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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺

@ralderton.bsky.social
90 followers 234 following 328 posts

Points tart. Beer enthusiast. Green, lefty, middle-class, Guardian-reading, EV-driving, snowflake Remainer wanker. Refrigerator owner.

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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
That's part of the plan too. Since the end of the Marne-la-Vallée service, there's no routine need for immigration checks on arrival (although there still is for Customs). I think the plan is for arriving passengers to stream off the front of the platforms, rather than go downstairs.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
No! I like the bakeries! Solve the crowding problem by having 1000 people and their enormous bags in the station for 10-30 minutes, instead of 60-90. It would be a shame to rip out the pleasant bits, just for it to become a soulless passenger processing facility.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
They plan to board trains earlier (among other things), reducing the time you'll spend in the departures area. I hope they also speed up processing, and let people turn up later. Having us arrive 75 minutes before departure and clogging up the place is madness!
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I still think it would be possible to move the Javelins to P1&4, and use the current platforms to terminate a 200m cross channel train. Requires work at the station - not least how & where to process passengers - but no track work.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Urgh. That’s gonna take bleedin’ ages to clean up.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Not every day, I admit. But I’ve been to enough group meals to grow weary of the bill-splitting phase.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
My app idea - and this is free to anyone who wants to develop it - is for when you go to a restaurant in a group of 20. They give you an iPad at the end of the meal with your bill on it. And it gets passed around the table for everyone to tap on the items they ate, add a tip, and pay contactlessly.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Once, the stream raged loud Latterly the flow is weak Everything is dammed
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
French people: wait HERE, you shall not pass Basque people: thanks a million Spanish & English people: stop with your fancy payment methods
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
A Gen Z couple asked me to take a photo of them, then watched in confusion and horror as I instinctively rotated the phone into landscape format. I am approximately one million years old.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The world would be a lot better. With less grammar, Nazis.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Language senses tingling
Road sign, in French format, showing Centre Ville, Hiri Barnea, Còr de Vila
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Finally, Westbahn are acknowledging that first class Interrail passes exist @seatsixtyone.bsky.social westbahn.at/en/news/inte...
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
About time too!. They were quoting absurd ‘upgrade’ prices the last time I checked, especially on international routes.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
On the subject of dumb, and no doubt far away, marketers disastrously misunderstanding the UK (and the world), I submit this promotion from Voi.
Screenshot of a promotion from Voi scooters, offering 50% off to ‘enjoy the Armistice Day’.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
But would any game show do that? That’s the $64,000 question.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
… and that is why I’m formally requesting under the Equality Act 2010 that you make reasonable adjustments.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Since it has your email inside, I'd think any helpful finder would've checked and made contact already, so you can discount that possibility? My only suggestion would be to try above and below the target area. Is there a car park? Also, assume it's only the phone, and all else has been chucked.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Just Nigel Farage, the man who wants to be your Prime Minister, laughing with glee in full support of racism. This woman was speaking eloquently and emotionally about the fear she and her mixed-race family are experiencing at the hands of the far right. Fuck them all
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Equally, if you car is too long to fit in your drive. The solution is not ‘fuck it, the pedestrians can squeeze past, what am I supposed to do?’; the solution is to get a smaller car or a bigger house.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
For ‘summer’ read ‘high season’!
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Yeah, that’s what I mean. They would be better with the German approach: optional on AVE, perhaps obligatory (but lightly enforced) on key routes in summer. Absolutely not compulsory on anything else.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Spanish high speed rail could be world-class - if they did away with the security theatre, took a German attitude to seat reservations, and increased frequency fivefold. A train with any kind of check in nonsense is effectively 30 minutes slower.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
The Johnny Cash cover of Hurt, and the Hendrix version of All Along the Watchtower are both better than the originals.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
There’s a sweet spot. If it serves *only* coffee, then it’s shit but you have to pretend it’s good. If it serves coffee and petrol, then it’s shit but nobody has to pretend. If it serves coffee, wine, one type of beer & small sandwiches, then *provided that there’s no traybakes* it’s banging.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Damn. That’s my plans for the evening in tatters.
Sign in a shop window proclaiming “Il est interdit de parler flamand et d’uriner sur les murs"
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I’m used to being ignored, begrudged, and on one occasion threatened, when politely asking someone if they’d mind using headphones. But I experienced a new, horrifying development today: some arse FaceTiming on speaker in a pub actually had the neck to ask us (having a conversation) to be quiet. 🤯
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
A newsletter, you say? And it's free? Delivered direct to my Inbox EVERY SINGLE DAY? Incredible. What a time to be alive!
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Toscana Somerfield-Tandy
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Amethyst Bejam
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Shitting hell, Pat.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I agree. Germany has plenty of redundancy in its network. Trains can reroute, you can reroute through a different hub. Maybe even catch up with your itinerary. I keep moving in the correct direction, keep replanning, and expect to arrive with 2h delay. That’s (almost) never failed me!
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I would hope that the 12 month rule doesn't apply when somebody has deliberately sought to avoid paying! Estimate usage, and pursue a prosecution for abstracting electricity/ fraud at the same time? Although perhaps the leccy in question is actually being paid for by some other poor bugger nearby?
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
A classic of the genre. This payment will be almost instant when they send it. “5 to 10 working days” just means they’d like permission to procrastinate for two full weeks before clicking send.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Baltic Flour Mills, in Newcastle
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Is that why they taste so bad?
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
There was also talk of exit controls in Belgrade (and others, presumably), and Schengen control on board, though that doesn’t sound very plausible! n1info.rs/biznis/voz-z...
n1info.rs
Prokop dobio granični prelaz: Pasoška kontrola na stanici zbog dva direktna polaska dnevno za Budimpeštu
Prokop je postao granični prelaz uoči starta brze pruge ka Budimpešti. Saznajte kako će izgledati kontrola putnika i red vožnje.
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Reposted by Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺
Terence Eden @edent.tel · 14/08/2026
I know you all hate the emergency alert about disposable barbeques. But yesterday I watched a man at our hotel breakfast set fire to a toaster by trying to toast a croissant - despite multiple signs telling him not to. Today he tried again. So, you know, calibrate for the average person.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Came here to recommend them too. They were a great bunch
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I’m generally ok with a bit of NIMBYism. I do think one should listen to people who have objections - even if those objections are dumb, and the people are dumb, and Rowling is piece of shit. But wow. This is actually off-the-charts insane.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
My heart bleeds for publishers who are now going to have to ‘divert valuable resources’ towards finding new ways to trap customers in unwanted subscriptions.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Yes. I listened to it and it sounded perfectly normal. If I'd listened to the original 30 second previously, I would've noticed. But not listening to it cold.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
is useful, expensive, anti-social, necessary, unnecessary, the default, not a sign of wealth or status, subsidised. does not entitle you to free reign over public space, should be disincentivised, ruins cities.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
And with that, I rest my case, Your Honour.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Sheldon?
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
And even fewer go bong ding.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Once upon a time, in a restaurant in deepest France, a fellow diner leapt from his table to prevent me from eating my cheese in the wrong order.
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
This is absolutely true. I whinge a lot about Eurostar - sometimes with justification - but without exception, the staff are friendly and brilliant. (And the underlying story is true too. A ‘2 hour’ flight takes 4 hours, and even if the train takes 5, it’s a SO much nicer.)
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Rich Alderton | 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺 @ralderton.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Fesshole 🤝 Lifehacks 🤝 Viz Top Tips
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