Arches at Guildford cathedral, November 2008

Sorry punk fans – another song title red herring there.  Today I spent an interesting day in Guildford at the University of Surrey, attending a political seminar with my trade union, Unite.The topic of the day was how the union and the Labour party can work together better to deliver more electoral victories in the south-east region.  There were at least five PPCs there – all Unite members, except the local Guildford candidate who is in the GMB – and mostly candidates in seats we would not expect to win, so it was a good opportunity to say hello and compare notes.

It was no great surprise to find that the main outcome was an increase in enthusiasm and morale, but there were a few specific bits of information that may come in handy too.  I came away with the feeling that we still have some work to do in improving the party/union links at all levels, but especially at the local level where us ordinary members can make a difference: there are not enough union members joining the party and not enough party members joining unions, to the detriment of both parts of the movement.

Party funding is a hot topic, but in many key constituencies if the unions could deliver an extra dozen or so active and committed members it could make more of a difference than mere cash could.

I also took a few photos of Guildford cathedral, which I had never been up close to before.  It looks impressive from the town, but get closer and its impressive in a different way: such expanses of brick give it a real Bankside vibe.

Unfortunately the greasy spoon cafe is an endangered species. Everywhere I looked there were Costa Coffee shops, Caffe Nero and Starbucks. If a place had a sign reading cafe it turned out to be in the continental sense and had the word ‘patisserie’ somewhere on the sign. In most cases the word ‘maison’ appeared somewhere in the name too. Even workmen wearing their high-vis jacket and hard hat were sitting at a counter sipping a skinny latte.

I know Guildford is supposed to be a bit posh, but surely there is a proper cafe somewhere. It is, after all, a university town: don’t students still enjoy a big fry-up after a night out?

On the plus side, I got a lot of exercise walking up and down the hilly streets looking for some artery-clogging sustenance.

I don’t have a problem with that and I am happy to do it. I am always irritated when colleagues try to shirk such a necessary civic responsibility by claiming to be so important at work that they cannot be spared for two weeks, and amused when they actually think they are too important to be spared for two weeks. Those who are most likely to make this argument are middle managers, who are probably the least vital of employees – I know because I am one! Self-employed people have a much better case.

Anyway, I am actually looking forward to it. The frustrating thing is that I will, of course, find myself unable to blog anything about what will be the most interesting part of my days.

My only problem with jury service is that it is in Guildford, and we do not have great connections there by public transport. I think I have to get a train to Gatwick and then some little branch line onwards. Brighton or London would have been a lot easier.

For a start it is a 2.1 megapixel camera, and now you can get that sort of quality on some mobile phones. Also it does not have many options on it, and it has no zoom capability, apart from digital zoom.

The thing is about 3 years old and cost me about £170 when I bought it. Although I knew I wanted a new camera, I couldn’t decide what I really want as a replacement. I have been looking at much better modern cameras in the £100 to £130 range as there are a lot of offers on at the moment, but today I saw the Fuji E550. It costs a bit more (£160 at Amazon) but that is still less than the old one cost in 2002.

This review rates it pretty highly. It ticks all the right boxes for me – 6.3 megapixels, 4x optical zoom, auto everything, but the ability to do manual focus and exposure and everything. Not only that, but you can, using an adaptor, fit an extra telescopic or wide-angle lens on it. The only downside seems to be that it does not have the low-light capabilities of the Fuji F10, but then it does cost quite a bit less.

With all the amounts we are going to be paying out for the kids’ return to school and college it was not a good time for me to find this… time to start saving I think!

Guildford is a bit like Horsham with hills, but a lot bigger. We went to the castle and climbed to the top of the tower for the views, went round the museum and went up and down the main shopping streets. It was a strange experience. Compared to Crawley there were far fewer old people, hardly a black face to be seen and hardly any fat people until we turned up. In a word, everyone looked richer.

I learnt a few things in the museum, like the fact that Denis (the company famous for fire engines) started off in Guildford, and that a fairly average-looking 1930s 3-bedroomed house costs £350,000.

We cocked up a little bit with the times for skating, and only had a little over an hour on the ice, which was just as well. I have never been good at skating, and have only ever done it a few times. It did not take long for the skates to make my feet and ankles ache. The kids enjoyed whizzing around though, and that was the point of the whole journey. Mind you, it was a really hot, sticky, and uncomfortable day, so that blast of coldness as we walked into the ice rink was worth the cost of admission on its own.

While shopping I picked up a new road atlas. When we were out in Kent I noticed that my old one was starting to get so out-of-date that it was probably useless in many places. The most visible problem was that it was missing the M11 and the M25. Go to any reasonably sized modern town and my road atlas could remember when it was all fields.

One reflection which I had in Guildford was just how short Crawley is of decent old buildings. Back when Guildford, Horsham, Lewes, and other places were thriving towns or market towns, Crawley was just a small village. Now its quite a large town, but whatever size and importance it has now is all recent. It struck me how easy it must be to feel affection for and patriotism towards a town with some history, and solid old buildings to back it up. Its quite a tribute to our town that so many people feel so strongly about the place without such aids. All we really have is each other but that seems to be enough.

The guide leaflet for the place says:

In 2003/4 bold and imaginative conservation work was carried out. Hidden battlements from an earlier tower were found, and the king’s latrine was unblocked.

So the king’s latrine was blocked for over 800 years…

Not sure whether that reflects more on the promptness of plumbers in Surrey, or the quality of the royal bowel movements.

I can just picture King Stephen coming out of the royal latrine and saying “I wouldn’t go in there for 800 years if I were you!”