Nationalised Express!

So the National Express East Coast franchise is to be taken back into public ownership. It was hardly a surprise announcement, I don't really see what else the government could have done because it it starts letting toc's renegotiate contracts it will make a mockery of the whole process (which is a bit of a farce anyway). What worries me most is what we end up with when the government try to fix a problem - Network Rail for example!

Yesterday was a really busy day for me, so I had no time to ponder on the rights and wrongs of the decision about National Express, in fact I didn't even think about railway matters until I got home in the evening. Robbie began by reading out snippets to me from his railway magazine, then when he wasn't getting much response he grabbed his headphones and settled down to watch the DVD about Laira Depot that he had for Father's Day. I could just about tolerate the appreciative sighs and grunts coming from his direction, but when he began to add to the soundtrack with his own train noises I had reached my limit. I gave him one of my most meaningful stares and he got the message loud and clear. He is already in the dog house (yet again) so he didn't need too much of a reminder not to push his luck!

Too Much Information - Again 10.02.07

On the whole I prefer the radio to the television - the pictures are so much better on the radio! However there are one or two detective series that I enjoy on television, I get frustrated when they are not true to the books, but I can suspend my disbelief. They took horrible liberties with Morse, the books are much better but it was worth watching just to look at John Thaw. Frost is another favourite, again the books are better and make more sense as they are set in a different era, but David Jason has made Frost believable.

Last night I was happily sitting in the lounge enjoying an episode of Frost while I got on with some household admin - I always do something else while watching television because I find it hard to sit still. Robbie (as always) was finding it hard to be quiet, he had already been 'shown the yellow card' but once again he became animated and extremely vocal. The cause of his excitement was (unsurprisingly) a train. Frost was apparently seeing someone off from Manchester, but according to Robbie he was actually waving to a train travelling on the east coast mainline, He recognised the station and anyway he was absolutely certain that that particular coaching stock in view had never worked on the west coast service. I will spare you the details, but you get the idea.

I was then treated to a monologue about the various stations on the west coast line and all the different rolling stock used. He then went on to provide similar information for the east coast, then, just for good measure, he ran through every his encyclopaedic knowledge of other service in UK! By this time I wasn't really listening, I was fantasising about the best method of causing his voice to raise by several octaves. I didn't actually 'do the deed' but I had great fun thinking about it!

As for Frost, well he had almost solved the case before I was able to concentrate on the television again. Never mind, I had seen it before anyway!