London is anything but a "********"
in my view! ;-)

I'd say much the same about any large built-up area.
Ah, then as a lover of towns, that's where we'd disagree.

The only reason why central Swindon, for example, is better than
central London is that there's much further to run to get out of
London...
If I were to tell you that I do walking tours of Swindon....... (As
well as a lot of other "unlikely" places.)
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

"Ian Jelf" wrote in message
news
In message , Ian F.
writes
"Mike Cawood, HND BIT" wrote in message
...

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...559786,00.html
Some people should have been strangled at birth.

It's the silly season when PRs make up stuff like this to interest editors
who are struggling to fill papers but are devoid of any real hard content.
Don't treat it too seriously.

As I've written here before, the one about Windsor Castle and Heathrow
really does happen (and not infrequently, too).

I worked in a Tourist Information Centre for five years and this sort of
things is actually quite plentiful! (And by no means confined to US
visitors, as is sometimes implied. People from other parts of Britain
going to London get some *very* strange ideas about the Capital and its
geography!)

As some of you may be aware I work on that big white wheel in central London
and part of the job includes answering questions as best as we can. Trouble
is that some of them are, well, tricky*.....

"What side of the river is Westminster Bridge?"
"Why don't you put a clock up on a big tower so people can see the time?"
"It's one o'clock. Why did the bell only ring once?"
"I never knew Paris was so close to London that we could see the Eiffel
Tower from the top of the wheel!"
"Do those boatrides take you on the river?"

On a railway related note, try directing people to Waterloo or Westminster
stations (both about 400m away) when they're too lazy to walk there.
"Where's the nearest cab stand?" is a common response from North American
accented lard-arses, "I'm not gonna walk all that way, it's too hard on the
feet".

Nick
*Tricky to answer without cracking up!



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Nick Pedley wrote:

As some of you may be aware I work on that big white wheel in central London
and part of the job includes answering questions as best as we can. Trouble
is that some of them are, well, tricky*.....

"What side of the river is Westminster Bridge?"
"Why don't you put a clock up on a big tower so people can see the time?"
"It's one o'clock. Why did the bell only ring once?"
"I never knew Paris was so close to London that we could see the Eiffel
Tower from the top of the wheel!"
"Do those boatrides take you on the river?"

I wonder how many times the tourist information centre in Leeds gets asked
"how do I get to the castle?"
--
Chris Johns

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:22:16 -0000, Nick Pedley put finger to keyboard
and typed:


As some of you may be aware I work on that big white wheel in central London
and part of the job includes answering questions as best as we can. Trouble
is that some of them are, well, tricky*.....

"I never knew Paris was so close to London that we could see the Eiffel
Tower from the top of the wheel!"

At the risk of asking another tricky question, what is it that they're
seeing that prompts this remark?

"Do those boatrides take you on the river?"

Well, they could be on a lake.

On a railway related note, try directing people to Waterloo or Westminster
stations (both about 400m away) when they're too lazy to walk there.
"Where's the nearest cab stand?" is a common response from North American
accented lard-arses, "I'm not gonna walk all that way, it's too hard on the
feet".

Keeps the cabbies happy, no doubt.

Mark
--
Visit: http://www.GoogleFun.info - fun and games with Google!
"Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same"

Nick Pedley wrote:
[about lazy tourists at the Dome]
On a railway related note, try directing people to Waterloo or Westminster
stations (both about 400m away) when they're too lazy to walk there.
"Where's the nearest cab stand?" is a common response from North American
accented lard-arses, "I'm not gonna walk all that way, it's too hard on the
feet".

I was rather amused when getting the Tube from Oxford Circus to
Waterloo at about 11AM on New Year's Eve: a large group of weighty
North Americans bustled onto the train at Charing Cross, only to
unbustle again at Embankment.

Sadly, I didn't get to see if they were using paper single tickets...

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

"John B" wrote in message
oups.com...
Nick Pedley wrote:
[about lazy tourists at the Dome]
On a railway related note, try directing people to Waterloo or
Westminster
stations (both about 400m away) when they're too lazy to walk there.
"Where's the nearest cab stand?" is a common response from North
American
accented lard-arses, "I'm not gonna walk all that way, it's too hard on
the
feet".

I was rather amused when getting the Tube from Oxford Circus to
Waterloo at about 11AM on New Year's Eve: a large group of weighty
North Americans bustled onto the train at Charing Cross, only to
unbustle again at Embankment.

Sadly, I didn't get to see if they were using paper single tickets...

I suppose that they could have been changing to the District/Circle at
Embankment. Of course, a Londoner would have gone out of the side door of
Charing Cross Main Line, and walked down Villiers Street (or along the
walkway and down the steps by Embankment).

Peter

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:22:16 -0000, Nick Pedley put finger to keyboard
and typed:

"I never knew Paris was so close to London that we could see the
Eiffel Tower from the top of the wheel!"

At the risk of asking another tricky question, what is it that they're
seeing that prompts this remark?

The Blackpool Tower, of course!

(Actually, Crystal Palace television transmitter.)

John Rowland wrote:
Mark Goodge wrote:

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:22:16 -0000, Nick Pedley put finger to keyboard
and typed:

"I never knew Paris was so close to London that we could see the
Eiffel Tower from the top of the wheel!"

At the risk of asking another tricky question, what is it that they're
seeing that prompts this remark?


The Blackpool Tower, of course!

(Actually, Crystal Palace television transmitter.)

It had to be.

Did they ask why there were two of them?

"John B" wrote in message
oups.com...
Nick Pedley wrote:
[about lazy tourists at the Dome]
On a railway related note, try directing people to Waterloo or
Westminster
stations (both about 400m away) when they're too lazy to walk there.
"Where's the nearest cab stand?" is a common response from North American
accented lard-arses, "I'm not gonna walk all that way, it's too hard on
the
feet".

I was rather amused when getting the Tube from Oxford Circus to
Waterloo at about 11AM on New Year's Eve: a large group of weighty
North Americans bustled onto the train at Charing Cross, only to
unbustle again at Embankment.

Sadly, I didn't get to see if they were using paper single tickets...

Ahem, *blush*, ahem, the ticket seller refused to sell me a ticket way back
in 1994 when I was young and not sure of the route. They told how to walk
there which pleased me as I saved some cash.
FWIW I have advised people to join the District Line at Westminster by
walking over Westminster bridge but they still insisted on going backwards
to Waterloo to ride the train and change platforms 'as it made more sense'.
I don't get it as you can see Westminster station from where I work and the
way to get there but not Waterloo.

Nick
P.S. I did work at the Dome but that's not where I'm talking about today!



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 19:13:21 -0000, Peter Masson put finger to keyboard
and typed:


"John B" wrote in message
roups.com...

I was rather amused when getting the Tube from Oxford Circus to
Waterloo at about 11AM on New Year's Eve: a large group of weighty
North Americans bustled onto the train at Charing Cross, only to
unbustle again at Embankment.

Sadly, I didn't get to see if they were using paper single tickets...

I suppose that they could have been changing to the District/Circle at
Embankment. Of course, a Londoner would have gone out of the side door of
Charing Cross Main Line, and walked down Villiers Street (or along the
walkway and down the steps by Embankment).

Well, that is one of the disadvantages of the Beck map; it doesn't
give much in the way of clues about the actual geographical proximity
of some stations (or, in the suburbs, their lack of proximity). For
people who are already familiar with the above-ground geography, a
topological transport map is fine, but for those who don't know their
way around then it can be somewhat misleading.

Mark
--
Visit: http://www.FridayFun.net - jokes, lyrics and ringtones
"And so we're told this is the golden age"