Chapter One- Genesis

Epigraph:

Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum
Voices calling, voices crying
Some are born and some are dying
It’s Alpha and Omega’s kingdom come-

When The Man Comes Around, Johnny Cash

Benjitales- an explanation

I’m starting a new ongoing series of blog posts this month. Benjitales.

On Christmas Day evening I noticed that one of the people I follow on twitter was scouting about for a challenge for 2012. I also noticed that @nicktheowl was giving some good suggestions. I wanted a challenge for 2012 and so asked him for something.

BBC Panorama: Train Fares- Are we being taken for a ride?

So, here’s a thing: I’m going to be on telly on Monday 23rd of Jan on the BBC Panorama programme “Train fares- are we being taken for a ride?”

Happy Christmas!

Image via Wikipedia

Happy Christmas.

Thanks for reading my blog posts through 2011.

Press Release: Wellington railway station misses out on millions of pounds of investment again!

Press Release

Mike Ion, a Telford and Wrekin Borough Councillor is writing to London Midland and the Department for Transport to ask why, yet gain, Wellington railway station has missed out on Government funding to make stations more easily accessible under a new ‘Access for All’ Mid-Tier programme. £37.5 million has been made available for upgrades to stations including new lifts, ramps, raised “easy access humps” on platforms as well as new accessible toilets.

Councillor Ion said:

‘Once again the hundreds of thousands of travellers who use Wellington railway station have been treated as second class citizens. I cannot believe that there are stations in this region that are in greater need of investment, particularly in relation to improving disabled access and facilities. I will be writing to both London Midland and to the Department for Transport to ask why Wellington has, once gain, not been seen as a priority for much needed and long overdue investment.’

http://www.dft.gov.uk/news/press-releases/dft-press-20111206d

Ends

Highlight Your Train Pain on the BBC

The BBC are launching a new programme in which people can suggest what’s really annoying and upsetting them about Britain. It’s called “THAT’S BRITAIN”. Stars Ade Edmuson and Nick Knowles.

Greenbelt: A Christmas Comedy Night

With Jo Enright, Paul Kerensa and Folk On

Friday December 16
Doors at 19.00

St. Martin in the Bull Ring Church, Birmingham, B5 5BB

Tickets available online at www.greenbelt.org.uk/comedygig or phone 020 7374 2760

£10 in advance
£12 on the door

My comment on the Shrop Star story

Just in case it doesn’t turn up on the website…

Denis Allen has started a petition to cut the top pay at Telford Council.

Read more: http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2011/10/17/petition-seeks-to-cut-top-pay-at-telford-council/#ixzz1b7Y0yzog

My first gay bar: The Carpenters Arms

The first gay bar I ever went to was Canterbury, Kent. It was the autumn of 1997; just a few weeks after the death of Princess Diana.

I’d just started at university on top of the hill at the University of Kent at Canterbury. During freshers week I’d joined the Christian Union and made my second, third, fourth and fifth proper actual real life gay friends. I’d also made a couple of enemies. I’d done a lot of soul searching and thinking about actually acting on the feelings I’d always felt that I’d had. I’d plucked up courage to attend the Lesbian and Gay Society and met more gay people from across the campus, both out and proud and those living quietly in the closet.

We met outside my hall of residence, Rutherford College, and made the walk into town. Down the Whistable Road, through the Westgate and down a street off the main high street onto Black Griffin Lane. I remember that just before the Westgate there was a kebab shop called the Ockabasi and someone cracked a joke about being able to buy absolutely anything cooked in the shop. I didn’t laugh, I was nervous but thrilled. I’d crossed many boundaries during my first few weeks. Here was a new one that was symbolised by these imposing Gothic looking gates.

The Carpenters Arms was a mixed pub. Gay men at the tables and Lesbians at the pool table. Men with bottles, girls with pints. It wasn’t a particularly beautiful place or brilliant music but this was a space that was ours, it was identifiably gay. It was murky and had sticky carpet in places and some evenings there was a palpable tension in the air, the threat of violence due to some recent break up or ruck about to happen.

This was the place where a Literature Queen pulled a sour face at me for mispronouncing Colm Tóibín’s name, the place where we’d freeze walking back in the depths of winter from, the place where we’d have long meaningful conversations and gossip the night away.

Yes, it wasn’t the best gay bar in the world or the nicest or the hippest but it was the first and it’s no longer there. After my first year the lease was sold and it became The Acorn Inn. Rumours went round that it wouldn’t be gay, some friends went to try it out and, sadly, it had “changed it’s style” and was very definitely “under new management”. After the Carpenters Arms the place to be seen was Oranges bar cafe but by that point I wasn’t in Canterbury any more. But that, dear reader, is another story.

Arriva Trains Wales Response to query about use of twitter.

04 October 2011

Your Case Reference: ATW-110915-BCC

Dear Mr Whitehouse

Thank you for your e-mail with regards to Arriva Trains Wales not responding to customer comments and enquiries initiated via Twitter.

At present we use Twitter and other social media as a communication channel for providing our customers with real-time information relating to our services, products and promotions. Initially it was not intended that social media would be used as a tool for two-way communication with our customers relating to comments or complaints and currently we do not have a team of staff dedicated to communicating with our customers via Twitter.

Currently, we encourage customers to contact our Customer Relations team directly via e-mail or post if they have a comment or complaint about any aspect of our service as this enables us to investigate and respond to the points raised, where necessary referring matters on to other colleagues within the business for appropriate action. For issues that require immediate response relating to service disruption our Customer Relations team can also be contacted by telephone on 08456 061 660 between 0800 and 2000 hrs Monday to Saturday and 1100 and 2000 hrs Sundays. Information relating to train services and fares is also available 24 hrs a day via National Rail Enquiries by contact 08457 48 49 50.

However it is very important to us that our customers find it easy to communicate with us and I assure you that Arriva Trains Wales is committed and open to embracing new forms of technology. We are therefore currently reviewing our Social Marketing Strategy and looking at opportunities to integrate our Customer Services with Twitter and Facebook.

I therefore thank you for raising this issue with us and assure you that your comments have been taken on board.

Yours sincerely

 

 

Amber Sutton

Assistant Customer Relations Manager

Arriva Trains Wales

#GB11 Literature Talks

Here are all the literature talks bundled together in one place. Go buy them all.

Sunday at Greenbelt with Ben

GB11-DM-Sun-IMG_2080, originally uploaded by Greenbelt Festival Official Pictures.

This is me, mid-festival managing to look fairly relaxed.

Thanks to Drew McLellan who took the picture.