Pineapple Road station, Rhubarb Curve and the Rhubarb Express

Transport for West Midlands

On Tuesday three new railway stations are opening in Birmingham: Kings Heath, Moseley Village and Pineapple Road. They're on the Camp Hill Line, which will see local passenger trains for the first time since the 1940s.

Pineapple Road is a great name for a station. There was one on the site between 1903 and 1941 with the name Hazelwell, but Pineapple Road was the most popular choice for the new station in a public vote.

A Birmingham World report says its champions thought it was memorable and described the station's better than the other two candidates, Hazelwell and Stirchley.

So there's now a Pineapple Road station on the network, but there has long been a Rhubarb Curve. It's in Bristol and mainly used by freight trains, but it does see rate but regular passenger workings. It allows trains from Bath to go to Bristol Parkway and the Severn Tunnel without going through Bristol Temple Meads.

There's also a Rhubarb Triangle in West Yorkshire, of course, but that has nothing to do with trains. It's an area famous for the production of forced rhubarb that was awarded Protected Designation of Origin by the European Union in 2010. The points of the triangle are Wakefield, Morley, and Rothwell.

But there was a Rhubarb Express, as a post on a railway forum explains:

The LNER "Rhubarb Express" was a 209 mile non-stop overnight run seasonally from Leeds to London Kings Cross (or St. Pancras). Conveyed hundreds of tons of early-season forced rhubarb originating from various locations in the West Riding of Yorkshire for sale in London (Covent Garden/Spitalfields) and the South, the following day. ...

The rhubarb trains were cancelled in early 1940 following the onset of WW2. Not sure if, or when, they were ever subsequently resumed ... following the end of the war.

The Joy of Six 1499

Alexandra Hall Hall warns that Donald Trump’s Iran war is bringing the post-war international order to breaking point. "The UN has been completely sidelined in this conflict. The US, who helped design the institution after World War 2, no longer pays either its dues, or even lip service to its founding charter, including the requirement to resolve international disputes by peaceful means."

"The cumulative effect is an ecosystem that looks, from the outside, exactly like what it is: a set of institutions that have come to prioritise their own stability over their original purpose. Outsiders do not see idealism when they look at us. They see a class protecting its position. And that fuels the populist rage, because at some level, they are right." Gregory Maniatis has no words of comfort for the US left.

The new universities of the 1960s were founded on intimacy, radicalism and community. Looking to what is happening at Essex, Adam Wright asks whether an obsession with growth has made those promises impossible to keep.

Michael Solomon Williams makes the case for expanding our railway network: "The story of British rail is often told through major infrastructure projects or high-speed lines. But just as important are the quieter stories of reconnection: the return of a station, the reopening of a route, or the transformation of a corridor into modern public transport. These changes show that the legacy of the Beeching cuts is not permanent. With the right decisions, communities can be reconnected and the network can grow again."

"Crawley has been given a great many opportunities to prove himself – enough, you could argue, that he has already done precisely that. For years and years, he has generally done just enough to maintain the idea of Zak Crawley, without ever really managing to move things beyond that." King Cricket concludes that if England’s leaders aren’t being ejected then some of the players will be.

Anne Bilson ranks the surprising number of killer-rabbit movies.

Norman Baker: Royal Mint, National Debt

The former Liberal Democrat MP and minister talks about the subject mattere of his recent book on the opaque financial arrangements of the Royal Family.

Like everyone these days, Norman has a Substack.

"Gawd bless 'im!"

Good Friday in Shropshire

From The Folklore of Shropshire by Roy Palmer:

Until the 1860s, when the well was drained, it was the custom on Good Friday to dip one's hand in the water, deemed good for weak eyes, of St Margaret's well at Wellington. 

Much more recently, comfortably into the 20th century, the congregation of Lords Hill Baptist Church met at Snailbeach in the afternoon and perambulated the area, pausing to sing hymns to the accompaniment of a brass band. 

Until the 1930s, most places of work closed on Good Friday. People traditionally spent the time in their gardens, and this was considered a good time for planting potatoes. Formerly, bread baked on this day was believed to have curative properties. 

Many Shrewsbury families trekked to Haughmond Hill, following the canal towpath to Uffington. Children played and picnicked on the hill until the Second World War ended the custom.

Clanger stolen 50 years ago recovered after deathbed confession

The Telegraph wins our Headline of the Day Award. And for some reason, the judges were pleased to note, the story has escaped its paywall.

The Joy of Six 1498

Peter Juul argues that Donald Trump sees America not as the leader of a global posse bringing international gangsters to heel, but as a mob boss threatening America’s allies and neighbours while carving up the world with other gangster powers.

"The government’s plans will patch up the water system, particularly with the boost in revenue from bill payers. But the private sector has found unanticipated ways to maximise profits in the past and may well do so again. Rather than continually tweaking the failed private model, the only real route to operating water in the public interest is for it to be in public ownership." Kate Bayliss and Frances Cleaver say is treating the symptoms of the water industry but not their ultimate cause.

Britain’s swift population fell by two-thirds between 1995 and 2023. Emma Beddington lists 10 ways we can provide these beautiful birds with the help they need.

Josh Taylor asks how Australia can sell its social media ban for young people to the world when the evidence suggests it is not working: "When the age assurance technology trial released its final report before Australia’s under-16s social media ban came into effect last year, its first finding was: age assurance can be done privately, efficiently and effectively. Four months since the ban came into effect, we can say that was – to paraphrase Yes Minister – a courageous statement."

Richard Norton-Taylor reviews Antonia Senior's Stalin’s Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire: "Stalin’s task in building what Senior calls his 'Red Empire' was made so much easier, and so much more brutal, by the intelligence the Cambridge spies passed to Moscow. This included information about partisans and individuals hostile to the Soviet Union, and about how much support they would get from the Western allies."

"Not long after, in 1845, inventor Charles Wheatstone attended a demonstration in London. Chess legend Howard Staunton played against his rival George Walker over the South Western Railway line between Portsmouth and London. Müller-Pohl describes how witnesses found the match “rather tedious,” but it received a lot of press." (Roughly) Daily on Victorian e-sports.

GUEST POST To realise the health benefits of nature we must first admit we are part of it

Stuart Whomsley reminds us that, though we evolved as a species surrounded by the blue and green stuff, we also have the power to destroy it.

Let me start by stating what should be obvious, but it is something that can be lost in the way the discourse on this topic is constructed, humans are part of nature. We are not an entity separate from the rest of nature. 

We need to break the demarcation of humans as separate from nature, humans vs nature. This includes where the aims are positive, such as nature as a treatment that can be applied to humanity or to a human to restore wellbeing. It is by addressing humanity as being part of nature we get the deepest appreciation of why it is beneficial.

The dichotomy of humanity as separate from nature has a deep cultural heritage. The Abrahamic tradition had God create man, and give him, and maybe her, the rest of nature to rule over and use. It was separate. 

The theme was further developed in the Enlightenment, with God perhaps taken out of the equation. Nature was now a resource, often represented as feminine Mother Nature, for man to plunder and use her resources at his pleasure. 

this  masculine approach has led to the destruction of the rain forests and the plundering of the earth for fossil fuels and now rare metals.  I find myself wondering what is it about the burning of marine microorganisms, whose remains have been heated and compressed for millions of years, that seems to make some men feel so potent – call it "petro-masculinity". 

When we compare the effects on health and wellbeing of being in man-made environments and of being in nature, those man-made environments are made by humans who are part of nature. However, man-made environments have tended to have forms that do not fit with the rest of creation in the natural world. 

There is an interesting question: why have human environments have been developed in ways that go against the structures elsewhere in nature? Anthropogenic environments have been created to meet short-term needs rather than following the patterns of slower ecological adaptation to a place. 

When people talk about being in nature they are thinking about the green and blue stuff which has different properties to what humans have tended to create.

So let's consider the health benefits, both for physical and mental health. from being in nature of the blue and green kind. Put simply, there is good evidence for this, which is hardly surprising given that we are part of nature. There is a natural fit between human beings and certain environments.

In our species history we have evolved to be surrounded by the green and blue stuff, we have evolved to be surrounded by the soft and curvy, under the light of the sun. We have evolved to cease activity when the sun has move around the other side of the globe. We have evolved in these environments to function best in these conditions.  

So it is predictable that mental and physical health face challenges when people are living and working in boxes, away from the green and blue, with artificial lights taking them into continuing activity beyond natural daylight.

The key messages from research into the health benefits of being in nature are predictable and reassuring. The benefits can be seen through a biopsychosocial and spiritual framework: cortisol levels go down, anxiety reduces, self-esteem increases, cognitive abilities go up, mood is improved, a sense of connection to something greater than the self and awe experiences occur.

Little and often is a key message, which for me was both predictable, but also a bit of a surprise.  This makes it something that is more possible for more people.  You do not have to be planning a weekend in the Lake District.

However, to get the benefits you must give yourself to the experience. It is no good standing before a view of herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain if you are busy engaging with your mobile phone. 

In contrast, if you fully engage with experiencing being part of nature, you can gain the benefits through a dandelion growing through the cracks in the pavement – though it probably comes easier if you are in a verdant park and engaging with nature there than if you are on your knees looking at cracks in pavements. But verdant parks are closer to some people than others.

Research suggests there are social inequities in being able to access green and blue spaces. Those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds have further to go to get to a recognised green space than their financially and socially more advantaged fellow citizens. 

A case could be made that one layer in the damage to mental and physical health came at a population level when people were forced to move from the countryside to cities for work. The effects of that could be transgenerational and interacting with other factors across the years. 

That is not to say living and working in the countryside is free from stress or health risks, but research continues to demonstrate that mental health problems occur more frequently in cities than in rural areas.

There needs to be equity and a democratic approach in citizen participation in nature. Such an approach will not be accepted by all. It will be seen as wokery and left wing by the fossil fuel, anti-Net Zero advocates. However, the science and most of the population cross culturally around the world would be in line with it. 

People have more hope and are more resilient if they can feel connected to the thing that they are already connected to, nature.  But need to feel it in a real and engaged way. That is a message people can connect to.

It is not only necessary for the health and wellbeing of humans, but also for the vast bulk of nature that is not human. As a species we have the capacity to destroy most, if not all, of the other species on the planet, something no other species can do. A specific virus might wipe out all humans, but it would not touch most of the other species, and a virus that would destroy humans would not harm plants at all. So, humans have that special, unpleasant privilege. 

Yet they are still part of nature. A part of nature of high risk to the rest.

You can follow Stuart Whomsley on Bluesky.

World’s oldest tortoise caught in viral crypto death scam

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The Guardian wins our Headline of the Day Award. As Lord Bonkers remarked, it's probably not wise to let a tortoise that old have a smart phone.

The Aldersbrook: A lost London river resurrected

Here's an inspirational video with John Rogers and Paul Powlesland. 

John's blurb on YouTube says:

A London walk with the brilliant Paul Powlesland of the River Roding Trust, discovering how the forgotten river Aldersbrook near Ilford has been rescued and revived by the local community, saving it from becoming another lost river of London. 

An ancient branch of the River Roding, the Aldersbrook was buried beneath undergrowth and silt and clogged with rubbish. 

Volunteers from The Friends of the River Roding worked tirelessly to remove the silt from the riverbed, dispose of hundreds of bags of rubbish and cut back the undergrowth to reveal what is probably the only tidal brook in London and a glimpse into London's past when meandering streams like this formed much of the landscape of London. 

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and he blogs at The Lost Byway. And you can follow Paul Powesland on Instagram and Bluesky.

Britain's top woman chess player is just 11 years old

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The English Chess Federation is justifiably excited:

British chess phenom Bodhana Sivanandan has made history by shooting to the top of the UK chess rankings after a sensational start to 2026, the English Chess Federation is pleased to report.

 The 11-year-old from North London has rocketed to the number one English female spot. She is rated higher than the top women in all the other UK nations, and she has also broken into the world’s top 100 women for the first time, currently sitting at number 72.

 World chess rankings are compiled by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) and updated each month. In the April list, Sivanandan replaced four-time British Women’s Champion Lan Yao, aged 25, as the English federation’s top player. ...

It is an extraordinary rise for a Harrow schoolgirl who took up the game during lockdown after finding a chessboard and set in a bag her father wanted to throw out.

In the summer of 2022, as I blogged at the time, Bodhana was selected to play for England women's team at the chess olympiad. The ECF reckons this made her the youngest person ever to represent England internationally in any sport.

In the British Championship last simmer, then aged 10, she made history by becoming the youngest female player to defeat a male grandmaster. In another event she beat the former women's world champion Mariya Muzychuk – you can see the game on YouTube.

Hazel O'Connor: Will You?

Hazel O'Connor is a goddess and – sorry, Bob Holness – this is the greatest saxophone solo on a British pop single.