A Distracting Wiggle

Robbie's legs are still hurting him, but he is managing to walk more normally – if you can call his gay walk normal! I waited in the car while he went into a shop the other day, I watched him walking and he really does have an noticeable wiggle. What was also noticeable was his new wallet sticking out of his back pocket. Does that man never learn? Having already had is pocket picked while at a gig, he knows how upsetting it is to lose a wallet and to have all the fuss of stopping your cards and waiting for new ones. He loves his new wallet, it was a birthday present and it probably cost more than the value of the contents, so if he loses this one he will be in big trouble. I think I will have to attach it to his pocket with elastic, just like the little children who have their gloves attached to their coats on a string of elastic!

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.

Bob the Bouncer 25.01.07

Emily will be 18 on Wednesday and she is having a joint birthday party with her friend next weekend. It has taken weeks of organisation and angst to get this party arranged and I began to think she would be 21 before it was all sorted out! The complications arose because Emily and her friend couldn't agree on exactly what they wanted, and they had some difficulty keeping to their (rather generous) budget. At one point Robbie offered his services on the door to ensure that only invited guests attended. The venue that they chose in the end has it's own door staff so Bob the Bouncer is no longer required. I was astounded to find that he has been invited and I haven't - I'm just paying! So a week on Sunday Robbie and almost 150 eighteen year olds will be partying the night away. I have asked Emily to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble!

Robbie told me that Sam's remark about his gay walk has caused considerable comment. It is best viewed from the back by the way! Emily pointed out that there are a number of tell tale signs that Robbie is in touch with his feminine side. The most obvious is the man bag, he adores bags of all kinds, but he has a little black number that is very 'Graham Norton', it used to be mine, but he adopted it. He carries my handbag for me all the time and the definitive piece of evidence - he looks incredible in an apron!

He tells me that he has been in trouble with his work mates for providing too much information again. This time it was about a fairly intimate operation, among other things! You can't take him anywhere. He is like some boring old man talking about his war wounds. I think I have sorted the problem, if he doesn't stop talking about it I will put it on the blog, I'm sure he doesn't want that.