Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

silvercar

I'm going to recommend an app called citymapper. It gives you route options on public transport and real time schedule information, it even buzzes you when you get near your stop on the bus.

Not sure it covers the whole of the UK, [STRIKE]but certainly most cities[/STRIKE].

I checked. The good news is you can use it on a PC. The bad news is that it is London/ Birmingham/Manchester only in the UK.

SingleSue

LydiaJ wrote: »

I used to think I couldn't drive for much more than an hour at a time. After that long, I'd get tired and tell LNE that it was his go. Then he left, and I found myself driving my kids from where we live (south of Birmingham but north of Bristol) to visit my friends in Midlothian. I found that when I had to, I could drive for very much longer than I'd thought I could when I had an alternative. I don't have Sue's joint condition, though, so I'm glad she's not planning to attempt it.

I used to drive for hours, didn't think anything of it to be honest and couldn't understand why others couldn't. I had no choice as I was the only driver out of me and ex for most of our time together with him finally passing his test quite late on in our marriage (about 2002 ish). I didn't mind though, I loved driving.

I now have a battle trying to get some of those close to me to understand I can't do it anymore.

zagubov

silvercar wrote: »

I'm going to recommend an app called citymapper. It gives you route options on public transport and real time schedule information, it even buzzes you when you get near your stop on the bus.

Not sure it covers the whole of the UK, [STRIKE]but certainly most cities[/STRIKE].

I checked. The good news is you can use it on a PC. The bad news is that it is London/ Birmingham/Manchester only in the UK.

It is good and I use it a lot.
The descriptions of travel remind me of how much safer it was back in the day.
Growing up in a northern suburb of Glasgow and travelling to a school south of the river I was expected to get the bus, the underground and then another bus in each direction every day, when I was about 10. Nowadays I know people twice that age who'd find that problematic.:(

Masomnia

I don't know how anyone navigated London, particularly buses, before Citymapper.

LydiaJ

Masomnia wrote: »

I don't know how anyone navigated London, particularly buses, before Citymapper.

I have hair-raising memories of the first time I visited my friend after she moved to the docklands. I worked out a route from the end of the M4 to her house, photocopied the relevant pages of a London A-Z, and highlighted the route. I had 8 or 9 loose sheets of A4 on my lap, with big marker pen numbers on the corners to help me get them in the right order. As long as everything went OK, I was fine, but as soon as something went wrong, I was completely lost until I could pull over, study the road names, and find them on the map (or in the book if I was really far off course). It was the thing that changed my mind about satnavs. When they first came out, I thought they were for wimps - after all, I can read a map, and am quite a competent navigator. We used to do long journeys in unfamiliar territory with LNE driving and me navigating, and only occasionally got slightly off course. It was only after becoming single again that I realised that, yes, I can read a map. I can also drive a car. What I can't do is both at the same time.

Masomnia

Haha yes sounds exactly like me. I was the same about Sat Navs, didn't want to rely too much on technology and lose my map reading skills. It was getting lost in Leeds that did it for me! A friend of mine lived in Headingley, so I thought as long as I follow signs for the Cricket Club I should get close enough. The signs disappeared, I got very lost, and I ended up going all the way round that one way ring round via local hospitals and estates!

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

Silently, unnoticed .... quiche has died.

In the past you could always rely on a really good selection of super sounding quiches in supermarkets. When I buy them, I usually buy the basics range at £1.... but I used to look at the nicer sounding ones before I picked up the cheapest.

So I've got "quiche" on my pig-fest list .... and, at the "big shop" earlier, I even looked at some and couldn't see any "nice" ones, just regular flavours. Lots of them, in different sizes, but, essentially combinations of cheese, ham, onion, bacon in the main.

So I'm now looking on mysupermarket to see who has what - and, while there is a fairly large range of sizes/combinations, they do seem to mainly be "all the same".

So, I figure, maybe I should just drop it from the list. I won't starve without it, it's not a core essential to the week....

But I am disappointed at the lack of range that used to be available 5-10 years ago.

I could knock something up myself if I'm that bothered... but I'm not.

I bought a really nice one from Marks a couple of weeks ago....... Except they called it a tart. Goat's cheese and broccoli tart. It was scrummy!
Waitrose used to do a really nice goat's cheese and spinach one as well.

Funny thing about quiches......originally they were called flans. Then we went all French and they became Quiches. Now it seems we are going back to English, and calling it tart!

Have you noticed how savoury things are being called by names hitherto reserved for sweet things? eg. Savoury 'jams' to have with meat dishes, and now savoury tarts.

Have we had a savoury custard yet?

Pyxis

Masomnia wrote: »

I don't know how anyone navigated London, particularly buses, before Citymapper.

In the 1970s I used to buy Red Rover bus tickets in London, which were basically a month's season ticket for the whole network. They also provided a very comprehensive map of the whole network.
It was brilliant.
Since the bus companies were split up, it's been much more difficult to get a decent bus route map anywhere.
Not talking about London now, where I haven't lived for some time, but of my current place, you can get maps of bits, but I can no longer seem to get one of a large area showing all the different companies' routes, so it's more difficult to plan.

LydiaJ wrote: »

I have hair-raising memories of the first time I visited my friend after she moved to the docklands. I worked out a route from the end of the M4 to her house, photocopied the relevant pages of a London A-Z, and highlighted the route. I had 8 or 9 loose sheets of A4 on my lap, with big marker pen numbers on the corners to help me get them in the right order. As long as everything went OK, I was fine, but as soon as something went wrong, I was completely lost until I could pull over, study the road names, and find them on the map (or in the book if I was really far off course). It was the thing that changed my mind about satnavs. When they first came out, I thought they were for wimps - after all, I can read a map, and am quite a competent navigator. We used to do long journeys in unfamiliar territory with LNE driving and me navigating, and only occasionally got slightly off course. It was only after becoming single again that I realised that, yes, I can read a map. I can also drive a car. What I can't do is both at the same time.

Ah, but preparation is the key.
I work out the route on the map, then make a list of the key roads and junctions, with roundabouts indicated by a circle and things like "Turn L at A123"
"Turn right at O onto B234"
"Second left to Madagascar Road"
Etc. etc.
That list is then inserted onto a pad attached by suckers to the windscreen just slightly below my main line of sight.
Whenever I need to stop at lights or in traffic queues, I recheck my next turn-off or junction from that list right in front of me.

These days I also do the Google Earth virtual drive-through as well, marking any obvious landmarks I see on there onto my lst.

I only get lost when I don't do a list and I try to wing it.

I must admit, it is more difficult in central London, because the distances between junctions are very short indeed, and if you are in the wrong lane, you are trapped and can be forced to go in a direction you don't want to! Plus all the one-ways can make life difficult, even with a map, as not all maps show the one-ways.
Even without Google Earth, though, I still did manage to navigate through London, even through the City, :eek:, without a Satnav, and I still don't have one.

vivatifosi

[STRIKE][/STRIKE]

Masomnia wrote: »

I don't know how anyone navigated London, particularly buses, before Citymapper.

I used to follow taxis as they knew where they were going. Obviously I didn't know where they were going, but knew that it would be the shortest route between two places.

So I got to know the main roads first to get my bearings, e.g. Finchley Road, Marylebone Road, then followed taxis thinking,"I want to go east from here, he's going east". Then follow them.

I haven't driven into London for over a year, but know my way around the west end, the city and north west London reasonably well.

I never bought a satnav, but do now have Waze on my phone, which is absolutely brilliant.

chris_m

Masomnia wrote: »

Haha yes sounds exactly like me. I was the same about Sat Navs, didn't want to rely too much on technology and lose my map reading skills. It was getting lost in Leeds that did it for me! A friend of mine lived in Headingley, so I thought as long as I follow signs for the Cricket Club I should get close enough. The signs disappeared, I got very lost, and I ended up going all the way round that one way ring round via local hospitals and estates!

I first got a satnav after my first visit to the Lake District. I'd be driving along with an OS map on the passenger seat, get to a turning but not be sure if it was the one I wanted, nowhere to pull up, traffic behind me, etc. So I'd carry on until I found somewhere to pull over, to find that it had been the turning and I now needed to find somewhere to turn round and hope that I didn't have the same doubt going the other way.

That happened all too frequently, so when I got home I bough a PDA with satnav software - and OS map software so I can use it for walking too. In the latter case, I always have a map and compass with me as well though - just in case.

Both my cars came with satnav built in, so the PDA is only used for walking now.