I am really getting into this great Freedom Of Information site whatdotheyknow.com, I have found out why a popular city restaurant had a 1/5 food standards agency rating, and am finding out some information about schools in Richmond. I thought this morning to try and use it to find out if that lovely massive terminal at Waterloo which used to be for the Eurostar, would ever be used again. It’s seems like such a shameful waste to see that roofed building with it’s long travellators, wired up security immigration systems and shops all empty every day.

Then I did a quick search on whatdotheyknow.com to find that one platform in there is used for routes I take from next year and also my sardine can like trains are going to get 25% longer soon too.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-platform-and-60-extra-carriages-for-waterloo-commuters

The internet is simply awesome.

Our second and equally amazing son Oliver.

One of the most ball busting things about modern day life in London is wanting to spend as much time with your kids but having to pay the bills at the same time. It’s a balance that seems impossible to achieve. But seems to be a particularly middle class problem. After paying extortionate nursery fees with blatantly unfair T&Cs for our sons second year, for only a part of his third year before staring primary school we managed to get the 15 hours a week free childcare. When your nursery cost is as much as your mortgage cost it really is a solid kick in the nuts every time you see a new invoice.

Imagine our excitement as we have a 9 month old son as well now and are struggling to think about what we might do for his childcare needs when we see that the Government has decided to extend the 15 hours a week helping hand to 2 year old children as well.

But then yes, another kick to the other nut when you find it only for the people on benefits… those who already have rent / travel / food subsidies that us 40%ers are paying for, now we help them get their children in nursery too so they can sit at home in peace while we play train sardines..

Something has to change about how the UK is run, you are brought up to want to be the things that are associated with middle class, but when you get there you feel thoroughly cheated.

Seems we can pay council tax over 12 months rather than 10, sounds great to me but the  place mentioned to pay it on the leaflet is nowhere to be found on their website… What I did notice however is an affiliate window banner for bodens

should a council be making revenue from private advertising?, is this a cheeky programmer sneaking a banner in?….

see for yourself

http://www.richmond.gov.uk/home/council_government_and_democracy/council/council_tax.htm

This is the sort of status update you can expect to receive disappointingly frequently if you are also a regular user of South west trains

A complete loss of signalling between London Waterloo and Clapham Junction is affecting the train service. There are currently no trains running into or out of London Waterloo Station. This will continue until the end of service and customers are strongly advised to use alternative transport to get home this evening, as we will not be in a position to run trains due to the severity of the problem.

Trains all over the network are at a stand in various locations. We are prioritising getting train services into Stations at this present time.

Alternative Transport

London Buses accepting South West Trains tickets.

Transport for London services are conveying passengers via any reasonable route until further notice. Arrangements have been made for South West Trains rail tickets to be accepted for these journeys. London Buses accepting South West Trains tickets.
First Great Western and Southern Railway services are conveying passengers via any reasonable route until further notice.

Bus Replacement Service

A minimal bus replacement service is in operation. These buses are running via the following routes:

Basingstoke to Southampton Central
Eastleigh to Portsmouth Harbour
Teddington to Shepperton
Woking to Alton
Woking to Guildford

We are trying to source more alternatives at this current time.

Two tube tips I have for fellow suffers are as follows:

• Do you find yourself embarrassingly trying to tap in/out at the barrier with 300 people behind you only to find that your £2000 oyster card wont let you through?, just pop up to the desk where some friendly person will swap your physical oyster card for a shiny new one that will work pretty much every time, no more swearing at the machine!.
• Did you know that you can claim a full refund for a tube journey that for whatever reason delayed you by more than 15 mins?, that’s right, as you stand there with 2000 other people waiting to get through a small doorway onto the single stop Waterloo and City line with train after train going away and what should have taken 5 mins takes you around 20?, just pop onto this tube fairs refund page fill in the short form and they will post you a voucher which you can collect than get a nice payout to ease the suffering. There are android / iphone apps that automate this and you can also get a browser extension for chrome / firefox that can fill in most if not all of the form for you so you just click submit.