Follow The Iron Road to Airdrie

I've had a hectic start to the week, somewhat more so that the usual week, but Monday marked a new stage for Bathgate.

It was the laying of the first stretch of new track to link up Bathgate with Airdrie and to create another through route from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The platforms along the route are developing nicely. The new one at Bathgate will make my journey to the station change as the direct line down Mid Street will be more direct than my current journey down Hopetoun Street and St. David's Street.

The BBC article mentions most of the new and upgraded amenities along the line but fails to mention Blackridge Station. The village to the West of Armadale was overlooked by planners when the route was first planned but with all party backing a campaign was launched to provide the people of Blackridge with a station on the line that was going by them anyway.

While the provision of direct train services from Bathgate to Glasgow and Airdrie to Edinburgh are great aspects of new line, the regular service for Blackridge enhances the residents opportunity to use public transport. There are currently only two direct express buses to Edinburgh in the morning from Bathgate the X1 at 0610 and 0700; the latter arrives in the East End at 0816. But only one back out the 1715. It is hardly encouraging for those who maybe work at the Gyle to use public transport. So a train stopping at Edinburgh Park may well encourage more people out of their cars.

The contractors Balfour Beatty are confident that the track laying and electrification will be completed by December this year, on schedule. Seeing some of the things they have done to work through the snow and flooding recently I'm confident that they will be doing all they can to make sure they do deliver on time.

I personally am looking forward to going straight through to Glasgow without having to worry about the last bus time back to Bathgate in the early evening.

Bathgate Man with Two Left Feet

No it is not my audition for So You Think You Can Dance, and how dare you for thinking it would be.

Local Bathgate man 76 year-old Patrick Morrison (pictured) went into Astley Ainslie Hospital, Edinburgh after losing his right foot. When he returned home upon removing the protective sock covering it his wife Alexia aged 75 burst out laughing as he had been fitted with a left foot on his right.

She called the hospital who cut off the lower part of the replacement limb and replaced the foot with a right footed version.

However, false limb expert Malcolm Griffiths has been sacked by NHS Lothian, pending a hearing of the Health Professions Councilhe may be considered unfit to practise and either suspended or struck off.

Bathgate Driver Heading for F1

West Lothian already has one internationally known Motorsport Champion in Bathgate's Dario Franchitti the double Indy Car Champion. But it won't be him that may be lining up on the F1 grid this year.

Though to keep it in the family his young cousin Paul Di Resta impressed in testing at Jerez last month. The 23-year-old is a member of the Mercedes Young Driver Development Programme, and has already won a European Formula 3 title and been runner-up in the German Touring Car Championship with Mercedes. He has said he has been in talks with Force India who will be using Mercedes engines, adding:

"I would say we are about 90 percent there. We are in the final stages of finishing off for the programme they have set and hopefully we can build a very long and strong relationship for me to try and race with Force India in the future."

So we may well have a Bathgate driver in both the Indy Car and F1 series this season.

The Fake Thaw

Was walking up to the flat this evening I thought we'd had quite a thaw today while I was out at work because the road was remarkably clear. I soon found out the reason why.


The ploughs have been here, they have heaped snow up to five a half feet high out the back. Taking up people's parking spaces, in fact they have heaped it up outside on one bay which is a disabled person's parking space. There are three spaces in our section that are unusable. Just after I shot a video (which I am attempting to upload) one of the local residents told me it was just as bad up at her end.



Looks like we'll have a least a few more days of glacial melt water coming down our hill.

First Bus Fail in Freezing Weather

Here is what the First Bus website says about services for today.



Fair enough it is a Saturday timetable. So my normal bus the X1 is not running, my alternative service to work on the Calder Road is the 27/28 service. Here is what the timetable says for Saturday service.



The circled is my bus stop in Bathgate. I stood there from 6:40 this morning in readiness for the 6:52. It didn't show. Then the 7:23 didn't show. So I am now typing on the 7:53. I mean it is not like it is warm or anything.



I could have hopped on an alternative service to get me into Edinburgh, though along the Glasgow Road, but I shouldn't have had to. Both an 10 and a 16 came past me as I waiting in the vain hope that mine was just behind. There was meant to have been two buses before the one I am currently on. I would have been slightly late for work at 8am with the Saturday service as it was. Now I will be an hour late no matter what.

If and when I do get feeling back in my toes I'll let you know via twitter.

Fake Rolex and D&G Found in Bathgate

The news that fake Rolex Watches and Dolce & Gabbana dresses worth upto £1m have been found in a house in Bathgate takes me back to my days working in H. Samuel the jeweller.

I was once handed a watch and told could I fix the battery in it. Within 5 seconds I said no. the customer looked at be bizarrely and asked why. My response.

• The second hand stutters and does not sweep.
• The bezels are the wrong type.
• Switzerland is not spelt Swizterland.
• It is too light.
• The back case has a simple lift off mechanism, rather than Rolex's screw fitting.
• The 12 hour marker is a chipped cubic zirconia and not a diamond.
• You've brought it into H. Samuel rather than a Rolex dealer.

As the group did include Ernest Jones who were a Rolex stockists I should really have taken the watch in one hand and a hammer in the other and smashed it to pieces. But I just didn't have the heart and just sent the guy on his way.

However, be wary of what you are buying this Christmas. If you are looking for a named brand make sure it is up to the quality that you would expect it to be. The best way to do this is go to a recognised dealer of that brand. Fakes are not only illegal and poorly made imitations but in some cases can be dangerous and are often made using cheap labour.

Local Investment Secured for Town Centres Welcome

Tam Smith has posted a question for me on an older blog entry. He asks:

"Stephen,What do you think of the almost 3 million pounds worth of Town Centre regeneration funding provided by an SNP administration for the constituency we represent.

"We have all been working hard with local groups and our partners in Holyrood to secure such funding thus providing much needed jobs in construction as well as adding a facelift to local shops etc.Where were the Lib Dems when all of this was going on.Come on Stephen let's be positive and work together for the benefit of our local areas.I can assure you it wasn't easy taking part in the bids but it was more worthwhile than critisising [sic] ones web page postings. Tam."

Firstly I welcome the the £2.345 million investment that the SNP administration are earmarking for the town centres of Linlithgow, Bathgate, Armadale and Whitburn. Also for the extra funding that Bathgate's Business Improvement District (BID) Company, Enterprising Bathgate, have also secured from the Scottish Parliament. Although neither of us currently represent any part of the constituency, although very shortly we may both be seeking to do so for all of it.

As for where the Lib Dems have been Tam should ask local business owners just who turned up at their crisis meeting here in Bathgate in June 2005? I'll give you a clue it wasn't any of the local councillors, the MP, MSPs, or 3 of the other parliamentary candidates of the month before. The Lib Dems truly did show they worked for local interests all year round not just at election times. As well as that I've attended meetings about the impact of paid parking to business, residents and others in Linlithgow. As well as meetings that led to Linlithgow becoming a shining beacon of environmentalism in the county.

I've been advocating and been fighting for a fair deal for Whitburn, Armdale, Bathgate, Linlithgow and the other West Lothian town centres that have seemed to suffer in the eight years I have lived here while the Livingston shopping experience grows and increases in size and pull. I've always been there to offer advise and support in their attempts to get a fair deal for themselves, something that the businesses have driven themselves moving forward. I've been working away hard, on the ground, moving things forward for years.

Indeed there are councillors on both side of the council chamber and our independent councillor who know that I already will happily work with them on issues of mutual interest. Tam should have known from our meetings, or from discussion with his colleagues, that I would have been happy to discuss involvement with such an incentive, yet he lays it down as a challenge, almost as if I and the Lib Dems have done nothing.

Sadly knowing as I do the number of businesses that have already disappeared from many of these town centres the investment is too late for some local business owners. But this investment is better late than never.

In March 2008 the Council said it would be matching the BID funding in Bathgate to make a total of £750,000. Though at the start of this year Enterprise Bathgate valued at £990,000 the benefit their funding would bring to the town where I live. Tam, himself, does seem a little confused about the exact benefit of the Enterprising Bathgate portion of the funding, he starts by saying that West Lothian Council and Enterprising Bathgate are investing a further £800,000 into the pot, then later says that it is £935,000 from Enterprising Bathgate topped up with £260,000 from the council. Maybe he would like to clarify which of the three figures is the correct one.

With so many conflicting figures it is hard for the electorate to discern just what level of investment is to be given. The news was too late for this weeks local papers, so I will get the facts straightened when they are available for everyone.

I've borrowed from Tam's website the full list of the projects that will be included:

Armadale

● develop transport and town centre connections by improving access and developing the streetscape, pedestrian walkways and cycle routes.

● refurbish the Goth Tower clock, together with town centre shopfront improvements and signage.

● develop the public realm at The Cross.


Linlithgow

● improvement to connections between the town centre/rail station/union canal, focusing on Low Port as a gateway.

● improvements in the Conservation Area to retail and business shop fronts together with improved signage.

● in partnership with Historic Scotland develop better connections between the Town Centre and Linlithgow Palace, including improved event access, signage, heritage conservation and other physical developments.

● re-location of new heritage facility into the Burgh Halls.


Whitburn

● address safer connections at The Cross and links to residential areas, transport sites and car parking sites, including measures to enhance mobility, pedestrian and cycle use.

● improvements in the town centre to retail and business shop fronts together with improved signage and better streetscape layout.

● acquisition of derelict land site in Whitburn Town Centre and restoration for development.

Bathgate

● The creation of a town centre Wi-Fi zone in Bathgate for customers and businesses.

● Develop town centre cycle network linking park and ride/transport interchange/town centre, regal conference/Arts Facility/Lindsay house including cycling provisions at each site along with signage.

● The provision of new and improved signage/retail frontage within core business to in Bathgate.

● The provision of a transport interchange to connect Bathgate and Airdrie including new signage, lighting and public information.

There is also £350,000 for Bo'ness and Grangemouth at the northern end of the Westminster constituency which had been secured in the first tranche of funding earlier this year as part of the BID pilot projects.

UPDATE: I notice that the BBC indicates that the Scottish Parliament is investing £1.7 million in to Armadale, Almondvale (what more!!!) and Broxburn. Now I know Linlithgow have got £94k from the Climate Challenge fund, even if Enterprise Bathgate is a seperate endeavour, I take it then than Council funding is coming for the Whitburn elements.

PS I notice that the criticism of Tam's use of quotes on his webpage was taken on board and was actually praised for doing so last night. I'm hoping for an honest campaign heading into the Westminster election, the people deserve transparency and openness in their Westminster representative when they get to decide on who that should be.

The Bus Passenger's Prayer*

As regular readers of my Twitter feed will know I'm quite often Tweeting about how the bus driver may think he's Jenson Button but forget he has two decks of metal to navigate around the bends. It does make me wonder if on the bus of a newbie driver (who doesn't even know where Windyknowe is) is really the time to blog this.

I wasn't on a bus home yesterday evening, not that I would have been at Edinburgh Road in Bathgate by that sort of time either. However, I would have been wondering what was going on, why the diversion etc coming into town. Though I would admit that there are some drivers that I'm somewhat wary of.

However, as there are too many times for me to even contemplate that I or someone else has been viciously hurled around the bus or down the stairs (yeah I sit on the top deck whenever possible) I think we need to know. If you have had a particular dangerous bus trip. If the bus driver has used excessive braking or acceleration and left you feeling unsafe or caused actual harm, let the depot know. Get off and check the registration number of the bus, remember the time you got off it and the scheduled time (this may be harder with delays etc) of the bus that you think you're on. The write, email or call the depot.

On the reverse side if the driver has done a good job and got you home safely and comfortably let them know. Give a proper thank you rather a timid muffled one as you step off..

For the record this bus driver has just had a case of late braking which he then had to swerve out of to avoid a second crash for First Bus Scotland in 24 hours, as we came off the M8 and were heading towards Dechmont. Drivers especially of buses should really learn to drive to the conditions and within the envelope of driver and machine.

*The title is a take on the Ian Drury and the Blockheads song The Bus Driver's Prayer

Our Father,
Who art in Hendon
Harrow Road be Thy name
Thy Kingston come
Thy Wimbledon
In Erith as it is in Hendon.
Give us this day our Berkhampstead
And forgive us our Westminsters
As we forgive those who Westminster against us.
Lead us not into Temple Station
And deliver us from Ealing,
For thine is the Kingston
The Purley and the Crawley,
For Iver and Iver
Crouch End.

Do I Suddenly Really Need to Have Three Labour Constituency Offices?

I have to admit that at the time in the morning I usually am heading to the bus I'm not that awake. So for weeks now I may well have walked down Hopetoun Street in Bathgate and turned right unto South Street to pick up my paper from the newsagents then had my head in it looking for a headline to blog about as I returned up South Street to catch the bus.

It may well me that the sign for the offices of Mary Mulligan MSP (pictured right) have stared me in the face for all those weeks since I posted this about Mary's name being removed from the offices near my house.

Now I'm not casting aspersions as I'm sure the claim for this new office is all above the board with the people at Holyrood. However, after 10 years of sharing office space, first with Tam Dalyell and then with Michael Connarty, why now does Mary Mulligan feel the need to burden the taxpayer with a second constituency office no more than 300 metres from another for the same party? Sharing offices between MPs and MSPs of the same party is not uncommon practice so why the need for the DMZ between the two now?

Is it because of the current unearthing of MPs expenses that are embroiling her Westminster colleague that she wants to distance herself?

Have they fallen out over irreconcilably? Michael has shown staunch support for Gordon Brown and lately the Speaker in a failing Westminster regime. Is Mary trying to distance herself from that?

I had specualted that maybe Mary was moving to Whitburn in preparation for the contesting the Airdrie, Shotts and Whitburn seat which may be approved by the Electoral Commission for Scotland this week. But as this office is in Bathgate that would not appear to be the case.

However, the fact that now we have two constituency offices in Bathgate (indeed Michael also has one in Grangemouth) so close to each other seems like a cause for explanation to the taxpayers and the electorate who share Mary Mulligan and Michael Connarty. At a time when other people and business in the private sector are tightening budgets and rationalising why have these two expanded in to even more office space?

Where's Something About Mary?

The other day I took this video of them changing the sign outside the Bathgate offices of the Labour Party.


Multimedia message on 12seconds.tv

Sadly it's not that clear but the white part of the sign that's visible announced the offices of the MSP for Linlithgow Mary Mulligan.

This evening I decided to go back past to see the completed work. After all it is only a handful of seconds longer on my trip home. I was greeted by this:



The sign is totally dedicated to Michael Connarty who I contested the seat of Linlithgow and East Falkirk against in 2005 and nothing about Mary. Now there are boundary changes coming up in 2011 at the next Scottish Parliament elections. Bathgate will become part of the Linlithgow and Bathgate seat but the rest of Mary's seat becomes part of Lanark, Shotts and Whitburn. As this is the part of the constituency that Mary lives in I suspect the change of signage indicates that she will be standing there.

She Speaks - Tory Candidate Updates Website

Well it only took a year and almost three weeks but Andrea Stephenson has finally found something to talk to the people of Linlithgow and Falkirk East about. She has chosen the supbject of improving your High Street by giving it a makeover.

To highlight this initiative from the conservative concessions on the Nat budget has two pictures. One is at the cross in Linlithgow, possibly the most picturesque stretch of High Street in the constituency. The other looks like a renovation that is being carried out in Bo'ness. The poeple of Bathgate, Armadale and Whitburn with their more egalitarian appearance Main Streets wouldn't have fitted with the appearance of the Conservative PPC's website no matter that these are possibly of greater need of a makeover, with empty shop fronts and rundown, as opposed to historic, appearance of many others.

Judging by the summer clothing worn in the pictures I'd assume that neither of them was taken since the budget was passed either.

Tickled by the Nissan Armadale

Seeing this in the diary column of the Herald this morning about how one reader though the Nissan Armada LE was named the Nissan Armadale, and wondered whether a Nissan Bathgate or Whitburn were in the offing.

Of course one of the newest housing developments on the old truck and tractor works in Bathgate (1961-86) does pay homage to that car heritage in West Lothian as there is a Leyland Road. Not so much named after the Lancastrian town to the south of Preston but to the company it formed one of the branches that made up the company.

Make Trident History

Yesterday evening the Scottish CND march from Faslane to the Scottish Parliament stopped off at Bathgate with just two days march to go. They held a public meeting at St. David's Church at which Bruce Kent, Michael Connarty MP and Fiona Hyslop MSP were the guest speakers. I sat in the audience and was acknowledged by both the local politicians and had passing mention in their comments.

£250 Billion pounds is earmarked as a replacement for the current Trident nucleur deterent. Strange that the UK government and their US buddies should be saying that Iran, North Korean and others should not be allowed to carry on proliferation of nucleur weapons when they themselves are seeking to replace their soon to be redundent systems. We see these countries as a threat and yet maintain a system which by all accounts we have no intention of using.

Last year many people more people marched to Make Poverty History than are on this march for peace. Many people were upset by how little the G8 leaders in the end promised to donate to Make World Poverty History. Yet here we are proposing such large spending on a system that will in all likelihood not be fired in anger just like Trident. It is something which not even Alastair Campbell could spin into being an important weapon in the war on terrorism.

Technology in warfare has moved on since the nucleur option was paraded as the new must have in the 50s and 60s. We now have satilite guided precision weapons which by in large actually take out their target with minimal collateral damage. A nucluer warhead is simply going to have massive civilain repercusions for years and decades after it is used.

Michael Connarty expressed his desire that the vote on replacing Trident be put to a free vote in Westminster, not under the control of the whips. I agree with him on that it would free up many on the Government payrole to vote with their consence and not merely on a party line which has drifted from one camp to the other during the time most Labour MPs have been members of their party.

Do we need a nucleur weapon of mass destruction? If we did threathen to use it shouldn't some country be given liberty to invade us and topple our government? After all this is what we dis to Iraq so we can have no arguments there. So what is the point of having such a weapon?

Let's not replace Trident but use the money far more sensibly.

Auchinleck Final Thorn in Thistle's Ambition

Yesterday at Rugby Park Kilmarnock the Scottish Junior Cup ended in a narrow 2-1 win by Auchinleck Talbot over Bathgate Thistle.

Bathgate had been getting progressively more garlanding in Blue and White (Thistle's colours) through the week and for a change a guy was selling scarves and flags on St. David's Street on Saturday. While Auchinleck picked up their seventh Junior Cup title this was the first appearance for Bathgate in the final in their 60 year history. However they were unable to emulate their West Lothian rivals Whitburn Juniors and Linlithgow Rose who have both lifted the OVD Scottish Junior Cup in the last decade.

Maybe Auchinleck were taking revenge on West Lothian as the last time they appeared in the final Linlithgow Rose beat them.