Amsterdam

Black bikes and canals the colour of washing water

Tourism boats

Wheeling home

Not all bikes are black

Amsterdam Central Station

NEMO Science museum 

The threatened swan by Jan Asselijn, Rijksmuseum

Japanese temple guardian in the Rijksmuseum

Rembrandt's Night Watchmen in bronze, Rembrandt Square

A walk along the Prinsengracht canal 

Web of tram wires

Nursery commuter

Vondel Park near the museums

"Holland is not only the Europe of the counting-house, but the sea, the sea that leads to Cipango and those islands where men die happy and insane. I like its people, swarming on the pavements, wedged into their little space of houses and water, encircled by mists, cold earth and a sea that steams like damp washing." Albert Camus, The Fall

And so it did for four days, although the cold winds kept the mist at bay as the city delayed the onset of spring. The damp air hung over the canals and made the cyclists pedal faster to keep warm. Our intention had been to visit the museums and absorb the soundtrack of a city that is almost free of carbon emitting vehicles. It was not a relaxing place to walk about with the silent approach of trams and cycles converging on us gave us the collywobbles as we crossed junctions and bridges. Everywhere the bikes were a sign of the egalitarian nature of the city. Children in seats, older ladies in smart clothes, students, and office workers mingled easily. There was an almost total absence of sporty bikes; black bikes with high handlebars, baskets and toddler trailers made the cyclists the land bound equivalent of the swans as they endlessly drifted past.

This was a first visit to the city and it had been prompted by weeks of wet miserable weather at home. We should have gone somewhere warmer but there were few flights available at three days notice. Central station is the hub of the city but like many stations it is cheerless and we were glad that we had chosen to stay at the edge of the canals in Leidsplein. It was close to the park and museums and on the tram routes.The trip was studded with visits to the pride of museums that litter Amsterdam: Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank's House, the Shipping museum, and Rembrandt's House. Van Gogh being the standout, although we probably learnt most about Amsterdam and the history of the Netherlands at the Shipping Museum. The museums provided destinations for us to traverse across the central areas and become familiar with the canals, the coffee shops and the multi cultured nature of this seafaring city. We decided against using the trams and just walked. We met some Americans from Boston in a coffee shop and spent a rainy lunchtime debating the state of the world.  We were so wet later that day we retreated to a picture house to dry out.

Dutch food is not something to drool over but we managed to find a traditional Indonesian restaurant and a good Italian restaurant amidst the dairy, pork and pastry fare on offer.  The Dutch people we encountered were courteous and kind, although one shopkeeper gave vent to her feelings about wealthy Russian,  Indian and Chinese tourists - they were rude, arrogant and not to be trusted. Amsterdam is a city that has been a melting pot for centuries and people are judged on the way they behave not the size of their wallets or their race.

In the flower market

East Coast Trains

East Coast trains - reliable and profitable

It was a sad day to see the demise of East Coast trains on the Inverness, Edinburgh to London route. Over recent years I have travelled to London by this line on a regular basis and I have been pleasantly surprised by the reliability of the service and the excellent customer care. It has been a far better service than the West Coast mainline in recent years as I discovered on those occasions when it was necessary to travel from Glasgow. The rolling stock is certainly in need of upgrading but East Coast trains could not be expected to invest in an upgrade when franchising was to take place and the government excluded the publicly owned East Coast trains from bidding. Virgin Trains won the bid and now controls both the west and east coast routes from Scotland to London. If privatisation was supposed to provide better service through competition then that justification has been jettisoned as well as the ability of publicly-owned railways to bid for franchises. These doctrinaire policies of the government are part of a wider intent to undermine public services when the experience across Europe is that a mixed economy better protects the citizens from exploitation by private companies or the failure to invest in state-owned companies.

Since the line was nationalised following the financial failure of National Express it has outperformed all other train services and is currently returning more money back to the state than any other operator. An East Coast spokesman said: "We always believed that a return of this franchise to the private sector was inevitable. Since we took over in 2009, we have repaid more than £640m to the taxpayer, achieved record-breaking customer satisfaction and the best performance on the route since records began in 1999." Virgin, on taking over the route, removed the through train from Inverness to London so we have switched to flying to London rather than paying the increased Virgin ticket prices for a journey that takes half an hour longer, involves another change of train and far more crowded trains from Edinburgh.

Unlike the Virgin's West Coast mainline, which is often overcrowded - I have had to stand or sit in the corridors on several occasions- East Coast staff always tried to ensure that everyone was seated. When trains were cancelled because of gales a couple of years ago, East Coast allowed passengers to travel at no extra cost the following day. It seemed the right thing to do but Scotrail and Virgin did not take the same view,  an example of a public service provider putting the customer before profit. 

UK rail fares are now the highest in the world whilst the network is far less efficient than the state-owned European railways. It is perhaps surprising in these circumstances that passenger numbers have vastly increased. This is mainly because commuting has continued to grow as fewer people are able to afford to move house nearer to their work when they change jobs and the motorway network for long-distance journeys is log jammed.

It is a sad indictment of rail privatisation that there has been so little improvement in services although underinvestment by Network Rail has been a major contributor to the reliability of trains. The government seems keener to bankroll HS2 and the vast cost of London's Crossrail projects than to improve the existing nationwide network. The rolling stock has been replaced by the private operators through subsidised leasing arrangements but mainly in the south-east and on the busiest inter-city lines. Meanwhile, passengers in much of the north of England continue to rattle along in 40-year-old rolling stock or older still in places like Lincolnshire and the Pennines. Every rail journey on the state-owned railways of mainland Europe reminds you of how trains in the UK are expensive, crowded and in many instances unreliable.

Mount Battock

The route up is by the lower track and Mount Battock top right

Mount Buttock is not quite as boring as it looks

Frog, one of dozens

Looking back down the ascent route from Mount Battock

Mount Battock summit paraphernalia

Looking east during the descent

New track up to Hill of Saughs

Thursday, 19 March 2015
Ascent:     720 metres
Distance:  14 kilometres
Time:        3hours 35 minutes

c  Mount Battock     775m   1hr 56mins

I had to travel to Aberdeen for some work on Thursday evening and Friday so I left early to give myself some much-needed exercise and the chance to climb the most easterly Corbett. Mount Battock lies north of Glen Esk, a glorious Angus Glen that abounds in Scotland's wildlife. I drove into Edzell at 11:27am, exactly the time that Eva was born thirty-odd years ago, so stopped and sent her a text to coincide with her birth minute. Then up Glen Esk, which looked a bit bedraggled and faded on a dull March day. The mosses and lichens were a vibrant green carpet beneath the pines, birches, and beech hedging that lined the road. A pheasant's revolt had me breaking around every corner as they scampered across the road, there was no other traffic. I found a parking spot over the bridge at Milden. It was occupied by a new VW camper van with blacked-out windows and a bike rack. Undoubtedly the owner was up the hill and I suspected that they were on a mission to climb the hills by mountain bike.

The walk would mainly be along Land Rover tracks and it looked as if it would stay dry so I left my crampons and ice axe behind, the snow on the summits looked only patchy. I set out up the road from Milden to Mill of Aucheen and, after passing the mill, I headed for a holiday cottage and then along a track that took me to the Burn of Turret. From here a track climbs all the way to the Western Cairn of Mount Battock. After passing a couple of dead rats, the range and volume of wildlife exploded; this part of the world is well endowed with game and echoes to the sound of gunshot in season. There were dozens of rabbits burrowing in the sandy banks of the burn, then lapwings circling and calling on the moors. I watched a badger make its way along the other side of the burn. By the time I left the burn and the track began to climb, there were dozens of grouse whirring and squawking as they took to the air as I passed. The track was littered with gun cartridges.

On the upper slopes of Mount Een patches of heather were being burnt and plumes of smoke rose vertically in the still air.  The track to Mount Battock skirts around the base of Allrey Hill, I resisted the temptation to follow the more prominent track that climbs steeply to the summit and presumably gives access to the dozens of shooting butts that litter these hills. After crossing the Black Burn I came across a pool of water that was alive with a cavalcade of frogs, they all scattered and burrowed below the moss covering the pool as I approached. Above a stable, at 500 metres the track steepened and more shooting butts were scattered every 30 or 40 metres along the track. A lone hen harrier was patrolling the skies and no doubt seeking red grouse. Several white mountain hares scooted up the hill, their coats in stark contrast with the brown/grey heathers making them easy prey for birds of prey.

Only the last kilometre from the western cairn to the summit is free of gravel tracks and even on this section, there were muddied wheel marks from quad bikes and the tracks of a mountain bike that looked fresh. I emerged on the flattish summit, which was decorated with a couple of shelter cairns, a trig point and a stile. The views were just wavy lines of rounded hills dissected with tracks running to their summits. Given that I had done very little exercise in the last month, I was pleased to have made it in less than two hours so rewarded myself with a 10-minute break for some water, tomatoes and nuts.

I decided to take a different route back and crossed the stile to head over to the Hill of Saughs. There was a faint path but it was mainly bashing through the heathers and schussing down a couple of patches of hard snow. From the Hill of Saughs, there is another newish track of orange/pink gravel that descends to the Hill of Turret. How do they afford to construct so many hill tracks that only serve the shooting butts? I forded the Burn of Turret and then another kilometre down the track recrossed it by a footbridge to take a path down the eastern bank that led down to the headkeeper's cottage in Milden. The VW van had disappeared.

It had been a good recovery walk although my right leg was aching from the effort of some decent exercise. I drove through Fettercairn and then onto Aberdeen by the A90. It took 40 minutes to reach the outskirts of Aberdeen and then the same again to get to the Bridge of Dee, despite the decline of oil Aberdeen was still humming with expensive cars and Friday evening shoppers. 

Breaking Bad: the fiction of the Coalition

Hubris

Bluster

I was flabbergasted at Chancellor Osborne's performance yesterday as he welcomed the IFS report on how living standards had changed since the recession in 2007-08. The report provides even more evidence that we have been duped by the claims of the Coalition Government that things are getting better. Nevertheless, the Chancellor welcomed the IFS report and argued that it was a"milestone" in the UK's economic recovery and that "inequality has fallen." Does he live in a parallel universe or is he just breaking bad?

Osborne spoke on the Today programme in his measured style and kept at bay the normally forensic and acerbic John Humphries. He has a self-assured hubris that has been honed to spin yarns, big yarns. He has a far better grasp of the statistics and facts that he abuses than the PM, David Cameron, who merely blusters and harangues interviewers or opponents at the onset of any challenge. The PM's panic-induced responses are based upon scanty knowledge and often have to be refuted by his office a few days later. No wonder he is desperately seeking an escape route from any pre-election televised debate. Listening to either of them, hubris or bluster, there is a common theme: Britain is dismantling its public services and the well-being of the many is being sacrificed to the benefit of wealthy citizens, large corporations and foreign investors.

What the IFS research said was that:

• Median income levels are now at about the level of 2007-08 but still 2% below their 2009/10 peak. 
• Living standards have risen more slowly than in previous recessions. Household income fell by 4.0% from its peak in 2009 to its trough in 2012, driven by falls in both employment and workers’ pay. 
• Since then employment has recovered strongly (mainly through self-employed, part-time work and zero-hour contracts) but real pay has not. 
• This is consistent with the absence of any productivity growth since 2011. 
• The coalition (through Ian Duncan Smith) has implemented a large package of tax and benefit measures taking money away from households. 
• The slow recovery in household incomes has been just 1.8% in total between 2011 and 2015. Remarkably slow in contrast to the first three years of recovery in the early 1980s and early 1990s saw median income grow by 9.2% and 5.1% respectively. 
• Consumption of non-durables (things such as food and fuel) was 3.8% lower in 2014 than in 2008. At the same point after the 1980s and 1990s recessions, it was 14.4% and 6.4% above pre-recession levels respectively. 
• Low-income families have faced higher-than-average inflation since 2007–08. They were hit harder by rising food and energy prices and benefited less from falling mortgage interest rates. 
• Median income among those aged 60 and over is 1.8% higher in 2014–15 than in 2007–08, compared with a 2.5% fall for those aged 31–59 and a 7.6% fall for those aged 22–30. 

So unpacking all of this perhaps the PM and Chancellor should explain why:

• GDP per capita is still 5.6% lower in 2014 than it was in 2008?
• The national debt has grown every year since 2008 from 43% to 90% of GDP in 2014?
• Councils have been clobbered with an 8.8% cut in real resources for 2015-16, taking the cuts to over 30% during the coalition years? 
• Eric Pickles and the Chancellor blame the Councils for cuts to roads, nurseries, libraries, sports etc. "It is up to Councils to decide their priorities"? The coalition has delegated opprobrium whilst claiming the kudos for any resources that they have stealthily ring-fenced.
• Companies have avoided or evaded paying £35bn a year in taxes according to the Public Accounts Committee?
• Leveson has been quietly ignored and the press is still self-managing their malpractices?
• UK assets continue to be sold, from Northern Rock, Lloyds, the Post Office, the Tote (now Betfred), East Coast Trains and now Eurostar to the Canadian teacher's pension fund? (The tide has turned and the vast majority of the electorate, 67%, want the railways renationalised.)
• Geographic inequality across the UK, measured by income or house prices, has widened with the London and South-East bubble diverting recovery from other regions?
• This has been further escalated by the pernicious redistribution of public expenditure grants this year from run-down urban areas (-3.8%) to the leafy shires (-0.6%)?
• In England up to a third of all pupils in major cities do not get into the school of their choice, is it that academy schools operate independently of local education authorities? At least Scotland is exempt from this Education lottery and the creation of autonomous and unregulated schools.
• Cameron pledged that the NHS was safe in our hands and would be subject to "No more tiresome, meddlesome, top-down restructures'. So why impose a destabilising top-down change that made NHS governance opaque and complex with many more services commissioned from private health providers? It cost £3bn and 90,000 staff were made to reapply for jobs in the new structures of the NHS. 
• The promised savings have not materialised and the reforms have created chaos from GP waiting times to bed shortages and declining performance? 
• Jeremy Hunt, fresh from attempting to allow Rupert Murdoch to take over BSkyB, and who replaced the damaged Andrew Lansley as Health Secretary, seems to revel in every problem that emerges in the Health Service. Is it because he wrote in 2007 that "The NHS is a 60-year-old mistake"?
• Housebuilding has declined despite the shortage of social housing and new housing suitable for the younger buyers and older buyers, who could release family homes, has stalled.  Osborne has directed resources at mortgage support via the banks thus revamping the housing price boom rather than incentivising house building and encouraging the building of social housing? 
• Promises to reform the constitution and electoral processes were cynically assigned to a cul-de-sac by the warring factions within the coalition?

The questions could go on but the gist is clear, the UK's much-vaunted public services from the NHS, universities, schools and institutions have been salami sliced and flogged to the friends of the coalition. Councils have been squeezed mercilessly with consequent long-term damage to local services as well as the small local enterprises that depend upon councils for contracts. Councils along with the DWP have been made the executioners of the welfare state and treated with contempt by Cameron, Osborne, Gove, Pickles, Duncan Smith and fellow travellers. This should not play well on the day of reckoning.

Cameron and Osborne know that they are mistrusted by a sizeable majority of the electorate. Why should we when they have perpetuated so many decisions that have reduced the well-being of young people, families with young children and the most vulnerable? We are not all in it together, those who were at the epicentre of the banking crisis are still flouting tax laws, offshore private equity funds are wiping out small local businesses and designing new money-making scams against the "hard-working" taxpayers and holding the most vulnerable to ransom. 

If the PM is not prepared to debate his record there is a precedence for substituting an inanimate object on the lectern. Perhaps a beetroot would best represent his embarrassment for probably being the worst post-war prime minister (but there is even worse to come). He has savaged the public service legacies of not just Attlee but also his idol, Harold McMillan, who understood the need for housing and quality public services as the foundation for a more just society and a growing economy.