Loaghtan Books

It may not look earth shattering (sea shattering?), but we saw the island's new ship Manxman go past the office over the weekend.  Distances are deceptive, but from camera to boat is about three miles.  We're not sure what she was doing as she steamed (dieseled?) north quite quickly, turned round in Ramsey Bay and then headed south at a much more leisurely pace. She's not in service yet - in fact she only arrived from Korea where she was built about a week ago - and is still undergoing sea trials.  The crew have to know that they can get her in and out of the various harbours efficiently and at all states of the tide.  She'll enter service later this month and replace Ben-my-Chree as the island's main ferry later this year. While she is undoubtedly a good-looking, modern boat, the name is rubbish.  It manages to be linguistically non Manx, sexist and boring all at the same time.  It's not even traditional, as the only other Manxman to serve in the Steam ...

Some blog posts are inconsequential or frivolous, but this one is serious. For 140 years horse trams have been clip-clopping up and down Douglas front.  They are unique.  No-one else in the world has such a survival - even the stables are original and the only working tramway stables left in the world.  And you can't find transport which is much more 'green'.  They've taken visitors and luggage to hotels, kiddies for rides, passengers from the MER at Derby Castle to the shops in town. Now they can't. Despite a Tynwald resolution that they should continue the full length of the promenade, the track still starts at Derby Castle but has been truncated at the bottom of Broadway (about half-way along).  At one stroke, the horse trams have stopped being a useful connexion between distant points - travelling from the north of the island we used them all the time - and become merely a plaything. The powers-that-be seem reluctant to put in place what Tynwald voted for, s...