Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Manderley Cornwall

I slept poorly. But that has to do with me being a light sleeper, and less to do with the Night Riviera. Still, the experience was worth it. My wake-up call was in the form of the carriage attendant delivering a tray of filtered coffee at 7:15. I lifted the blind, and was greeted by a burning amber sun rising over the bucolic landscape. It wa a magical "good morning".

Once in Penzance, I hired my car. I was thrilled to receive a complimentary upgrade to an A-Class Mercedes. Very smart. I breakfasted in Penzance (slideshow), at Sullivan's Diner on the harbour. This Spartan glass box offered wonderfully simple food. The patrons were rough diamond locals with unusual south-western accents. Naturally, I listened in to the conversation at the next table, where a man described how he was "going with" the sister of the last man hanged in England. The eavesdropper's cursed burden is being forced to sit idly when one wants to ask a thousand questions, like:
- did they think he was guilty?
- did the couple live happily ever after?
- why do people in Penzance sound like pirates?

Travelling north from Penzance, I drove into St Ives (slideshow), of "I met a man with seven wives" fame. The town was recommended to me by several people, but I was not expecting such a picture-perfect seaside village. The town centre is on a headland, with a harbour on one side and a surfing beach on the other. Nestled between is a labyrinth of arty shops and cafes. There is even an outpost of the Tate Gallery here. St Ives is the first place I spotted an Ancient Lights notice. Ancient Lights an archaic element of English property law guaranteeing a property owner a right to illumination, and preventing a neighbouring property from blocking the light, provided each window is marked with a sign reading "Ancient Lights"!

My next stop was Newquay, also on the north coast of Cornwall. Everyone who recommended St Ives also told me to steer clear of Newquay, but I really enjoyed my time there. Fistral Beach is a wide sandy surfing beach with proper dunking waves. I sunbathed for a few hours, in what I consider to be perfect conditions. The air temperature was only 19 degrees, with the briefest of breeze, but the sun was hot, and the sand deliciously cool. The water was icy cold, and certainly the coldest sea experience I have ever braved. I figured something was up when I noticed 80% of the swimmers were wearing wetsuits. It was truly freezing, sending my muscles into spasm. I never realised goosebumps could be so large! Still, the bracing effects of the sea were a magical antidote to the lingering tiredness from a bad night's sleep. The north end of Fistral Beach is dominated by the imposing Headland Hotel (slideshow) where I had a traditional creamed tea. This huge rambling Victorian relic was used in the 1990 film adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches. Out of respect, I carefully sidestepped the hotel mice.

My final north coast destination was Tintagel, with its famous castle (slideshow) built on a headland, and reputed birthplace of King Arthur. The Excalibur myth is just that. King John may not have known that, but he did understand the PR potential for building a castle on the that site. Even without the mythical link, Tintagel would still be famous for its stunning natural beauty. For a quarter hour I sat on the headland, looking out to sea. Tintagel and North America are separated by 3000 miles of ocean, and nothing else in between. I contemplating those wonderful thoughts of the sheer size of planet Earth, and the physical insignficance of just one person. The vista was beautiful. I could have sat there for much longer. After all, what is time? Then I remembered I had to be at Lands End, a distance of 85 miles, in less than 2 hours, to catch a theatre show.

I stayed overnight in Penzance at a B&B that fulfilled the three Cs of being cheap, clean, and comfortable. The unbargained quirk of this establishment - and there is always at least one - is that the bathroom sink had a peculiar habit of spitting waste water when I flushed the toilet. I wondered if the room was haunted, which only served to haunt my night's sleep. I dreamt of how the world had gone crazy searching for a missing teenage girl. Just when the investigation turned nasty, ala Madeleine McCann, the police discovered that she had shot her own head off in the countryside. Nice. That will teach me.

The next morning at breakfast I found myself seated at the kids table, with three male Cambridge students around the age of 20. Between them, they were studying... Or reading, as they say at Oxbridge... theology, philosophy, and English. With zero collective job opportunities, I smelled family money, and suspected none of them had pressing urgency to start work. In fairness, I always seem to be meeting interesting people on my travels, and this occasion was no exception when I learned, via the B&B owner's conversational contrivance, that one of those Cambridge students is the grandson of Richard Attenborough!

I travelled west from Penzance to Porthcurno (slideshow), which is a tiny cove of considerable beauty, not far from Land's End. Porthcurno is where a Victorian era telegraph cable linked Britain with Gibraltar. The museum there is very interesting, and is located in the World War II communications bunker built by Cable & Wireless.

On the western side of Porthcurno cove is the Minack Theatre (slideshow), which I had attended the night before, for a performance of HMS Pinafore. The Minack is unlike any theatre I've attended before. It is open air, and built into a seaside cliff. It has the feel of a Greek Amphitheare, with the open sea as a stunning backdrop. The story of how the Minack came to be - one woman dreamt of a theatre in the middle-of-nowhere, and built it - is reminiscient of Diane Cilento's Karnak Theatre outside Mossman in Queensland.

I drove the last few miles to Land's End (slideshow), which is famous for being the most westerly point in Britain. What could be a simple observation point with perhaps a fine restaurant is actualy an excuse for crap amusements and chavvy fast food shops. After paying £3 for parking, and £3 for a pasty, I was fleeced of a further £4 to attend the Doctor Who exhibition (slideshow), which was totally crap. I understand why so many Brits find it more economical to holiday in Spain.

My final stop was St Michael's Mount (slideshow). This tidal island off the coast of Marazion is crowned by a magnifient mediaevel castle. Now managed by the National Trust, the castle receives 200,000 visitors each year. If I had my own fiefdom, and needed to choose a castle to live in, this would probably be the one.

I'm finishing this post as the train lumbers across Brunel's magnificent Saltash Bridge. Soon we'll pass along Brunel's seaside rail track at Dawlish (slideshow). Built for the Victorian engineer's pneumatically-powered Atmostpheric Railway, the unique seaside track was later incorporated into the Great Western Railway. There are few other places where the railway track runs directly alongside the sea. In winter, the waves lash at the trains, but even in summer the brief journey along this track is remarkably beautiful. I upgraded to a window-side First Class seat for just £10 more, so I'm guaranteed a great view.

Murder on the Night Riviera

I'm sitting in the First Class Buffet on the Night Riviera, the sleeper train service that runs between London Paddington Station and Penzance. To say I'm excited is an understatement. I usually hate travelling, and prefer to take the quickest and shortest distance between two points. But there is something terribly romantic about a proper old-style train service. I guess I read Murder on the Orient Express at an impressionable age.

The Night Riviera is one of only three remaining sleeper services in the United Kingdom. I am travelling the full journey, taking me within 9 miles of Land's End, the most westerly point in Britain. The train departs Paddington at 23:45 and arrives in Penzance at 8:00. The trip can be done in about 2/3 that time on a fast train, but the night service is scheduled to allow people to sleep, and I hope I do! I'd describe my berth as "restrained luxury". It's clean, extremely functional, and surprisingly roomy through some master strokes of design. We've just arrived in Reading - the first of several stops - and I'm taking that as my queue to hit the sack.

Tube Strike Drama

London ground to a halt this week with the commencement of a 72-hour tube strike on Monday evening at 5pm. There was no service on nine of the twelve tube lines, including the Central Line that I use to get to work. Getting home that night was fairly easy as I went to gym, and jumped on a bus around 9:30pm. But tensions were already at breaking point. The bus was jammed full, and hot as hell, and two separate arguments broke out on both decks. I was reminded of how society breaks down in David Koepp's film The Trigger Effect, and wondered how London would cope with a sustained terrorist attack. As Lionel Shriver notes in The Guardian this week, the greatest fear of terrorism is the fear it generates.

While Monday night was fairly easy, getting to and from work on Tuesday was a nightmare. Living so close to the West End, I figured there was no chance I would get on a bus. I was right. I set out from home by walking to work, and noted that every bus that passed me was absurdly filled beyond capacity. It took me a little over an hour to walk to work, and an hour for the return trip home, which is not bad seeing as it's a distance of 6 .2 kilometres (3.9 miles). To give the morning trip some spice, I detoured down New Bond Street and through Burlington Arcade to do some window-shopping. It seemed appropriately capitalistic to window-shop along some of the most expensive real estate in the world, during a transport strike.

The absurdity of this strike is that Transport for London, and the Mayor of London, agreed to every demand by the RMT Union several days before the start of the strike. The Union decided to flex their collective muscle, and strike anyway, even though everyone, including the PM Gordon Brown, cannot understand why, and felt they shouldn't have striked. Worse still, the RMT is threatening to strike again next week. The catalyst for this action is the collapse of Metronet, the private group of companies that won the public-private-partnership contract to maintain, renew, and upgrade nine of the twelve underground lines. Despite being one of the largest contracts ever awarded, £17 billion over 30 years, Metronet failed to deliver. Just prior to the company's collapse a few months back, they were 10,000 work days (ie 27 years) behind schedule, and had overspent by £1.1 billion on just one of the two contracts they won. That's quite an achievement for a company that started four years ago, and somehow managed a £50 million profit in one recent year. Basically, the RMT really want the operations of Metronet returned to the public sector. What they forget is that the third contract, won by Tube Lines, is running to schedule and to budget. That is why three of the twelve tube lines remained open.

I cheated a little with the photo for this blog post. The closed station entrance you see is for Aldwych Station, also known as Strand Station. While I did take the photo on the morning of the strike, this station is always closed to the public, and has been since 1994. The station is, however, kept in working order because it is often used as a film location. Lots of films were shot here, including Battle of Britain, Patriot Games, V for Vendetta, Superman IV, Creep, 28 Weeks Later, and The Good Shepherd. There is more info on Wikipedia, including the nice trivia fact that the Elgin Marbles were stored here during the war.