Philosophy, cookery and geekery

Meant to post this a while ago. Essentially, I went home for the last weekend in October, to see my Ickle Bruvver perform in Les Mis. (As an aside, the whole show was fantastic; he was Javert, the kinda-sorta-a-baddie-but-not-really, and effectively the second male role, and I was genuinely impressed by his performance, as well as the lead/hero, Jean Valjean’s – my bro’s singing ability surprised me in a good way, but Jean’s was admittedly a bit better.) Anyway. On both journeys, I did the Totnes-London stretch in one of the new First Great Western trains. These are quite blatantly an attempt to catch up with Virgin Voyagers, which, much as some of my friends despise them (for the shorter train lengths, I believe, mainly), were undeniably ahead in terms of creature comforts and tarty features. I’m talking about the headphone sockets between seats, 13A power sockets, nicer ambient lighting, aircon… well, the FGWs have definitely one-upped Virgin. Their 13A sockets are between the two seats in front of you (for airline seats) so both travellers have equal access; their fold-down tables have a pull-out extension bit to make laptop use in airline seats easier; the seats are slightly higher relative to the shared tables, and there’s less engine noise. Overall, very nice.

My one complaint, however, is their choice of lighting. Whereas VVs have kinda uplighting from the luggage racks IIRC, these have fluorescent roof panels, which are instantly much more harsh and glarey when you step into the carriage. To make it a whole lot worse, while VVs emit a gentle yellow light of about the same temperature we’re used to from incandescent and halogen bulbs, these panels have a horrible, whiter-than-white blueish hue, something the other side of daylight, and it really can make your eyes hurt. You do of course adapt to this after about 5-10 minutes in the carriage, with the downside that then, even in broad sunny daylight, everything outside the carriage appears somewhat orange, and the countryside seems clouded with grey-orange smog. This can be quite disorientating to say the least…