Lord Bonkers' Diary: "Take your hands off our cox"

Saturday

Each year the winning crew in the Boat Race is invited – “lured” might be a more honest way of putting it – to Rutland Water to challenge the eight from our own University of Rutland at Belvoir. With its jagged rocks, submerged wrecks and wartime mines, the course offers a challenge all its own.

As is customary, Rutland wins.

When the surviving Cambridge oarsmen attempt to introduce one of their customs to the event, I tell them shortly to “Take your hands off our cox.”

You see, the Rutland crew is traditionally coxed by a Well-Behaved Orphan – they may not be that good at steering, but they are all Terribly Light. As I had seen Ruttie (my old friend the Rutland Water Monster) lurking in the deep, and as Ofsted has been asking Awkward Questions lately, I decided that throwing the winning cox into the water might not be such a good idea.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary

• Freddie and Fiona at Remain
• The jellyfish of the Lakeland fells
• Reviewing David Laws’ memoirs

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Cambridge to St Ives in 1968

Lovely colour footage of the Cambridge to St Ives branch taken in 1968 - click on the picture above to watch it on the BFI site.

The closure notices were already up, but passenger services survived for another two years.

There was a persistent campaign to reopen it after that, but today the trackbed forms part of the Cambridge guided busway.

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Bid to reopen the Northampton to Bedford line

From the Northampton Chronicle & Echo today:

Rail campaigners fighting for a link between Northampton and Bedford have launched an online petition. 

The English Regional Transport Association wants to ensure that the land and track that would be used for the link are protected and is calling for the route to be re-opened. 

The group says the route would link Northampton and Cambridge, which it says has been identified as a priority in local growth plans.

This sounds a good idea but, given the amount of redevelopment currently taking place in the relevant part of Northampton, I fear the campaign may have come too late.

Anyway, you can visit the English Regional Transport Association blog and sign their petition if you wish.

If this line ever is reopened, trains will run again across the Bridge Street level crossing in Northampton. It is shown in the photo above, though I believe the rails were removed from it last summer.

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20’s Plenty: The Move to Safer Speeds in the UK

A video by Streetfilms:

For those watching in the United States, this film is like a road map to how to get public support and your community energized around lower speed limits. 

New York City may have recently set it's city speed limits at 25 mph, but to keep driving down serious injuries and fatalities, we should be following the example set by the UK.

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