Some dabbling seems to be spreading around their hotels when it comes to the Premier Inn “eat as much as you like” breakfast: whereas before it was all freshly cooked to order (or at least it seemed to be that way), now they appear to be rolling out a hot buffet style. I saw this for the first time recently at the Premier Inn, Norwich Central South where there was plenty of food laid out but invariably it wasn’t piping hot, the beans and the eggs were drying out under the hot lamps and it just looked generally not as fresh as one cooked to order. OK, if you ask, they’ll do you poached eggs and vegetarian sausages especially for you, but even so…

And as of this week – much to the chagrin of the chef! – the Premier Inn Wigan (M6, J25) is doing the same thing. I was told that they used to do this if there were 40+ guests staying, but today, for instance, there were only 15 people and of course the restaurant is open from 7am until 10.30am. The buffet therefore has to have sufficient food cooked and on display but of course it dries out or cools down and of course there’s the wasted food to consider.

I suppose the benefit is that a buffet is quicker for guests in a hurry, but for those of us who plan enough time to eat our breakfasts, the quality of the food suffers.

Oh and whilst I’m moaning, it would be nice if the Premier Inn published nutritional information for the food it serves. I was told that because the restaurants are operated by different groups, they couldn’t tell me, but that’s rubbish as the breakfast menu is the same at every location.

To end on a positive note for Premier Inn though: of the budget hotels, they’re by far the best. Travelodges are atrocious and appear to me to be generally tatty – I went to one where the leg of the bed was broken! – and the buffet breakfast I had at the Hilton Express in Norwich was simply dire.

This has been causing lots of congestion for a while with traffic usually backed up onto and around the roundabout by the Rotherhithe Tunnel.

So can someone explain the thinking behind the decision to close the Rotherhithe Tunnel to Northbound traffic for the period from 21:00 on Thursday 21 April to 05:00 on Tuesday 26 April? This is to allow refurbishment works to be carried out on the Blackwall Tunnel, but traffic that would ordinarily use the Rotherhithe Tunnel to head North will be diverted over Tower Bridge …which means they’ll also be diverted along Jamaica Road!

I’m glad I’ll be away!

Oh dear!

http://www.valshawcross.com/index.php?id=78&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=475&tx_ttnews[backPid]=8&cHash=e505d2fd4e

http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/4221

It’s not looking good, is it?

I recently travelled through Humberside Airport on holiday. This is not a busy airport: they say they are:

“…a key national and international gateway to Northern and Eastern England, connecting over half a million passengers to 30 destinations every year.”

On the day I returned to the UK, they were handling roughly one incoming flight per hour. Which was just as well, as it took the UK Border Agency over an hour to actually allow me back into the country along with all the other pissed-off passengers on the charter flight.

The UKBA say:

“With tougher checks now in place at the border you may have to wait a little longer to get into the United Kingdom, especially at peak times. We use scanners to ensure that passports, visas and other official documents are genuine. Our officers are trained to detect forgeries and check that people have the right to enter the United Kingdom.

“An officer will check your passport and give you permission to stay, if you need it. We aim to see you within 45 minutes.

“If you are a national of the EU or EEA, you can use the separate EEA/EU channel, where we will usually check your passport or national identity card more quickly.”

ORLY?

Well at Humberside there’s one channel for non-EU travellers and there’s the main bit. The two numpties on duty when I came through looked as though they were on day release from an old folks’ home and clearly relished the opportunity to have a chat with each and every passenger. Presumably these two are what the UKBA refer to as “scanners” because they didn’t actually use any equipment other than their reading glasses and mouths… So after an hour’s queuing, I finally got through their vigorous entry procedures. Just as well it’s not like this at the UK airports I usually travel through on business…

What am I talking about?

Today I had a dental appointment in Wymondham at 11.15am, so I left London in plenty of time. By 10.50am, I was 20 minutes away (maximum) on the dual carriageway section of the A11 Thetford By-Pass between the Brandon and Watton interchanges when I had to come to a halt. Why? Some dickhead driving a tractor and towing a trailer of vegetables had managed to turn the whole thing over and blocked the southbound carriageway. Remember, I was heading northbound.

Like a well-oiled team of professionals, the police’s traffic division and the Transport Agency’s Incident Support Unit had mobilised to get things sorted out.

Between then and 11.45am, I sat in stationary traffic and watched as most of the police vehicles drove off having done … er … nothing at all. One police motorcycle went down the southbound carriageway, around the roundabout and then back up the southbound carriageway the wrong way for no good reason at all. Maybe he was getting a bit warm in the summer sun and just fancied going for a spin to cool himself down. Bless!

Traffic announcements confirmed that the southbound carriageway was blocked and that there were long southbound queues. Apparently the traffic going north was slow as people were slowing down to take a look, according to the AA team.

Obviously that was as far removed from reality as the Labour Party are from unity. As I discovered when I did eventually get past the next roundabout, the southbound lane was actually flowing pretty well. And no-one was rubbernecking in my lane – we simply couldn’t get past the roundabout because of the southbound traffic effectively turning it into a lane of southbound traffic.

In the olden days, a policeman or policemen would stand there directing traffic like human traffic lights to ensure that traffic flowed as freely as possible every way, but instead this bunch of lazy idiots just wanted to sit around with their thumbs up their arses doing absolutely sod-all.

And as a result, all the northbound traffic had been at a standstill for almost an hour.

So I missed my appointment thanks to their complete lack of any positive action. Well done you! It’s really no surprise I have absolutely zero respect for them. They always set low standards and consistently fail to achieve them in my mind.

I won’t even start to go on about how South Blunderside Humberside Police have failed to take any real action against a harassing, violent and abusive drunkard (with overtones of child abuse)…

And thanks to the AA’s radio traffic reporters for rubbing it in by reporting absolute crap and insulting those of us who were stuck in the jams the police had caused.

I wanted to book a particular journey at a particular time so as to arrive before 10.00am. A bloke I know was collecting me from the station to take me to complete a deal to buy his Suzuki GSX-R750K4 and I was then going to travel a good many miles to see friends in North East Lincs. before heading back down to London. A long day. And as I would be riding a new sports motorcycle, it was a no-brainer that I should wear full leathers and boots, etc.

So I booked a ticket on the 8.23am train and got an e-mail confirmation through the e-mail address I registered with them. The ticket arrived by post a few days later and it was ‘open’.

Come the day, I got on a bus at 7.20am to London Bridge followed by a tube to Euston. Once there I looked at the departure board. No sign of the 8.23am. I asked at the information desk and was told that it had been cancelled. Nice of them to announce that, eh? And no e-mail to let me know. Nothing. So off I went to the information/ticket office. The next train would be after 11.00am and would take the best part of three hours as it would be part train, part bus! So much for letting Virgin get me there on time. She did say I could get a Chiltern Trains service from Marylebone that would get me there earlier and I asked how to get there. She suggested a couple of underground lines, so off I went down to the Underground.

The lines I needed were suspended for engineering works!

When I eventually got to Marylebone Station – complete with a massive blister from walking part of the way to find a taxi – it transpired that I had paid more for this ‘service’ than if I’d bought it from Chiltern Trains. Great…