An All Action Hero 14.02.07

I made Robbie suffer for his strop, on the journey back to Northampton I nicked his (unread) Rail magazine and read it from cover to cover. I liked the interview with Chris Gibb, I imagined that he would be much older, not sure why. The article described him as an all action hero, so perhaps it was him and not Superman on Sam's favourite train! I thought it was a very good article. He say's that the 'average' passenger thinks Voyagers are great, well I am not 'average' (being female gives me a head start towards perfection!) but I am a big fan of Voyagers, they have nice toilets. I think he is right about the staff too, the train crews on cross country are more friendly than the ones from the 'dark side'. Some of the train managers have added entertainment value, there is one who has a better gay walk than Robbie, a real John Inman wiggle. It is better than watching TV when he is on the train! If you want to improve cross country the best thing you could do is 'head hunt' the station announcer with the camp voice from Milton Keynes, he is amazing, we go via Milton Keynes just to listen to him, he's brilliant! Possibly the only good thing about Milton Keynes. To digress for a minute, I saw a chap (platform staff) at New Street today who looked so much like Alf Garnet. It was a bit scary, he looked as if he could have been a traffic warden in a previous life!

Anyway back to Robbie's Rail magazine, I loved the train photos with the Chris Gibb interview, but where is Cornwood Viaduct, is it in the Plympton/Ivybridge area? The first photo of Chris Gibb was fine, the second was perhaps a bit of a mistake. The way he was sitting made me think of Rainbow - you know, Zippy and George. George was cute, but perhaps that is not a franchise winning comparison!

I have been reading the Christian Wolmar articles quite regularly. I am used to hearing him speak on Radio 4, but to be honest he confuses me. Sometimes I think he makes a lot of sense, but every now and then he says or writes something that to be honest makes me think he is talking out of the wrong end - but then what do I know anyway. His article this week about freight was really interesting.

I have given Robbie his magazine back now, so peace reigns! He is feeling poorly this evening, I hope he hasn't picked up the bug that the children had because he has to go to Leeds tomorrow.