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February 11, 2013
Helping search engines with appropriate 400 error codes
Our web site's done its best over the years to help people who enter URLs that have slight errors in them - misspellings, wrong directory names, etc ... and we have quite a number of scrips that take parameters which can be modified to give different results - for example
www.wellho.net/net/quote.html?where=L10+1RF
will get you a quotation for a course in Liverpool and
www.wellho.net/net/quote.html?where=17013
will get you a quote for a course in Carlisle, Pennsylvania!
That's very flexible, but it means that there's a wide range of requests that can be made of our servers which in turn can result in the search engines and otherds finding a lot of pages that really aren't wanted / shouldn't be indexed. It just takes one person to put a link somewhere to set off a whole chain, or one malicious spider to start propogating valid but unwanted URLs.
I've spent some time this weekend cleaning up - making sure that we signal rather better to the search engines (and to other visitors too) which URLs are inappropriate. Firstly, some extras in our robots.txt file:
Disallow: /net/recents.htm
Disallow: /resources/recents.htm
And that asks any wellbehaved crawler (most are!) not to go into either or these URLs, or any URLs that start with that text. So as well as .html files (which were previously disallowed), we now request that .htm files are not indexed.
And here are some of the error codes that we now generate ...
400 - Your request is a bad one. Most probably you have tried to call up a script with an inappropriate parameter, such as giving us a URL when we expect a number of simple directory name. (Is this an injection attack going on?)
403 - Forbidden. You are not allowed access to this. We may have identified you as some sort of automatic process trying to mirror out site, and that's not appropriate as this is a dynamic site and the output changes.
404 - Not found. Most likely a typo in the URL or a missing page on our site. Possibly an automated probe to see if a page exists. If you get this from a link, please let us know!
410 - Gone. The resource you're looking for does not exist, and is never likely to exist. Please clear your cache of it and don't ask again. When an automated link has accidentally (or maliciously) been generated and points to a whole family of resources, we'll tell you to clear them out via a 410.
Some of these are generated via lines in the .htaccess files:
# Any crap on the end of "recents" URLs - kill the page!
RewriteRule ^recents\.html. /err/tiny410.html [R=410,L]
RewriteRule ^recents\.htm/. /err/tiny410.html [R=410,L]
# Get rid of query strings with long (injection?) paths
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} /.*/.*/
RewriteRule ^smap /err/tiny400.html [R=400,L]
RewriteRule ^smap.*%3 /err/tiny400.html [R=400,L]
# If there's more than just a digit on the end, naughty
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} full=..
RewriteRule ^landings\.htm /err/tiny403.html [R=403,L]
And sometimes one of our PHP scripts itself sends out a different header:
header("HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found");
Covered on our PHP Techniques and Linux Web Server courses when appropriate to the delegate group. Also on private courses.
Posted by gje at 05:48 PM
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More about Graham Ellis of Well House Consultants
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February 09, 2013
9 years, and 4000 articles on
On 5th August 2004, I wrote:
"99% of what I see is forgotten. 99% of what I think remains locked inside me. 99% of my words are lost within a short while of them being spoken. "Silence is Golden" but there may be a few of those words that are worth sharing. Projects and lists and thoughts jotted down but incomplete; they could just be useful to someone. A thought - a trigger - a reminder. So I'm going to post them here. Hey - I might look back and they might be useful to me at some time!"
My first blog article - 9 years ago. And this is article number 4000!
Most of what I see is still forgotten. Most of what I think remains as just thoughts. And most of what I say quickly fades away. But over the years on a daily basis, I've found something that's not to be lost. A technical tip ... an amusing incident ... a pretty picture ... something of interest to the town of Melksham. So that's 4000 of what I think are the more useful thoughts and tips and pictures that haven't been completely lost.
Nine years ago ... things were very different. We were a "mom and pop" outfit, training from home that had opened up quietly on the outskirts of Melksham. Our involvement in things local was minimal, although we did (already) have delegates visiting the town, staying locally, and spending their money not only on our courses, but also at the hotels / B&Bs / pubs / restaurants.
Over the years, I've become involved in a number of local issues, and talked about them (more or less) here:
• There's the whole sorry business of Melksham loosing its trains in 2006 and the fight to get an appropriate service back - see [here] for an archive of those articles.
• As we found the available rooms for our delegates in Melksham shrinking from flood to drought, we took over one of the acommodation providers and refurbished it as Well House Manor - see [here] for project diary articles.
• Wiltshire Council is replacing some eight (time expired) local facilities with a new single site campus, and after letting myself get involved in some of the early activity / "persuading" them it should be in the town not on a field outside, I find myself on their advisory board - see [here] for articles on that ongoing project.
• The local Federation of Small Businesses tore itself apart (see [here] and still has minimal local activity); although I remain a member, Lisa and I are now very much involved with the Chamber of Commerce, and indeed I'm the President at the moment. The Chamber too is going through the pains of apathy and restucture, but coming out of those now, and the constitution is such that the Chamber can go from strength to strength in the town - see [here].
• Programming languages such as Lua and Ruby have been added to our range, and we continue to review what we offer. We've taken the decision to remove Java from the list of languages that we teach (too diverse in its uses for us to cover any of them well), and there's a feed of general information on our courses and organisation [here].
• A significant number of delegates now come to us never having programmed before, and we've added an extra day on the front of all of our introduction to Xxxxx (where Xxxxx is a language) entitled "Learning to program in Xxxxx" to help and encourage such delegates. See [here] for related articles.
• We're no longer just "Mom and Pop". We have the most fantastic team of staff at Well House Manor; I can't speak highly enough of them. Part of that's just good luck that we've found the right people, but part of it too is from learning, at times the hard way. Posting a lot about staff could impinge on their privacy, so lack of a lot of posts in this area isn't any lack of caring on my part - what I have posted is [here].
• Again - privacy of children - few posts about becoming grandparents, or the forthcoming wedding ... but we're proud (grand)parents!
• There's no such issue about the cat (who we had in 2004) and the dogs (who have been with us for 3 years and one year) - see [here].
Looking forward, will I get to article number 8000? Somehow, I doubt it. There will probably be some wobbles and diversions along the way, though the strategic direction and goals are clear.
The Blog has changed from a daily read for a group of people into a mechanism for feeding updated material onto the web site. It's proved its value many times over during courses as I can say "I've done that before / had that question before" during courses, and I can pull up the answer in my material on the screen, go through each group / individual's need. That started very early indeed - my 158th article MySQL - Join v Left Join, and had carried right through 3999 - yesterday - Putting on a brave face when your backend is giving trouble. And I'm sure that feed will continue. It's a useful mechanism for entering data, and we've now got a huge investment in catergorising it, which works reasonably well. But there will be scope for improvement. Continual logging - via Facebook, Twitter, have replaced the primary function of a blog - although tweeting / providing links below a headline helpd reach a more tuned audience.
Where will be be in another 9 years? I don't know. I would not have predicted much of what I've written about above 9 years ago. And I suspect Lisa didn't expect 4000 articles when she suggested a blog. There will be more twists and turns along the way, but we love it here in Melksham, we're committed to the town, and we look forward to many more happy years here. It's in my nature to get involved in things I'm interested in - sometimes to the degree of obsession and leaving other things that I'm supposed to be doing more alone than I should, to the frustration of those around me. But that's probably not a story for article 4000.
In the immediate future, I have what looks like a busy schedule - courses to give (booked or confirmations expected) up to May, a hotel with good occupany each week through February, the PHP Zend framework to carry on learning, and the "micro" and "spectrum" environments too for a major customer. Rail meetings all over the place (where I now have more knowledge than most rail users, even though I don't commute every day) ... Keep watching, keep following, keep finding us crop up in all sorts of places. We're here to stay, and we'll still be here - developed and in some form - in 2022. And - an invite to old friends from however far back - do come and stay. [hotel web site] - with past delegates getting delegate rate. And bring your technical questions - I'll always be happy to talk tech if I'm around!
Illustrations - Well House Manor, and a part of our team - apologies to Heather, Phil and Lisa who weren't in shot here!
Posted by gje at 09:57 AM
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February 08, 2013
Handling failures / absences of your backend server nicely
It's good for your website to put a professional smile on it's face, even when it's having problems with its backend!
On high traffic sites (for example - TV show and news sites), backend servers can occasionally get overloaded and you'll want your web site visitor to get a message to that effect, rather than a failure. If the feed is a regular news feed, you might even be able to respond with the latest (cached) news if it's less that a few minutes old, and your user will be none the wiser!
Here's a demonstration of one way to do this - setting up a front end Apache httpd to divert requests it would normally pass on to a proxy to a local PHP script if the proxy is not available. Simply add something like
ErrorDocument 503 "/proxydown.php"
into the httpd.conf file, a file it includes, or an appropriate .htaccess file.
Then within that PHP script, you can force a 200 (OK) header to be returned:
header("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");
and the PHP script can work out what's running, and what was asked for:
$requested = $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
$gotinstead = $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"];
may give when you print out those variables
You called for /dryfeet but it is not available
You got instead /proxydown.php
This example is a demonstration which I've written to show the sort of thing that can be done when perhaps you have httpd fronting a number of Tomcat servers, and you want the httpd to catch and control any times that it fails to contact a Tomcat. The complete demonstration is [here] - that's a basic framework into which you can add logging, caching, emailin the system adminsitrator if the problem persists, and lots of other facilities.
Posted by gje at 06:09 PM
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February 07, 2013
Travelogue - from the Netherlands to London via Hook and Harwich
What a beautifully genteel way to travel ... from completing a course in a small Dutch town at around 5 p.m. yesterday via Gouda, Rotterdam and the Hook of Holland, the Stena Britannica to Harwich, and on by train to London. My schedule has been a tiring one so far this week - I can't really believe it's still only Thursday morning and yet I've travelled from home to the Netherlands, given a two day Apache httpd and Tomcat course, and I'm on my way back.
With ... some interesting snippets about the uses of httpd and Tomcat (single customer courses are always good for raining side issues that break the normal boundary box and produce useful FAQ answers!).
With ... some interesting experiences of travelling around and through Europe too. The modernness of Eurostar, yet the lack of at seat power. The heavyhanded security at St Pancras that went through all 9 of my laptops with swabs because "this is an internation journey" and yet the lack of any such checks on my way back on the ferry. The easy passage though a single immigration person on my way to the continent, and yet no fewer than ten staff at the immigration desks for foot passengers at Harich on the way back in, with the guy at the desk asking an awful lot of questions. The crowded trains in places, and yet the near-empty 8 carriage service (I have a coach to myself as I write, passing Mistley) on the Harwich to London boat train.
This route from the continent feels like "the route that time forgot". The suburban train that creeps out of the side platform (1a) at Rotterdam Central drops off most of its commuters along the way, with a final few staying on for the high rise blocks at the Hook of Holland, and perhaps onoe or two passengers for England. The old bay platform's still there at Hook of Holland Station, and the station restuarant too; it's about the only part of this complex that's remotely busy. I walk up the the reservation desk; the one chap there's almost delighted to see me, and hands me an impressive array of tickets, tokens and information (including a ticket for the journey I have just completed!) and directs me along the vast open hallways towards the ship which he assures me is boarding already, even though it's not due to sail for some three hours.
Two gents sit in passort control - "EU" and "Others". A casual glance at my passport, and I call on - up a long and wide walkway that climbs high over the dockside. It's fitted with modern travellators that start as you approach them, so that although the walk is a long one and rising, you're helped along the way. On board the ship, up a couple of flights to deck 10, and a steward directs you to your cabin. How excellent to find that "Internet at sea" is free of extra charge; slowing for sure, but then (as the paperwork points out), you're sharing a satellite link.
The Stena Brittanica is a modern and smooth boat - and it's a lovely ride. I've chosen to post a picture of my cabin (I had this for single occupancy), but there are many more pictures I could have shared.
I had allowed myself the - luxury - of booking dinner on board. Travelling overnight cuts out a hotel bill, and I don't feel too guilty at buying a decent cabin and a decent meal with part of th saving. And what an excellent choice! When I told my customers I was coming back on the boat, one of them (a regular user of the service) told me how good the restaurant is, andof course that meant that - when I went up there - my hopes were alreay sky high and the scope for disappointent was great. But - even with the pre-amble - I was impressed.
The food was ... hot (clearly not the caesar salad), fresh and well cooked. My rare ribeye was indeed rare, and tender too, and the potato wedges were just right. The Belgian beer washed it down well, and the view from deck 9, over the dockside activity, gave me a grandstand view of a fascinating operation from the warmth and comfort of the restaurant. The staff were there and attentive, without being overbearing (and that's hard to balance for the single diner in what was a very quiet restaurant. I look to come back with lessons and examples for our team; there really weren't any major lessons here - for I found myself thinking "this is our customer service approach too" - but on board a daily ferry was one of the last places I expected to find a shining example of how to get it right.
As a photographer of food, I'm not vey good where the food is excellent as I'll forget to take the pictures in my excitement ...
And so - sleep - and a breakfast buffet starting at 05:30, disembarcation at 06:30 and the train to London at 07:15. Which is where I am now - coming up to 08:00 and approaching Witham. A few more people have joined at Manningtree, Colchester and Mark's Tey, but it's still mostly fresh air that's being carried.
A Wednesday night in February is never going to be the busiest for foot passengers on the North Sea, but I found myself wondering at the very survival of the operation; long may it continue - I really hope that the Friday / weekend / Monday and summer and holiday times are much busier. It's a joy to travel this way ... three times better that the hassle of Eurostar, six times better than driving, and 10 times better than flying.
Posted by gje at 05:38 PM
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February 06, 2013
Servlet v JSP (Java Server Page). What is the difference?
A servlet is a web program that generates output (normally HTML) and returns it to a browser.
A JSP (Java Server Page) is a page of HTML ... with some extra bits of code where programatic elements are added as it's returned to the browser
So on the surface, it looks like there's a fundamental difference. Internally, however, Tomcat converts your .jsp pages into servlets, by taking all the elements which are outside the extra bits and putting them into out.print statements in Java source, which is then compiled. So - in reallity - a .jsp is a servlet in disguise.
You can see this in action if you wish. Tomcat's work directory is used for the conversion to Java source, and the compiling into class files, of your servlets, and (by default) the source code is left there for you to look at if you wish. Here's an example of where to look - default configuration, application called "wetfeet", host "locathost", file called "together.jsp" ...
/usr/local/tomcat/work/Catalina/localhost/wetfeet/org/apache/jsp/together_jsp.java
Taking some examples, a line like
Here is the <%= number %> times table
converts to
out.write("Here is the ");
out.print( number );
out.write(" times table \n");
and
<% for (int k=1; k<=maxtimes; k++) {
int result = k * number; %>
<tr><td><%= k %></td><td><%= result %></td></tr>
<% } %>
converts to
for (int k=1; k<=maxtimes; k++) {
int result = k * number;
out.write("\n");
out.write("<tr><td>");
out.print( k );
out.write("</td><td>");
out.print( result );
out.write("</td></tr>\n");
}
Complete example - .jsp source [here] and the generated servlet source [here].
Example from today's private Apache htpd and Tomcat course, which has been tailored for this customer from our public httpd and Tomcat class.
Posted by gje at 04:58 PM
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February 05, 2013
Tips on Tomcat - moving applications around
If you want to replace the root application on your Tomcat server, you can replace the ROOT folder in webapps. But there's alternatives that might be better for you.
a) Place the .war file and / or application in webapps, and replace the ROOT folder with a symbolic link to the application:
cd /usr/local/tomcat/webapps
mv ROOT BRANCH
cp {wherever/whatever} myrootapp.war
mkdir myrootapp
cd myrootapp
jar xf ../myrootapp.war
With the last three lines only being needed if you've turned autodeploy off (a stonking good idea on a production machine!). Note that I've moved the original ROOT application - that's just in case I want to get back to it later ... then
cd ..
ln -s myrootapp ROOT
b) A varient on (a). On a production server, you won't want your web applications to live within /usr/local/tomcat (or equivalent); that's for tomcat itself and the configurations - vital software, but rarely changing. You'll want your webapps instead in a directory / disc area that's backed up much more often (because it's going to change more) and is available to the people who look after the application rather than the people who look after the running of the server.
mkdir /var/www/webapps
cp {wherever/whatever} /var/www/webapps/myrootapp.war
cd /var/www/webapps
mkdir myrootapp
cd myrootapp
jar xf ../myrootapp.war
cd /usr/local/tomcat/webapps
mv ROOT BRANCH
ln -s /var/www/webapps/myrootapp ROOT
c) If you wish to move all of your applications served by Tomcat to a separate area, you can change the appBase attribute of the Host element in your server.xml configuration file. Carrying on using the data we have above:
<Host name="localhost" appBase="/var/www/webapps" ...
becomes
<Host name="localhost" appBase="webapps" ...
and indeed you can set up symbolic links within that directory to reroot root application requests from ROOT to some other application.
Note that option (b) - with a symbolic link from one directory to another - means that the web application will only be visible via ROOT and not via its own name, whereas with options (a) and (c) it is visible both ways.
The above are just examples of what you might do; you'll also want to consider the effect of the choice you make on the autodeployer and on the Tomcat Manager application if you're running it.
Want to know more? We run Apache http and Apache Tomcat training course - see [here].
Posted by gje at 03:55 PM
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February 04, 2013
Onward from Brussels
Well - that's both disappointing and fascinating. The Frya services onto which was supposed to connect at Brussels haven't been running for the last two weeks, and I found myself looking a a bewildering poster that talked about Anvers, Antwerp and Roosendaal. Alternative places to change to reach Amsterdam / Rotterdam. Or do I need to change at all three.
It turns out that Antwerp and Anvers are two names for the same place ... and I had to catch a train from Brussels to Antwerp, and then another from Antwerp to Roosendall, and a third from Roosendaal to Rotterdam. Then I can carry on with Rotterdam to Den Haag and Den Haag to Zoetermeer Oost.
The train from Brussels to Antwerp was fine - double decker, plenty of space, seats lined up with the windows, and styled "Intercity". And half an hour in Antwerp station was .. breathtaking. I don't know how to start describing the mixture of old and new architecture, the great open halls, the trains on three levels of platforms one above the other. And at the top of the stack, a glorious sunny afternoon on the street outside. This is where I DO need to post with pictures!
And so onwards to Roosendaal. Now - Antwerp is in Belgium, and Roosendaal is in the Netherlands. And although they're both in the EU, and have open borders, each has its own laws; languages and cultures. So the traffic across the border isn't very much at all.
My train ftom Antwerp was ancient. Clip windows, hard seats, centre luggage racks - reminded me of the 4EPB sets I was brought up on in the 1960s, except the seats were harder and plastic rather than material. The colour on the outside was maroon - again, just like British Rail maroon from the 1960s. Really - "the train that time forgot". And it was just four carriages (one first class) large numbers of people piled in - at least everyone got a seat.
We crept out of central through a long tunnel, and came up to a bleak inner suburb station - Antwerp something - where we stopped at a long platform with nothing on it; the bleak inner station that gets few trains, and everybody uses central. And then we moved on to .. the next Antwerp station. And - of so gradually - the stations got more suburban and greener. Truly this was the local train, extended (just the one service an hour, mark you, from Essen where many train terminate one more stop, over the border, to Roosenddaal. From arriving in Antwerp to arriving in Roosendaal took longer that Brussels to Rotterdam should.
And ... how long at the next change? Roosendall is on a remote arm of the Dutch railways from Rotterdam to Vlissingen and I seem to recall "hourly" from the past. I still don't know, because there was a good connection - as we pulled in, so did the train from Vlissingen and we were soon on our way. Joy of joys - it continues on past Rotterdam to The Hauge (Den Haag) too, so that saves me a change ...
[later]
... or so I thought. We called at Den Haag HS, and the Zoetermeer trains leave from Den Haag Centrum. Oops - but yet again the Dutch get it right, with a connection waiting, cross platform, and "Den Haag Centrum" in lights. And, once again, the connection leaves very quickly indeed. So I may grumble at having to drop back to the local, and it may have been slower ... but I've had a seat all the way and the connections have been good. Joy of joys - it continues on past Rotterdam to The Hage (Den Haag) too, so that saves me a change ...
[later]
... or so I thought. We called at Den Haag HS, and the Zoetermeer trains leave from Den Haag Centrum. Oops - but yet again the Dutch get it right, with a connection waiting, cross platform, and "Den Haag Centrum" in lights. And, once again, the connection leaves very quickly indeed. So I may grumble at having to drop back to the local, and it may have been slower ... but I've had a seat all the way and the connections have been good. What a contrast to Swindon this morning, when I watched the Cheltenham train pulling out just as the train from Swansea was coming into the platform - not described as the connection, but the "Didcot Dance" again, making it pretty naff for people from the west to turn north.
Anyway - I'm in Zoetermeer now.
1. Melksham to Swindon
2. Swindon to Paddington
3. Paddington to Kings Cross St Pancras
4. St Pancras to Brussels Midi
5. Brussels Midi to Antwerp Central
6. Antwerp Central to Roosendaal
7. Roosendaal to Den Haag HS
8. Den Haag HS to Den Haag Centrim
9. Den Haag Centrum to Zoetermeer
A tremendous number of pictures. A really valuable learning curve on how others do it - the good and the bad. And probably the most confusing blog I've even written if viewed without a map. But I'm too tired to clarify it; my pack's just about the heaviest I've carried with 9 laptops, and the only norishment after London was a hot dog in Antwerp. Time for tea!
Posted by gje at 08:10 PM
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On board Eurostar - a running commentary
("Dear Diary") ...
I'm giving a course, on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, in the Dutch town of Zoetermeer. 9 a.m. start on Tuesday, 17:00 finish on Wednesday, and I have heavy baggage beyond what's practical on a plane - manuals and laptop computers to take with me. I could have driven all the way - taking the ferry or Eurotunnel - but I would rather sit back and let someone else do the driving, so I'm doing the trip overland. This first installment is being written in a tunnel somewhere under north London; I'm on Eurostar.
Lisa gave me a lift to Melksham station ... the 07:20 left on time for Swindon, where it arrived 3 minutes late having been delayed around Chippenham. The 07:58 to London left on time, but arrived about 10 minues late. It was one of the few "does not call at Reading" services, but I have to wonder why not. For it slowed right bown before and through Reading, it slowed down againg from Airport Junction and through Acton, and there must have been around 20% of seats empty on a peak train on the Reading - London section where every seat counts.
[My goodness - this is a long tunnel. We came out for a breath of fresh air a couple of minutes ago and we're underground again.] I wondered why there's no alignment between the windows and the seats (an no power points) and I've concluded (a) you can't see much anyway and (b) they save the nice stuff for first class.And as soon as I write that, we're out in the sunshire and passing trainloads of cars as well as I can see through haze and filthy windows.
One of the benefits of train over flying is the lack of a low limit on luggage, and the ability to keep things "with". I would have added "easier security" too - but it turned out not. I have laptops for each of my delegates to use with me, carefully packed (or they had been) ... all had to come out and be individually checked. I asked why it was necessary for this train journey and not for my train into London - apparently it's the rules because a passport's needed for this journey. Seriously, I can appreciate the need for putting a million people through this to stop the one who would try and do something to harm everyone, but I wonder at the difference in proportion to this security and the secuirty on the underground ...
Arriving at St Pancras, trains show for Disneyland, Paris and Brussels, with no indication as to wether they were on time or delayed. Just "check in at least half an hour before scheduled departure". Trains coming in ... a different story; over 3 hours late from Brussels due to "Power problems in Belgium" and I wondered if we were going to be late out based on delays to incoming services. Turns out we're fine, but I do wonder if this means that Eurostar have luxuriant turn around times and how efficient that can be. An excess of trains for a service that's not running as frequently as they originall planned?
[Ebbsfleet, and a few more people have joined. We're perhaps 40% loaded.]
The security announcement in English now carries on in French and Flemish. All around I hear French, and a strongly accented scotsman trying to explain to a french woman that she's in his seat. She's a real hop-around - I had to redirect here out of my seat whan I got on, but I don't think she believed me when I pointed out which here seat was.
I should have asked for the quiet coach. One of our two buffet cars is now telling us about what they have on offer. That's for people who missed it as part of the conductor's announcement before the security announcement.
[Just crossing the Medway ... our next stop, Lille ...]
---OOO---
[In the Channel tunnel - an uneventful run through Kent.]
As we flew over Ashford, I couldn't help wondering at some of the steep gradients that we have on HS1. and how they would have been impossible in the days of original railway build. With HS2 proposed / planned, will advantage be taken of this ability to ris and fall quickly? Or is it all just an illusion base on speed?
I need some Euros. But I'll wait; I have a few, and the rates on offer at St Pancras were poor. They well selling at 1.01 and buying at 1.30 - my goodness - that's a 15% take on each transaction. And THEN they had a commission charge on top. Is that a ripoff, or what? The ATM was out of order - perhaps it offers a better rate ;-)
We slowed down and have now speeded up. Engineering works, or a train ahead? Hard to tell in the Chunnel. It's a very long time since I came this way; the ferry's my more usual mode, but that would have been an even earlier start for a later arrival today, and with things to be done yesterday I couldn't take the overnight boat - quite apart from then having to hand around with lugguage for some 6 hours before I could check in. On the way back, I'm on the boat; it's the opposite case in that I'll have missed the last train of the day with connections all the way when I finish, and I prefer to be moving on the overnight ship rather than just waiting around. The booking was ... interesting.
Try using the Eurostar site to the Netherlands, and it says "no services available". Try getting a ticket from Melksham (or anywhere in Wiltshire) that includes Eurostar, and that's not possible as far as I can work out either. But book separate tickets, and you either pay full "walk up" price so that you can be delayed and drop back to the next train, OR you allow a huge amount of time at each change, OR you cross your fingers and hope you can blag it if push comes to shove.
The solution, it turned out, is to book through SNCB - that's the Belguim Railway web site. They will sell you London to Brussells, Brussels to Rotterdam and Rotterdam to local-dutch-station in one transaction. Fixed Eurostar train. Next train - ticket is valid one earlier and one later to Rotterdam. And in the Netherlands it's "any train this day".
[Wonderful - we have come to a complete stop in the tunnel!]
Of course, Britsh Railways are a law unto themselves and it's not possible to book from Melksham even with SNCB.
[Announcements - in French, then Flemish or German, then English. We must be more than halfway through the tunnel then ;-) ]
However ... I remembered something about a special connection ticket to St Pancras being avaialble, and research confirmed that I could buy it on the day, that it was a sensible value, that it included my use of the underground, and that it meant that if FGW was seriously delayed Eurostar would have to let me travel on the next available train.
[We're underway again]
For the return journey, I was advisd to book something called the "Dutch Flyer" - any station in the Netherlands to any Greater Anglia Station via Hook of Holland to Harwich. I think I've done that and I have my confirmation, but I had to use a dutch site ("we can only book tickets originating in the UK in English") and I'm waiting to see what my confirmation / receipt does for me at Zoetermeer Ooest on Wednesday evening. I'll probably ask my customers to find out for me as I'm sure their Dutch is excellent.
[Out of the tunnel, on the flat lands of the Pas de Calais, going slower that the Melksham to Chippenham train when it's waiting for the 125 to go across at Thingley. Just eased through a deserted Calais Frethun]
My hair is thinning ... seeing myself on TV last month showed that, with skin colour showing through on top. And I've just been reminded when the chap (or chapess) in the seat behind refolded a newspaper, and it brushed close to my head over the seat top and a felt the whaft of air. I don't know if I'm taller that most, or if others are slouching in the train ... but I'mone of the very few looking over seat tops. Much more pressing work to do, important things to write, but somehow the concentration won't come and I'm going to defer that to my hotel tonight. And it may also be the aftereffects of a couple of pints last night - my first 'drink' of 2013!
It's warm in the carriage - I'm in shirt sleeves - but there are clues that it's very cold outside. Water in the fields fills the gaps beween the ridges indicating winter rains. Except that it's ice, and I can see that even at over 100 mph. And the land remains flat or near flat. An announcement offers to sell us tickets (20% discount) at the buffet for Disneyland, Paris. If this were the Disneyland train, or even going to Paris, I could understand it. But we're for Lille of Brussels. Perhaps there's an opportunity on London to Bristol trains to sell discounted tickets for "The Victory" in Portsmouth!
Our French lady has been on walk-about and just trying to find where she's left her handbaggeage and coat. Ah - she's found then. and sat down in the seatacross from them .... which is her allocation seat in the fist place. No - wait - butterfly; she has picked them up and walked off, and we've slowed for our Lille stop. I suspect she's getting off here.
Announcement tells us that this is from a "very short stop", so I guess we can't go signtseeing. And we're told there wll be crew swap. More people getting off than staying on board ... I suppose I should not be surprised, based on the French voices I've been hearing all around me. "Very Short stop" turns out to be 5 minutes. If all stops on the TransWilts line were for 5 minutes, the journey from Swindon to Salisbury would take 30 minutes longer.
French Double Decker 2 coach electric trains with a pangograph ... reminds me of a book I got for Christmas covering unusual railways, and including the double decker trains that were built experimentally for London to Darford services, declared impractical when the took far too long at the stations (too many passengers per door). I went on their final, sad run when I lived in London. Yuk - I hate closures / departures and I weap for history that was life in it. Two sad condition motor coaches remain, I understand; the remaining six having been cut up.
[We have turned left after Lille, and been told that the buffet closes in 10 minutes]
When in the Netherlands, I'm going to reach article number 4000 in my blog. And I'm wondering what I should do for this milestone. The blog has metamorposed into a way of feeding new content into the web site, with article being categorised by topic and providing an automated system of updaing far and wide. It remains a good discipline to keep up this feed, but transient daily notes and life comments are much more suited to Twitter and Facebook these day.
The writing of an article takes time. The proofing and adding links and pictures can take as long again. So do I post this at the first opportunity, or do I wait until I;ve had a chance to add in all those extras? They'll make it more intersting, but then the delay will make it more stale for any handful of key readers who may be following.
The countryside around where we're going has a forrest of wind turbines. I may be out of step with many people in Wiltshire, but I really don't see the problem in having them around - even in my own back yard!
I'm going to stop writing, shut down, and get prepared for arrival and change in Brussels.
There's a follow up story, Brussels to Zoetermeer ... I'm going to download images, clip, upload and add, and post the above then grab some food.
Posted by gje at 06:35 PM
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