On the road in Luton
I am on the road in UK PLC taking the temperature ahead of the impending election.
Luton is to be my first stop – I catch the 22.32 train from London’s St Pancras. What a station; what a train! A winter palace contrasted with an elderly cake tin.
The cake tin takes off at surprising speed. Ear-phones everywhere, most people snoozing. I marvel at how they know when to wake up.
My brand new iPhone suddenly seizes up. I am lost, I had planned so many calls. The battery? Apparently not.
I stumble out of uninviting Luton station. How can we have sustained such grim provision for those who travel in and out of Luton? There are smart state-of-the-art cabs aplenty.
The hotel is no longer called whatever it was, and in any case the address is naturally locked in my iPhone. But somehow I and the Kashmiri driver work out which one it might be.
I reach the hotel and it’s the right one…more grey. Lovely view of a multi storey car park. I guess this is UK PLC?
I direct dial a number from my room…it doesn’t work…and another, and another – none of them work. So rare is it that anyone uses a hotel phone apparently, that the room phone has to be sorted to make such calls!
I sleep well. The iPhone is still dead when I wake. The car park looks worse in the grey dawn. Why did we do this to our towns?
This is going to be fun!
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There are 21 comments on this post
Your journey sounds much less inviting than your daughter’s, Jon.
One of the scary things to contemplate is that much of the hideous 60s architecture that blights our land will soon be seized on by conservationaists and slapped with listed status and we’ll never get rid of them.
Saltaire Jon is getting like a 60′s listed building .Old , out of touch and politically incorrect.Time we had some new architecture that is vibrant ,controversial and worthy of argument.
Just heard you on RTE radio Jon, the gathering in Dublin sounds fun. Enjoyed your fairy tail view of St Pancras and your ride in the Cake tin, i always knew that the dereg of our train and buses would make for wonderland of better service! hope the rest of your UK plc tour gets less grey than the luton car park,and your phone springs back into life so you can retrieve your numbers and info,or just use some paper to write your hotel address on in the future! All the best. wgw
Jon, very interesting disparaging blog on the inadequacies of British trains , the stations , Ipods and Lutons hotels.Does that tell us what Brown’s /Labours Britain is like, or was it a plea for sympathy .Nothing really to get our bloggers teeth into.Last night you intervied party politicians about elderly care, now that would have been interesting.
I agree – elederly care or waht u coverd a week or two back Euthanasia – would be more intersting .I have a mobile fone – a necessary evil . I thought iphones were for 15-18yos . U must be rich -making calls from hotel fones is very expnsive . Bill gates is no longer the richest man in world – lost that title today – itsvery sad . New York has most Billionaires [ 60 ] followed by Moscow [ 50] and London 32 -. End of useless info.
I recently stayed in some Travelodge Hotels where after booking in I had to go out and put money in a parking meter because they did not own their own car park! £5 a night. I will never use them again. At least you never had that problem.
Every night I watch your news on channel 4 because its the best there is, keep up the good work.
I had the same problem at Travelodge and came to the same conclusion
i watch channel 4 news every night so i can complain of Jons bias
Jon’s far too balanced for some of us! It’s about time we had an antidote to Murdoch press and TV, Daily Mail, Express etc etc etc. The poor old Guardian can’t be the only one to carry a torch for the left.
try old english inns Gordon . They are beautiful
Communication , communication communication. The sardine tins,crammed full of irate people wanting to go the loo congest the roads though , whilst you are charging through. No wonder you ride a bike.
Get what you want and need out of UK Plc..
Luton, as far as I know, is just another forgotten London satelite town..or was it never really considered in the first place?
adzmundo CND
Are you coming to the Midlands Jon? Birmingham New Street is pretty grim as stations go. At least Lichfield, where I live, has a reasonably pleasant little railway station to welcome you.
[...] Jon Snow|Posted: 7:08 am on 12/03/10 Category: Snowblog | Tags: election/ Hull Complaints about yesterday’s blog that there was nothing for my blogista community to get their teeth into – specifically from Jim [...]
I will try them Adrian, I tried to book five different Premier Inn rooms before finally booking Travelodge but the web page would not work so I visited the local Premier for help but the was none forthcoming, so that’s another place I will never go again. Has anyone ever managed to get one of the cheap rooms they advertise?
Interresting that you’re ‘on the road’ rather than ‘on the rail’. But it proves that for most real jouneys, door-to-door, the railway does not offer a practical solution, and never will.
Yet, we are apparently planning to spend £30Bn+ to build a really-fast train line to save just a few people a few minutes on a few journeys. If every man, woman and child in the country were to use that line, the line alone would have cost more than £500 for each trip. This is one of the most outrageous wastes of public money ever, to say nothing of its true environmental impact.
And just because some politicians (of all parties) apparently feel a need to run an even bigger train-set than the Hornby Dublo they had as kids. It’s just like the on-going ‘big-willy’ competition between national airports – mine’s bigger than yours. Pathetic !
Well, Jon, it was a very warm and cordial little chat we had on the doorstep of our flat in Luton this morning. I surely will watch your programme about Luton on Mon, 22/3. And as I said, should you want to talk to someone about long-term unemployment and its effects, look no further,,,
Anne
Hi Jon…I hope and believe the rest of your time spent in Luton was a bit more interesting than your first sight of the grey UK PLC quarters of our town…!
Viva the RevoLuton in Marsh Farm
One Love
Glenn
Jon, we saw you at the station! The highlight of my year hands down! Looking good! x
you are lucky.
Was trying to fathom out that coat/jacket though – When I first saw the report I thought “Why is Jon going around Luton in his dressing gown!”