telegraph today

[Nigeyy]

Folded, or unfolded?

Sir,

Perhaps I could suggest that David Pyle, who finds folding bicycles such an annoyance, allow those with said bicycles to store them in his undoubtedly spacious rectum.

Yours......

 

[MERV]

There's something about brompton riders, they always seem to be going hell for leather with their silly little wheels!

....and some of them are faster than me.

 

[HJ]

The real problem is, I suspect that the trains don't have anywhere near enough room (in a civilised country, there'd be space for people and their luggage, maybe even (gasp!) some room for full sized bikes), as any fule kno.

I think there is a lot of truth in that, as someone who regularly visits Austria, I find the altitude to public transport completely different over there. Taking a bike on a train is never a problem and I have seen people taking a bike on a bus, there is a space where bikes can be strapped in. So the question is, why don't we have better public transport in the country? Well it is mainly due to the likes of disgruntled of Sevenoaks, Kent, who resent paying the level of tax which would provide such things...

 

[MERV]

I was commenting on this at work today.In the twenty years I have been at Waterloo there has been very little expansion of stations and trains on my network with increasing all the time of passenger numbers year after year I really don't know how these networks cope.

 

[historyman]

David Pyle should move to Merseyside, where I quite often take a Brompton on the train and it fits perfectly in the gap between two pairs of (facing forwards and backwards) seats.
My Brommie gets strongly contrasting reactions here - motorists often jeer, cos obviously if I have small wheels I must be a poofter. But train passengers gasp with admiration at the convenience.

 

[Horace Goes Skiing]

Dear Sir,

My name is David Pyle. That's an anagram for Evil Paddy. Do I win a prize?

Yours,
Bishop Harold Bishop

 

[ChrisKH]

Misplaced irritation on his part I think. He refers to 4 x 4's dropping off people at the station and for the life of me I can't work out why since it is only loosely to do with folders and the environment. People don't have folders because it's green, they have folders to avoid theft, cut costs or to travel at both ends. I do it for all three reasons. The real truth is that Mr Telegraph reader (which I would read myself occasionally if it wasn't in broadsheet format and didn't get in the way of other commuters on the train) probably isn't getting any.

 

[John the Monkey]

.... Telegraph reader (which I would read myself occasionally if it wasn't in broadsheet format ...

Gah, the art of the "train fold" (by which one folds the paper expertly so that it doesn't get in the way of other people as it is read) truly is dying...

 

[Fab Foodie]

Might be interested to know that David Pyle also posted a similar letter in the Daily Wail (I was on a plane...it was free and I had bought a Telegraph to read later). I was on a plane the next day and read The Times (Friday)...yet another letter from, OK you guessed it, Mr Pyle banging-on about something else.

So 3 mr angry letters in 3 different newspapers in 2 days (I'm sorry but I read as many newspapers as I could).
David Pyle is "Mrs Trellis from North Wales" and I Claim My Five Pounds....

Beggars belief that somebody has so much time on their hands...and this is their best way to spend it.

 

[LOGAN 5]

I wonder if Mr Pillock of Kent moans about luggage, push chairs, dogs, wheelchairs or shopping? Trains carry people who carry "things". He should be complaining to the train operator that there is not more room for such "things" on their services.

Agree with previous posts riding a folder is not necessarily a green save the planet strategy. I use mine to avoid the tube and gives me flexibility at which station both ends of my journey I get off so I can get a variety of services and decide how far I want to cycle too. Would use a full sized bike but of course they're banned now.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Found it...

From The Times
April 18, 2008
Teachers’ pay
The teaching profession is its own worst enemy

Sir, As a senior leader in a Tower Hamlets primary school with 24 years of teaching experience in both the independent and maintained sectors, I was amazed to read that the Policy Exchange education unit was struggling to identify the key reason for teacher shortages (report, Public Agenda, April 15).

To the many thousands of teachers who struggle to maintain a standard of living worthy of a “professional”, the answer is abundantly clear — pay! Yet any suggestion of financial incentives in schools is dismissed by too many teachers as “divisive”.

Admittedly, to reward performance or the delivery of an outcome in education is fraught with difficulties. But the teaching profession, through its unions’ rigorous representation for equitable pay and working conditions, continues to be its own worst enemy.

Little wonder that talented young people seek career opportunities in the City and elsewhere where salary packages, benefits and bonuses are directly related to the quality of performance.

David Pyle

Sevenoaks, Kent

 

[John the Monkey]

Huzzah!

Rebuttal at hand on the letters page, including a missive from another Pyle and one from a retired Lt. Cdr!

Benefits of fold-up bicycles

Sir - May I dissent from the opinions of my homonym, David Pyle, of Sevenoaks (Letters, April 17)? Fold-up bicycles are an excellent invention, offsetting one's personal calorific excesses, and reducing traffic congestion and carbon emissions at the same time.

My father (also David Pyle) was an early convert to the Bickerton folding bicycle revolution but, thankfully, those very small wheels always tempered his exuberant pedalling.

Dr David Pyle, St Anne's College, Oxford

Sir - The irritation of fold-up bicycles on trains is a side-effect of the ridiculous ban on ordinary bicycles, purely because no storage space is available.

Guards' vans no longer exist, but it would make good sense for railways to be obliged to offer conveyance for bicycles.

I cycle from home to station (a relatively short, perspiration-free journey) and leave the bike there all day. I would far rather take it on to the train so I could travel to my office on two wheels, rather than endure the horrors of the Underground.

Far more irritating to the daily commuter are suitcases on wheels, which people seem intent on using as delaying tactics on the station concourse.

Steve Cahill, London E14

Sir - David Pyle has fallen into the trap of blaming his fellow passenger cyclists for overcrowding on commuter trains.

He should ask his privatised train company why they are alone in Europe in not providing dedicated cycle space on commuter services.

Mr Pyle could ease the problem for all by working from home.

Lt Cdr Stephen Smith (Retd), Reading, Berkshire


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...d=-1&view=DISPLAYCONTENT&grid=A1&targetRule=0

 

[ufkacbln]

My Wife's Brompton is Green, but mine is black!