East Anglia mountain rescue

I was reading in Metro yesterday about three hikers in Wales who have had a local 'hill' re-assessed as a 'mountain.'

Apparently they had to take some 7,000 readings in order to update the existing Ordnance Survey records and confirm that Mynydd Graig in fact measures 2,000.5 feet (the requirement for a mountain to be labelled as such is 2,000 feet) .

I then got to thinking about the flatlands of East Anglia and how many readings would be required to produce a hill? When learning to drive in Peterborough, some thirty years ago, we had to do a hill start on the main bridge over the River Nene as there were no other suitably hilly spots available.

As part of my important hill research I discovered the Cambridge Mountain Rescue site which I highly recommend, especially if you were feeling low.

Come in Number 10

your time is up.

Unfortunately we're not talking about Gordon Brown's residency here but the number 10 and 10A bus service from Cambridge to Newmarket. Cambridgeshire County Council, in their limited wisdom, are planning to axe this bus service after 6.30pm on weekdays and all day on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

Our son, Nathan, has just started using this service as he has started at Hills Road in Cambridge, using a subsidised bus pass. It seems the pass is not to be so subsidised in real terms after all.

The Councillors are saying that only an average of five people use this bus at these times. Quite clearly they haven't done any original research because my son reports it is usually far fuller than that and I have often followed it home from Cambridge much later in the evening and villagers in Lode, the Swaffhams and Burwell seem to use it throughout the evening.

I imagine this is all down to fuel costs and nothing whatsoever with usage. Serve the people? Self-service more like.

Villagers to the east of Cambridge and most affected by this madness are advised to contact the Council on passenger.transport@cambridgeshire.gov.uk assuming our leaders haven't all climbed joyfully into their gas guzzling cars and driven off into the sunset, which is in the opposite direction to where ordinary people live.

Alarmed

I was in Tesco in Ely earlier today, browsing CDs and stationery when I passed a glass double door with the sign on it "This door is alarmed."

What was it alarmed by? Choice? Price? Slow-moving stock?