LGVs due to be opened this coming year

Looking forward to 2017, I thought I would do a blog post covering the LGVs (Lignes à Grande Vitesse) that are due to open during 2017.  As many readers will be aware, France has an absolutely fantastic LGV network.  It contains one of only two lines to recoup its own building costs (Paris-Lyon, the other being Tokyo-Osaka).

They have made several journeys much easier.  For instance, I just adore visiting Reims (silly English people think it is pronounced "raymz", whereas "ranz" would be a better approximation), where French kings tended to be crowned.  Thanks to the LGV Est, it can be reached via an interchange at Marne la Vallée-Chessy or Aeroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle TGV stations and Gare de Champagne-Ardenne TGV station (served by both TER trains and a local tram network).

Our pinko-liberal commie socialist president (who has thankfully announced he isn't standing next year) delayed the construction of several lines, but several of the lines already in construction before he entered office are due to enter service in 2017, in addition to the 2nd phase of the LGV Est that opened earlier this year.  The lines are the LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, the LGV Sud-Europe Atlantique and the Contournement Nîmes Montpellier, which I will briefly discuss in turn.

The LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire will go from the LGV Atlantique's current terminus near Le Mans to Rennes, expediting train journeys to various stations in Brittany.  Mireille Guiliano says her husband Edward notes the similarities there with England (not exactly to its credit, but anyway).  Just like Mireille, I love the seafood available in Brittany.  Yes, various fish products can be caught near Marseille, but Brittany has a very long coastline and different fish.  As per custom for new passenger-only lines, the line will open with an initial top speed of 320km/h, electrification of 25kV 50Hz and TVM300 (Transmission-Voie-Machine) and ERTMS Level 2 signalling.  The line will have several links to the conventional lines.  Some examples of journey time reductions are: -

• Paris-Rennes 1h26m (from 2h05m)
• Paris-Nantes 1h52m (from 2h09m)
• Paris-St Malo 2h14m (from 2h54m)
• Paris-Lorient 2h56m (from 3h43m)
• Paris-Brest 3h25m (from 4h18m)

The LGV Sud-Europe Atlantique will go from the line's current terminus near Tours, where through trains are already able to bypass the city.  From there, it will continue to Ambarès-et-Lagrave (twinned with Norton Radstock, possibly the most gormless and rubbish town in the whole of the UK), which is on the outskirts of Bordeaux, the main urban centre in a region known for its fine wines: - I therefore just adore visiting the city, though this line will not do much to expedite journeys there from Marseille (the Bordeaux-Toulouse section of the GPSO will).  The line will have no new stations, but will have links to the existing intermediate stations on the conventional networks in Châtellerault, Poitiers and Angoulême.  The bypass will allow trains not stopping in these places to proceed full speed ahead to Bordeaux.  The line will be useful for people travelling not just to Bordeaux, but it will also appreciably shorten train journeys to Toulouse and Irún (over the border in Spain, plus the intermediate cities).  This will be particularly useful regarding Toulouse, as the air route between Paris-Orly and Toulouse-Blagnac airports is the busiest in Europe.  Paris-Bordeaux journey times will drop from 3h11m (non-stop) to about two hours.  The line will have an initial maximum speed of 320km/h, with the same power and signalling arrangements as the above lines.

The Contournement Nîmes-Montpellier will bypass Nîmes and allow freight traffic to avoid the centre of Montpellier.  It was decided that the existing Montpellier-St. Roch station would not be able to cope with the increased rail traffic, so the decision was made to build Montpellier-Sud de France station (which will unfortunately not have a tram link until 2020).  The line will bypass the centre of Montpellier, but bring Paris-Montpellier journeys down to about three hours.  It will have an initial operating speed of 220km/h, pending a signalling upgrade, which will allow it to be raised to 300km/h.  The reason for the slightly lower speed is the fact that this line is being designed to accommodate freight traffic, which results in a trade-off between gradients, cants and curvatures (curvature sacrificed for the other two parameters).  It will result in journey time reductions of around 20 minutes for journeys between Paris and Montpellier/Barcelona (and other intermediate destinations), though other train routes, such as the Intercité Bordeaux-Marseille may also use the line.  Bilal enjoys travelling by train to Seville to visit his homies and is learning Spanish (he is apparently doing a good job at mimicking hip-hop Spanish).  When the Nîmes-Perpignan gap is closed, it will be high-speed all the way from Marseille to Seville: - the route for the Montpellier-Perpignan section has been decided.  The power supply will be the same, but the initial signalling will be BAL (Bloc Automatique Lumineux) classique and ERTMS, both Level 1.

2017 looks like it will be a good year for high-speed train travel in France.  Spain's high-speed projects have more or less ground to a halt: - I wonder if we might have caught up with them by the end of 2017 in terms of kilometres of high-speed routes?

Why Bilal is a real man

Donald Trump's inauguration will happen soon.  In spite of being a macho man, he won a clear victory in the electoral college vote (with liberals continuing to go on about how he lost the popular vote) over Hillary Clinton, who I and many others are glad to see the back of.  Traditional masculinity has come under attack in recent years.  I am a super-attractive, glamorous and successful woman and I have no objections to women being like me, but I always found real men more attractive than the emasculated men we seem to see these days.

I was recently reading an article about the marks of Christian manhood that talked about marks of Christian manhood and it got me thinking about how Bilal is every bit the real man I desired.  The marks they gave were: -
1. Spiritual maturity sufficient to lead a wife and children.
2. Personal maturity sufficient to be a responsible husband and father.
3. Economic maturity sufficient to hold an adult job and handle money.
4. Physical maturity sufficient to work and protect a family.
5. Sexual maturity sufficient to marry and fulfill God's purposes.
6. Moral maturity sufficient to lead as example of righteousness.
7. Ethical maturity sufficient to make responsible decisions.
8. Worldview maturity sufficient to understand what is really important.
9. Relational maturity sufficient to understand and respect others.
10. Social maturity sufficient to make a contribution to society.
11. Verbal maturity sufficient to communicate and articulate as a man.
12. Character maturity sufficient to demonstrate courage under fire.
13. Biblical maturity sufficient to lead at some level in the church.
Bilal demonstrated 1. in his leadership of Sunday School classes and his informal mentoring of various other boys inside and outside the church (e.g. his boxing club) and demonstrated 2. in countless situations.  He has demonstrated both 3. and 4. with his day job with "Le Trom de Marseille" (as he calls it) and his accumulation of a fortune through shrewd online investments in shares.  He demonstrated 5. by refusing physical contact with unrelated women, which included holding hands with me during courtship (obviously, I learned on the wedding night what he had been labouring diligently to keep under control).  He has demonstrated 6. and 7. through his prolonged willingness to stand apart from the world and its evil practices at whatever cost to his own popularity.  He has demonstrated 8. by how passionately he carries out his church activities and is able to shield himself against outside distractions where necessary.  He has demonstrated 9. by how much joy he has brought to other believers in their fellowship with him, in spite of how shy he is.  He demonstrates 10. by his immense labours within the church and community to spread the Gospel message and help keep young La Savine boys out of trouble.  11., 12. and 13 are not that obvious, given his shy character, but he never shirks his duty to speak about the Gospel when called.

Beyond these issues that are, without doubt, the most important ones, he has shown himself to be a real man by both secular and religious criteria and I am glad I have him, rather than several other half-men who have approached me, but not demonstrated anything an it-girl like myself required.  Bilal has demonstrated manhood in every department.

His early life was spent in the Sahara Desert as a Touareg herdsman.  This is physical hardship at its best: - fiercely hot days, cold nights, defending his family's livestock from predators etc.  He lived in La Savine (probably Europe's toughest housing estate) upon arrival in France and only ceased living there when we returned from our honeymoon.  He feels rather lost in the immense luxury of my penthouse apartment overlooking the Vieux Port, but he likes the proximity of a metro station ("Réga du Trom" as he would say).  All these things have contributed to make him the rugged man he is today.

Bilal has been into strongman training since he arrived in France and came across a Marseille gym during early exploration of the city.  He was not old enough to be allowed in, so he occasionally watched from outside and sought advice from members as they left the gym.  When he was old enough, he took out gym membership, doing odd jobs to earn money to pay for this and other paraphernalia associated with developing the strength necessary for strongman contests (this was before online share trading became common).  He very quickly gained in weight.  He was a fairly shy child, preferring to sit in a corner reading the Holy Bible and other religious literature during break times and was therefore often the victim of bullying (I often used to see him with bruises on his face at church).  However, this soon ceased after he started gaining weight and physical strength.

I think that the ability and desire to have children (coupled with acceptance of all the responsibilities parenthood entails) is a mark of manhood.  If one is among the few people gifted for celibacy, fine, but otherwise, I think avoiding having children (apart from being against Psalm 127:4) is a mark that a man wants to live a freewheeling bachelor lifestyle and is, in reality, a boy rather than a man.  On the occasions before our wedding I mentioned this subject with Bilal, he always said abruptly, "Children are an inheritance from the Lord and I want to conceive as many as the Lord, in His almighty grace, will allow me to conceive".  Sure enough, when we got married, he wasted absolutely no time.  I admit he isn't always politically correct about this: - the Sunday at church after the test confirmed my second pregnancy, I overheard him say with enormous pride to his church "homies", "I've got her pregnant again!  Yes!", punching the air and behaving with the excitement of a football fan whose team has just scored a goal (in a way, he had scored a goal himself).  Someone in the group of friends (hip-hop people, of course: - the image below is from Wikimedia commons and does not depict him or anyone else we know) immediately spudded him and said, "Brap-brap-brap!  You're a big man doing that so quickly both times!  Regardless of what feminists think, I am pleased to have a husband who views the ability and willingness to conceive as the height of being a macho man.  I wouldn't want a boy who viewed children as an encumbrance to his freewheeling bachelor lifestyle: - Bilal also views the ability and willingness to conceive and properly raise children to be a mark of manhood: - he is keen to have a third child as soon as possible following the birth of our second.  I am due in a few months and have still not yet accumulated flabber!

In other respects though, he doesn't fulfil traditional macho values.  He does at least half the work of caring for our son, doesn't mind being seen pushing our son in his pram in public and is seen cradling him in church for most of the day: - he certainly takes much more of an interest in our son than pretty much all fathers I know.  He is generally a very quiet and shy character, but with the glut of people with an opinion to publicly express and the dearth of people interested, a few more quiet people in the world wouldn't go amiss!  I agree with most of Tomi Lahren's views, but she seems capable of little besides ranting!  The media needs people who will go out there and dig out stories, rather than just ranting aimlessly about what is there!  My fashion magazine is a great example of how to do this: - it is at the vanguard of fashion trends, not just reporting them, but predicting and defining them!

Here's to looking forward to a very large happy family with Bilal and gloating to women who lose self-control over their diet during pregnancy and have flabber to lose after giving birth!