London to Scotland in 2 Hours

The route of a high speed rail link between London and Scotland has been unveiled by Network Rail. The proposed £34bn line will run from central London, via Birmingham, Manchester, Warrington, Liverpool and Preston to Glasgow and Edinburgh and could slash the journey time between London and Scotland to a little over 2 hours. But don’t expect it any time soon… the high-speed line hasn’t been given the go-ahead just yet and, even if it does happen, it will be 10 years in the making. Read more at The Telegraph.

My own humble experiences traveling between London and Edinburgh took about 8 hours, so a high speed train would be a nice alternative. Of course, the reason I rode the bus was that it was cheap. The Wife and I stumbled off a British Airways flight that last about 9 hours, rode the Gatwick Express to Victoria Station and then hopped on a bus for the 8 hour trek to Scotland. We went to Scotland to see Loch Ness and had a grand time, even though we did not spot Nessy.

I love the sci fi look of high speed trains, and I have always had a personal preference for the ones that use MagLev. There is that whole Disneyland feel to them and I like the idea of zipping along at 200 miles per hour.

The bus ride up to Scotland was pretty nice, we had most of the bus to ourselves and the view out the windows was amazing. Lots of yellow flowers we were told was rapeseed and lots of villages with lovely high streets. We were dead tired, but it was still not a bad trip.

Since we had scheduled something for every minute of the trip, we decided to take the last bus out of Scotland-which was at midnight. This would get back into London around 8 a.m. We sat in a Pub and waited for our bus to arrive, with The Wife looking out the window. As the time grew near and the Pub was about to close anyway, we headed out to have a look at the bus parking area. There were two or three buses sitting there, that we could not see from the Pub just across the parking lot. So we ran up to the one for London.

We handed the man our bags, which he promptly tossed into the storage area and told us to get on board quickly. We did. The bus was full-save for two seats. We asked a nice man to move so we could sit together. Then we sat there for a few minutes while less fortunate travelers went up and down the aisle looking in vain for somewhere to sit.

The trip back to London offered little chance for rest and nothing to see in the darkness. We stopped at about 3 in the morning at a gas station with a KFC, which was closed. I will never forgive the bus line and KFC for getting our hopes up. We did find a couple of sandwiches, but that was not the same.

So I would like to think that traveling by high speed rail would be a little more organized. That's what I'd like to think anyway. Of course, then I wouldn't have this story of the midnight not so express to London.

Paris in London-Paris Hilton's British Best Friend

"For five seasons I was stuck doing this character," Paris Hilton said about The Simple Life. "It was kind of hard always having to play that character when it's not who I am."

Paris Hilton managed to hit the front pages of many British tabloids by doing what she does best-getting attention for being hot. Paris Hitlon went braless in the cool London air with predictable results. Of course, a semi-naked Paris Hilton is not newsworthy in America; a topless Paris Hilton is hardly news in the U.S. anymore. But in London, Paris Hilton's boobs still get a lot of attention.

Paris Hilton is working on becoming the Queen of Reality Shows. She is in London to promote her British reality show on ITV2, Paris Hilton's British Best Friend. Having watched one or two of the the U.S. version of Paris's Best Friend, it should be fun to watch. Paris Hilton seems to be one of those people who isn't acting, what you see is what you get.

Or maybe not. Paris Hilton seems to work pretty hard to live the easy life of a poor little rich girl. It's kind of hard to believe she's a closet genius when she steps out into the cold wearing nothing but an oversized nylon. It's all about getting attention, and no matter what else you care to say about Paris Hilton, she does know how to get attention.

Big Ben Happened in London 1859

what happened in London on September 7th 1859

You gotta love Google Trends-this is just the type of oddball thing that pops up from time to time. When those Recite Song Lyrics Shows were all the rage a while back, you could count on all the songs being in the top ten of Google Trends. Lots of games show type questions end up on Google Trends.

The Clock Tower owes its existence to a fire in 1834 that destroyed most of Parliament. A commission was set up to choose a new building design from 97 submissions and a clock tower dominated Charles Barry's winning plan. The clock swung into action in 1859.-UK Parliament

What happened in London on September 7th 1859, the next logical questions is who cares? Well, it seems the answer is that Big Ben started keeping time on this date. Or about that time anyway. The 1859 part seems to be fit, the September 7th-not so much. But I like the whole idea that London is on Google Trends. By the way, Big Ben is not the clock's official name, the proper name for Big Ben is the Great Bell.

What happened in London on September 7th 1859 was number two on Google Trends and must have been a trivia question on a game show or a morning show. Of course, with all the Trendy blogger such as myself looking for something to blog about-we are keeping this silly question on Google Trends and not finding any answer to the question.

What happened in London on September 7th 1859? Beats me.