As we established yesterday, I write too slowly. So I've forced myself to write today's post in one hour flat. And now I've gone back to add a quick running commentary so I can tell you how I coped.
Oysterising the Thames
Title's cut and pasted from a press release. Saves thinking up anything original. And the photo's lifted from a post I wrote about riverboat journeys last summer. Speedy start.
You can already flash your Oyster on the bus and on the trains, so why not on the river? That's the latest news from the press release sausage factory that is the Mayor's PR squad. Thames riverboat operators have agreed to accept passengers flashing Oyster cards, as part of the continued rollout of interactive ticketing technology across all multi-modal journey options. Sorry, now I'm the one sounding like a verbose project management nerd. But I can't compete with this magnificent paragraph from yesterday's announcement.
Oh excellent. I don't have to write the next bit either. Quoting other people's stuff is a great way to fill a blog with minimum effort.
I don't believe Boris ever said that, not unless he read it out at a press conference, and it was written for him by some trainee marketing gibbon attempting to combine all relevant buzz phrases into two sentences of meaningless aspiration. But I digress.
Sorry, I was a bit negative there. Normally I tone down these PR hatchet jobs a bit to make things sound a bit more balanced. But no time for editing today, so if you are that trainee marketing gibbon, I apologise.
Incoming email. Could I resist reading it? No. Could I resist replying to it? No. And that was five of my valuable sixty minutes spent doing nothing relevant. How easily my writing time slipped away.
The important news is that we Oyster owners will be able to use our cards on the Thames. In November. That's quite a while away isn't it? A whole summer of messing about in boats will pass, and only then will the conglomeration of riverboat operatives be enabled to beep passengers on board and charge them appropriately. It's not like portable Oyster readers don't exist - they were in use aboard Routemaster buses even before Ken scrapped them. Maybe they weren't water-resistant.
I didn't notice that Routemaster parallel myself, I read it in the comments on another blog. I'm sort of hoping you won't have noticed that, though. Uncredited plagiarism's a great way to look knowledgeable fast.
Anyway, what does this cut-price river future entail? No major new cut price offers, by the sound of it. I can already get one third off a river ticket by flashing my Oyster Travelcard, and that won't change in November. For those with pay-as-you-go, the ticket price will still be five quid come November, it'll just be more convenient to pay it. And five quid's quite a lot really. It's only four quid cash to take the tube, and only £2.20 if you use Oyster. Boris appears to be talking improved convenience here, not greater savings.
I haven't checked the figures carefully. For all I know there was something I missed in the press release that left open the option of lower prices. But I didn't see it at first glance, and I don't have time to go back and check. Instead I went to the kitchen and got myself a cup of tea. Even in one hour flat I was still time-wasting.
I'm not convinced I'll be using the river any more frequently myself. Messing about in boats may be a far more civilised way to travel, but getting on board isn't always straight-forward. Thames Clipper riverboats run at roughly 20 minute intervals, so it's not exactly a turn-up-and-go service. If the boat's full when it arrives (and it can be), it's a damned long wait for the next one. And there are a lot of intermediate piers along the Thames between the West End and Docklands, so a surprisingly large proportion of the journey is spent tying up and casting off.
Apologies, no time to compare how much faster it is to travel by tube than by boat (or vice versa on certain routes). Maybe one of you could do that for me.
Because that's where my hour ran out. Sorry, normally there'd be some concluding statement, something short and snappy, to draw my argument to a close. Instead I'm leaving you all in mid-flow, before I'd reached a natural end. Also I only managed to add a couple of links, and normally I'd have researched and addedrathermore. I really wish I'd had time to go back and edit the piece too, tighten it up a bit, make things more coherent. But no, time's up. It's all a bit disappointing really. I'm going to have to spend longer on this blogging lark tomorrow...
You can already flash your Oyster on the bus and on the trains, so why not on the river? That's the latest news from the press release sausage factory that is the Mayor's PR squad. Thames riverboat operators have agreed to accept passengers flashing Oyster cards, as part of the continued rollout of interactive ticketing technology across all multi-modal journey options. Sorry, now I'm the one sounding like a verbose project management nerd. But I can't compete with this magnificent paragraph from yesterday's announcement.
