The John Wayne Look 22.06.07

After a busy and challenging day I sat down with this weeks issue of Rail. Like most people I don't start at the beginning of the magazine and work through in a methodical manner, I browse stopping at whatever takes my fancy along the way. I read the article on West Coast Railways, then my attention was caught by the article on the spring National Passenger Survey results. It came as no surprise to find FGW languishing in the relegation zone at the bottom of the league in terms of satisfaction and value for money. Maybe their fictional track, non existent seats and fantasy timetable were not such a good idea after all!

I thumbed the pages towards the front of the magazine and was startled to come across an alarming picture of Chris Gibb holding a urine sample! Ok I admit he is fairly easy on the eye compared to many other railway people, but bodily fluids in rail magazine - surely not! When I recovered from the initial horror I realised he was proudly displaying a sample of bio-diesel at the launch of the first bio-diesel train in UK. I think it is a hopeful sign and if the government sort out the nonsense regarding tax on bio-diesel maybe the railways can become a little greener, but please no more scary photos!

I found another photo of Chris Gibb on the Christian Wolmar page, he was still waving the dratted 'urine sample' but this time he was standing in front of the Voyager with a group of Virgin CrossCountry staff. I am sure they are all nice people but the Voyager is the star of the show, so please move the people and let us look at the Voyager. While on the subject of photos, why do all male Virgin employees stand like that? I can only describe it as the 'John Wayne look' - to put it bluntly they stand with their legs so far appart that they look as if they have just got off a horse!

A Walk on the Wild Side 21.05.07

I didn't see much of Robbie over the weekend, he spent Saturday on the wild side - in Walsall, and then on Sunday he went off to a gig in Birmingham in the evening and didn't get back until it was way past my bedtime. Then this morning all he could manage to talk about was chaos created by Central Trains cancelling services left, right and centre yesterday. Oddly enough at 6am I can't summon up too much interest in the disgraceful behaviour of Central Trains, in fact the only thing that interests me at that time is my first cup of tea of the day!
I couldn't even get away from railway news at work. I switched Radio 4 on just in time to hear Christian Wolmar pronounce that South West Trains decision to redefine peak times as contrary to common sense. It seems that peak time now extends to noon. I'm sure they keep that man in a cupboard on charge so that whenever the world railway is mentioned they can wheel him out to state the blindingly obvious!

This evening Robbie is sitting in the corner emitting strange tinny sounds - he is listening to Blood Red Shoes with his headphones on. I don't mind too much as long as he doesn't start to sing along! In fact I could do with some headphones myself, I have been bombarded with mind boggling questions this weekend. Sam tried to explain to me about the ageing effect of space travel, but it made my brain hurt. He said that if there were identical twins and one went into space while the other stayed behind, one would end up older than the other. Having thought about it, he must be right, I saw William Shatner on TV not so long ago and all that space travel has clearly taken its toll on him!