Portsmouth anniversary in 2016. In literature, Portsmouth is the chief location for Jonathan Meades' 1993 novel "Pompey", in which it is inhabited largely by incestuous and necrophiliac criminals. Since the release of his novel, Meades has presented a TV programme documenting Victorian architecture in Portsmouth Dockyard. In Jane Austen's novel "Mansfield Park", Portsmouth is the hometown of the main character Fanny Price, and is the setting of most of the closing chapters of the novel. In Charles Dickens' novel "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby", main protagonists Nicholas and Smike make their way to Portsmouth and get involved in a
Buses in Portsmouth is served by National Express, which operates a number of routes to the city and currently provides twelve journeys per day between London and Portsmouth, offering journey times of around two hours. A competing service between the two cities was introduced by Megabus, a division of the Stagecoach Group, in February 2004. Further competition on the corridor appeared in September 2009, when Portsmouth and Southampton became the first destinations to be served by Greyhound UK, owned by FirstGroup; this service ceased in November 2012. Solent Blue Line operated a service linking Portsmouth to Southampton for four years from 2005. Prior