Sunday, January 04, 2004

No way to run a railway

My semi-regular rail journey between Weymouth and Reading costs me GBP 29.00 to travel 110 miles on the dubious delights of South West Trains. Tonight, thanks to a mixture of engineering works, bizarre accidents and blazing incompetance, I only managed to see a real live train for the last ten miles of my epic trek. Myself and my fellow travellers (or "victims") suffered buses, taxis, dog-carts, ricksaws and a rocket - which will be re-used up the backside of the station manager at Bournemouth - before we even got close to a train.

The last I saw of my fellow sufferers who also had to put up with closed buffets, locked toilets, empty vending machines and hiding station staff, they were arguing their way onto a taxi at Basingstoke, which would, eventually, see them in London. I worked out that my twenty-nine quid journey actually cost SWT approximately GBP 160.00. I've still got to get home. One day.

Skeptic's Corner

1) Big up to NASA for managing to land its Martian space probe smack bang on target right in the middle of a whopping great hangar in the Nevada desert, saving them a fortune on rockets and stuff which they can piss up the wall on a huge party and free cars all round. Which is where those Beagle 2 people went wrong.

2) Great work also to the Egpytian government for announcing within hours of the tragic plane crash off the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Shaikh that it was absolutely, definately, positively nothing to do with any terrorist organisation, especially not that one fronted by Os*m* b*n L*d*n. This, of course, was nothing to do with the fact that Tony Blair and family are holidaying in ...err... the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Shaikh, and the denial was rushed out even before you could say "assassination attempt". Which it wasn't. At all. Honest.

Say what you like about Blair, but our Prime Minister's braver than your President. Or just as stupid.

/skepticism

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