primitivepeople

As you can see from my current music choice, I fully support the campaign to get "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against The Machine to be Christmas number one. Abby is quite nostalgic about this song as it's part of her memories of studentdom. I bought it this morning to boost its chances, and because it's a gloriously angry and anarchistic track that we didn't own, and way better than the asinine shite X-Factor song.

No two X-Factor winners can be told apart - they all sound exactly the same (bland, basically) and they all make horribly twee and unmemorable songs. How anyone can say that these people are genuinely talented is completely beyond me. Basically, they may be technically competent, look the part and be able to stand in front of a crowd and perform, but what they do has no artistic merit at all.

So, I'm with RATM on this one, and I wish to say to the entertainment industry....FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!*

* OK, I'm aware that I wouldn't have bought this song without the campaign, so I'm doing what someone is telling me, but you know what I mean.

I took my first ride on a bus from Linlithgow today. Bus travel here is rather different to what I've been used to - apart from the fact that the buses are less frequent than they are in London, planning a journey seems quite a challenge because most bus stops have very little (if any) information on them. However, with the help of a website and a friendly old lady, I managed to find my way to Bo'ness by bus today, and very pleasant it was too.

I sat upstairs on a number 45, and enjoyed a fine view as we bounced over the hills to the coast. Well, it's a fine view if you manage to ignore the Grangemouth oil refinery, which is rather prominent, but if you look the other way you can almost forget it's there.

Main reason for going to Bo'ness was to work out where the station is. It's the main base for the Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway, a preserved line run by the Scottish Railway Preservation Society. I've sent off an application to join, because I've always wanted to get involved in the running of a steam railway, but have never lived close enough to one to do it. This is just a twenty-minute bus ride away, so making a reasonable commitment time-wise is no problem, and it's also going to be a good way to network in my efforts to find work. You can guarantee that the place will be crammed full of railway employees who need an extra fix of trains outside work. It might also be a useful way to learn new skills of a practical, hands-on nature, and that's always good.

Bo'ness was a bit cold and damp, as was most of central Scotland today by the looks of things, so I didn't stay there too long, but I got a good nose around at the station, from the outside at least, and could see some of their interesting collection of locos and carriages. I also found an interesting Geocache which involved walking along the foreshore, which was quite pleasant (despite the weather). I'm sure it looks a lot nicer on a sunny day, as it was all a bit gloomy today, but there you go.

Oddly enough, it was snowing in London, but was far too warm for that here today. Bizarre.

I applied for another job today - contract management with a rail engineering firm. Similar to things I've done before, based in Alloa, which is just the other side of Stirling and within reasonable commuting range. Hopefully I'll get an interview at least.

This evening we sampled the wares from "The Golden Chip", a takeaway of some renown in these here parts. It was very typically Scottish, in that just about everything on the menu is deep-fried in some form, including a number of things that the English would never have considered frying. Pizza was one of those things. I can imagine it being very tasty, but I can feel my arteries clogging just thinking about it. There were no deep-fried Mars bars on the menu, though, nor deep-fried kebabs, which are popular in some parts of Scotland (presumably the areas with the lowest life-expectancy).

Anyway, the food was very tasty, and we washed it down with Irn Bru, but I don't think going there too regularly would be wise. The lard is strong on this one.

Investment company fires workers for trivial rule-breaking over gambling, while happily gambling away the security of billions of people so that a very small number of immoral cretins can make billions for themselves, never having to face the consequences of their actions.

Let's face it - those responsible for the mess, who are rich enough in the first place, never suffer in recessions. It's always the people at the bottom who somehow manage to get screwed.

I had my ears syringed this morning, which I need to have done every now and again.

EVERYTHING IS INCREDIBLY LOUD NOW!

A couple of shots from my visit last week...


Semaphores


Roof

Shot with the Camera Club people last Tuesday night, armed with my Pentax K-m, a Vivitar manual-focus 24mm lens, and a seriously dodgy tripod. Some shots worked a lot better than others - here's the best ones.








This chair-o-planes was spinning so fast and was so well lit up that it only needed 2 seconds exposure to produce this effect, at ISO 100, the slowest my camera can manage.


Top-quality German sausages. I recommend the Currywurst. Works well with Irn-Bru for an authentically Scottish touch.







So there you are - a superb evening out if you're in Edinburgh this side of Christmas. On the night I shot these, it wasn't even that cold, so I had a lot of fun. I've not done much low-light photography before, mainly because I haven't had a very good camera to do it with, but I've discovered that Shake Reduction is my friend. Best thing about Pentax DSLRs is that Shake Reduction is built into the body and will work with any lens that you can put on the camera, not just modern dedicated ones.

Some of the squillions of photos I've shot of late. Enjoy...

Palace











Sadly the weather was terrible while we were there, and most of the palace is unroofed, so it was hard to get it looking all that great - but you get the idea. At least it was very uncrowded. Those are the serious pictures - now here's a few "no shit Sherlock" exhibit captions.


Such certainty!


I'd never have guessed.


Yes! Frilling!

Church

A couple of interiors of St. Michael's Parish Church, which is extremely ancient and very beautiful. We're going to a service there in the morning.





So there you are. This town is positively brimming over with pretty things.

I've just cleared out my friends list a bit, as it was getting rather long. Main reason it was so long was - ironically - because I had more time to check up on it when I was working.

I've just deleted the people I hardly ever interacted with and/or didn't know very well. If this has dropped a huge drama bomb into your life, I hereby apologise, but hopefully I'll have more time to keep up with the rest of you.

Abby saw this label on a shelf in Sainsbury's a few days ago, and she stole it for the LULZ.




I assume it means that a shelf has been incorrectly set up and needs sorting, and is also irritatingly anthropomorphised, but we'll let that pass for now. What else could it mean? Amusing answers on a postcard, please.

I've been a bit slack with the updates recently, so here's what's been going on.

Monday

Colin went home on Sunday evening, but Miyuki was still with us on Monday. We dropped off the children and then explored Linlithgow's main attractions - the Palace and St. Michael's Parish Church.

The Palace was the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots, and is fairly well preserved but almost entirely without a roof - unfortunately it was chucking down with rain while we were there, so it wasn't the best day to visit. The place is huge and pretty spectacular, though, and I was suitably impressed. I'll certainly go back there - there's a lot to see and it's great having something like this on my doorstep.

St. Michael's Parish Church is right next to the palace, and is thought to be where Mary Queen of Scots was baptised. It's even got a few battle scars - the couple from the church who were there to show visitors around pointed out the marks on the walls where soldiers sharpened their swords. There's some very nice stained glass in there, although almost all the statues and other decorative items were removed during the Reformation, that miserably depressing period in history.

We got talking to the couple there about wanting to find a church in town, and they filled us in on what the place is like. It sounds impressive and we're very keen to visit, so we'll do that this coming weekend. It seems fairly traditional in most respects, but they're quite active in lots of areas including a few things I'd happily get involved in, so that's good. We'll see what it's like...watch this space.

Tuesday

Miyuki left for London on Tuesday morning, and Abby and I went with her to Edinburgh to see her off on the train. We did some things in town and met Abby's sister for a bit. Abby then left to pick up the children, but I hung around in town, because the Camera Club met in the evening for a photoshoot at the Christmas Market. I lugged my (rather heavy) tripod about all day, which was seriously knackering, but we suffer for our art. After I'd parted with Abby, I did a fair bit of walking and found a couple of caches before heading back into town for the shoot.

The Christmas Market was buzzing and there was lots to see, so I shot away merrily. Unfortunately my tripod had broken, and I only discovered this after lugging it about all day - arse! I just about managed to get it to work for a few timed exposures of the chair-o-planes, though, and they came out pretty well.

Low-light photography is an area where I don't have much experience, and my shots were a bit hit and miss, but it's all a valuable learning curve. One thing I've realised is that the built-in flash on my camera is a bit crap and I need a decent external one, so I'll see what I can find. I also need a new tripod now - I dumped my duff one in a bin. It wasn't worth carting home again. I've used it about three times in 15 years, so there's probably no rush to get a new one...

Got home tired but happy, and full of photographic ideas.

Wednesday

Mainly spent Christmas shopping at the Gyle Centre. I focussed mainly on my mum, sister and nephew, as we now have to post things to them. I managed to find it very difficult to buy for them, but got there in the end, although I can't say my choices were very original. I called my mum to ask what she thought my nephew would like, and told me he'd said, in a very grave and serious voice, "Nanna, what I'd really like for Christmas is a stapler".

Wow - such grand dreams!

I settled on a nice pen set. They're now home, wrapped and in the mail.

Today

A few errands in Linlithgow first of all, including a visit to the library which is a very nice place with a good array of books, considering it's pretty small. I went to Stirling in the afternoon, which was nice - I got some camera batteries and found a cache while I was there. It was somewhat exposed though, and I aroused some suspicion - someone asked me what I was doing, but understood when I explained...

I've got lots of photos to post, which I'll do as soon as I can. I've also managed to make some progress on the job-hunting front. I've applied for two jobs, one with Strathclyde Partnership for Transport and the other with ScotRail. I'm probably underqualified for one and overqualified for the other, but hopefully I'll make some progress. They're both organisations I'd like to work for, and it all helps me show up on their radars.

That will do for now - better go and make tea, I'm hungry.

We've had a house full of people this weekend, and it's been great - just the sort of thing I had in mind when we moved. I love a bit of hospitality.

First off, our Japanese friend Miyuki has come to stay. She's been in Australia for the last couple of years, so it's been a long time since we've seen her. She's especially popular with the children, and they were thrilled to see her again. We've been joined this weekend by Colin, one of Abby's old schoolfriends. It's been great to just muck about and have fun.

We went to Edinburgh yesterday and checked out the Christmas market. I was pretty impressed but we didn't spend too long there because it was cold and wet. Some Currywurst from the German market helped keep us warm, though. Edinburgh is full of tourist tat shops that play terrible Scottish-style muzak - we were in one of them when we heard "Clocks" by Coldplay on the bagpipes.

It was almost enough to make me flee back to London immediately.

We went out for a walk up Cockleroy Hill this morning, which provided stunning views of not only the whole of Linlithgow but a load of other nearby towns as well, and you could see the Forth Bridge as well. Amazing! The sun was out but it was very, very windy so it was hard to spend long out there without freezing. We were out long enough to find a couple of caches, though. :)

Now Colin has gone home, but Miyuki is still with us until Tuesday when she's off to London. I've booked all of us a trip to London next month - we'll be staying in Kingston from 4th to 7th January, so if you're around, I'll see you there...

1. "Keep The Aspidistra Flying" by George Orwell
2. "Bollocks to Alton Towers: Uncommonly British Days Out" by Robin Halstead, Jason Hazeley, Alex Morris and Joel Morris
3. "Silverland" by Dervla Murphy
4. "Anger: Handling a Powerful Emotion in a Healthy Way" by Gary Chapman
5. "Dawn of the Dumb: Dispatches from the Idiotic Frontline" by Charlie Brooker
6. "Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea" by Guy Delisle
7. "The Dark Crystal" by A.C.H. Smith
8. "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
9. "Protect and Survive: Civil Defence Manual of Basic Training" (HMSO, 1950)
10. "Can Any Mother Help Me?" by Jenna Bailey
11. "Shooting An Elephant" by George Orwell
12. "Holly The Christmas Fairy" by Daisy Meadows (read to the children at bedtime)
13. "Investigation into the Clapham Junction Railway Accident" by Anthony Hidden QC
14. "Time of Death" by Jessica Snyder Sachs
15. "Viz: The Big Hairy Almanackers 2009"
16. "Little Children" by Tom Perrotta
17. "Now, Discover Your Strengths" by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton
18. "Not In My Name: A Compendium of Modern Hypocrisy" by Julie Burchill and Chas Newkey-Burden
19. "The Devil's Alternative" by Frederick Forsyth
20. "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer
21. "Girl Genius Volume 1: Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank" by Phil and Kaja Foglio
22. "How Not To Write A Novel" by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark
23. "Girl Genius Volume 2: Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City" by Phil and Kaja Foglio
24. "Working Hard(ly) - The Overachiveing Underperformer's Guide to Doing as Little as Possible in the Office" by Chris Morran (on company time, apparently)
25. "Incendiary" by Chris Cleave
26. "Live Generously: 50 Small Acts That Make a Big Difference" by the Live Generously Project and Julie Van Pelt (ed)
27. "The Dawkins Delusion" by Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath
28. "Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn"
29. "Notes From A Small Island" by Bill Bryson
30. "The Surrey Hills" by W. A. Poucher
31. Da Vinci Inventions Official Programme
32. "The Early Years of London Diesels" by Michael Welch
33. "Me:Moir Volume 1" by Vic Reeves
34. "Reasons to be Cheerful" by Mark Steel
35. "No Contest: The Case Against Competition" by Alfie Kohn
36. "Steam In The Scottish Landscape" by Michael Welch
37. "Signspotting 2" compiled by Doug Lansky
38. "Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction" by Sue Townsend
39. "Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years" by Sue Townsend

So...a brand-new Adrian Mole. I approached it with some caution, given the sadistic glee with which Sue Townsend visits calamity on Adrian. After Marigold, bankruptcy and assorted other horrors, Weapons of Mass Destruction ends moderately positively with Adrian's marriage to Daisy. By the start of this book, true to form, all sorts of things have started to go wrong, and things generally go from bad to worse. A lot of past characters from early on in the Mole books make a re-appearance as well, in a somewhat contrived manner, it seems.

Parts of it are good, and parts of it make blistering social comment on what's messed up about modern life (very modern life, including the banking crisis) - but a lot of it is just Adrian suffering, and it's often not nice to read. I just wish that a few more things could go right in his life, especially on his creative side, but it seems not to be. It seems odd that she keeps writing books about a character she seems to dislike so much. It ends positively again, but I won't go into any more detail than that as it's a very new book and I suspect a lot of you won't have read it yet.

Worth it if you're a fan, as I am, but...I wish it had been a bit different, and perhaps Sue Townsend should have stopped after the first two books. The teenage Mole was a creation of genius, because teenagers are genuinely like him, but she's never let him grow up properly, or enjoy any real success. It's hard to stay all that sympathetic as a result.

When I was in Edinburgh on my way to the airport on Monday, I saw a poster for Runrig concerts. This really caught my eye as I've loved Runrig for years, but had never seen them live. They've played Greenbelt a few times, but not in any of the years I've been there, unfortunately. So...presented with a chance to see them, I jumped at it. They were at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh last night. I was very disorganised and only remembered it at the last minute, but thankfully I managed to get a ticket without any trouble and got the train to Haymarket with a sense of excitement and anticipation.

I was not disappointed. At all. Even slightly!

When I arrived, I discovered I didn't have a brilliant seat, and this worried me a bit. I would have preferred my first Runrig concert to have been in a festival field, but hey, there's not many of those about in December. I got a reasonably decent view, but felt a bit squashed in and a bit distant from the band. I also got a bit riled by how difficult some people managed to find it to get to their seats. Grrr! People wander about slowly, getting in everyone's way, looking at the back of every single seat until they find theirs! It's simple!

• Row A is at the front. Row B is behind it. Row C is behind that....you get the idea.
• Seat 1 is at one end of the row. The numbers get higher as you go along. Seat 2 is next to seat 1. Seat 3 is next to seat 2, and also seat 4. And so on.
• Seats do NOT progress in random order, and the seat behind A1 is B1. Ditto A2, B2 etc.

WHY do some people find this so hard to grasp?!? It's infuriating!

Anyway, I calmed down eventually, once everyone around me had stopped faffing about and sat down. The support act were on first, it was a band made up of four sisters from Edinburgh called Give Way. I was quite impressed - they had a folkish sound and reminded me a bit of Capercaillie and Iona, which is good, as they're two other bands I really like. I'd certainly be happy to go and see them again. However...they weren't a patch on Runrig, who turned out to be awesomely good and put on a spectacular show.

Not only was the music amazing, but the lighting was stunning as well, and there was a screen at the back of the stage showing a range of projections that went with each song, including arty images and snippets of lyrics. They performed a very varied set, containing a mixture of songs I knew, and ones I didn't - they've been around for years, and their back catalogue is huge. There were, however, some of my favourites in there, including "Wall of China", "Big Sky" and "Alba". I'd always imagined that this last song would be popular with a home crowd - Alba is the Gaelic name for Scotland - and lo and behold, a couple of Scottish flags appeared among the audience. I was pleased to have correctly anticipated how this would go down, and it was a great welcome to Scotland. :) The band is pretty nationalistic, and it's quite nice to be in a place where displays of proud patriotism haven't got caught up with nasty racist overtones like they have in England.

I enjoyed "At The Edge of the World", which had a video backdrop of people from St. Kilda, the most remote part of the UK ever to have been inhabited. The remaining population was evacuated in 1930, and there was some old film of the people before they left. There were quite a few others that I knew, but I can't remember half of the titles now. There was an amazing drumming part between a couple of songs, and for the encore they did "Ard (High)", a melancholic instrumental with some landscape visuals on the screen, and it was really impressive. "You Take The High Road" got in there as well. :)

The train home was fun as well. I had to stand, but a man sitting near me insisted that I ate a load of his peanuts, and wouldn't take no for an answer. It was good, actually, because I was very hungry by this point...

Absolutely top notch. I sincerely hope I get to see them again.

They're playing again in Glasgow tonight. Just saying. :)

Let's hope LJ co-operates this morning and lets me post these - pictures from my Linlithgow to Polmont walk yesterday, via the Union Canal.


This was a very attractive canalside building at the Linlithgow end. I'm not sure what it is or was, but I'm assuming it's open in the summer for tourism purposes, as it was all securely locked up.





Start of the Avon Aqueduct


Crossing the Aqueduct


See how still the water is...


Bridge

I dropped the children off at school this morning, and then took a walk down the Union Canal to Polmont. According to my GPS, I walked just over six miles, and it was great. It was a perfect clear and sunny winter day, and the scenery was beautiful. The canal was covered with a thin layer of ice in some places, and in other places it was incredibly still and reflected everything. I took lots of photos, a selection of which will follow once LJ decides to co-operate. Grrr.

The walk involved crossing the Avon Aqueduct, a huge structure that carries the canal across a deep river valley in spectacular style. I think this is what West Lothian Council use on their logo. Walking across it was pretty cool.

I think the whole thing is navigable, but I didn't see any canal boats. I did see a man paddling a canoe, though, along with a few joggers, cyclists and dog-walkers, but generally I was alone most of the time. I found two geocaches as well, and attempted a third, but didn't manage that one. Eventually, with slightly aching legs, I ended up at Polmont station and caught the train back to Linlithgow. It was most excellent, and I could feel it having done me a lot of good.

The canal path carries on from Polmont to Falkirk, but I didn't have the time or the energy to go that far today. That's a future trip planned, though - train to Polmont, walk along canal to Falkirk, and train back to Linlithgow.

Our Japanese friend Miyuki, who has been in Australia for a couple of years, is coming to stay with us for a while, arriving tomorrow. Woohoo! Our first houseguest! We're looking forward to seeing her, and the children are very excited, because they think Miyuki is great...

I went back to Edinburgh Airport yesterday, at their request, and it sounds pretty hopeful that I may have a job in around a month's time. There's various recruitment activities going on, and I have to wait for them to conclude, but what I got out of the short and sweet meeting is that they seem keen to offer me something, and that can't be bad. I'm pleased with how it went.

Other than that, what's going on? Well...we tried a church out on Sunday. The people were lovely and I was hugely impressed by the warmth of the welcome, but I didn't like the worship at all, which was of a touchy-feely, flag-waving, hands-in-the-air variety. Still, we'll see how it goes. I do think I'd prefer something a little more structured, though. I must see if I can get along to some of the emerging-church-type things around here. I know that there's various groups involved in Greenbelt that meet in Glasgow, so I'll investigate.

We went out for a drive at lunchtime, through Bo'ness and Grangemouth. Interesting to see these places. We passed through Falkirk as well, and as we did, Abby mentioned that David McCallum once had piano lessons there. She mentions this all the time, whenever Falkirk is referred to.

I don't even know who he is, but hey.

I went to the camera club in town for the second time today. It seems a little chaotically disorganised at times, but the people are very nice, and looking at each others' work and discussing it is quite inspiring. We're off to photograph the Christmas festivities in Edinburgh next week, which should be fun. I feel like I'm getting to know quite a few people already, which is great.

Better go for now, as it's very late, and I need to sleep. I was just watching "Paradox", which I recommend if you like anything to do with time travel and alternative universes or shit like that.

No, not moving pictures. Moving pictures. As in pictures of things pertinent to me moving.

I've finally found my camera data cable, so here's a load of pictures for you.

Packing up in Raynes Park








Excuse the quality, but this was the last photo I took in our old flat before I left for good, on 20th November. I went to work just after this - the removal men were well on the way to packing everything up. The end of an era - I'd lived here for nearly nine and a half years, the longest I'd ever lived anywhere.

Farewells


Goodbye to old friends in the pub on the 19th...


...and to old colleagues over lunch on the 20th.

Travels


Leaving the Travelodge in Penrith on 21st - I think this is Eddie's handprint on the window.


Some patriotic flag waving while crossing the border. Abby got all emotional at this point. :)


Welcome to Linlithgow!

Settling in...


Removal men unloading


Eddie after his first day at school

Out and about


Gates to Linlithgow Palace


Tully overlooking Linlithgow Loch


Selected Osbornes and Pettigrews at a rather foggy Stirling Castle

So there you go - that gives you a flavour of our first week and bit in Scotland. It's amazing how much you can cram into life if you try hard enough. :) It feels like we've been here for ages already.

This appears to be a few years old, but I hadn't seen it until a couple of days ago, when it was in a TV ad break. Perhaps it's only shown in Scotland. It's superb, anyway. :)



Irn Bru is, of course, a superb drink, and Scotland is the only country in the world where a locally-produced soft drink outsells Coca Cola. It's your patriotic duty to drink Irn Bru here - not liking it is tantamount to treason.

From oh_meow:

UK people- You can now help bankrupt the BNP- they have a freepost address.

British Heritage, FREEPOST

Send them any old crap without a stamp, they have to pay 40p for everything they receive.

The Other Taxpayer's Alliance (an altogether nicer and more sensible bunch than the Taxpayer's Alliance proper) ran this feature on the newly-nationalised East Coast rail franchise, which caught my eye. The Observer article it links to is worth reading as well, and I remember reading the Roger Ford article about recreating InterCity in Modern Railways a while ago.

It's interesting that East Coast is more or less instantly recovering from the complete mess National Express made of it. They made a massive loss because they stupidly promised to pay massive amounts of money to the government for the rights to run it, when the line so patently should manage to make a profit. Every East Coast train out of London is wedged full of passengers, and without the stupid expenses incurred by franchising and premiums, it's a license to print money. Take this burden off all the other long-distance train operators, and sense might finally prevail. The fragmentation of the network is a huge problem. InterCity wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it did provide consistent, reliable and reasonably high-quality long distance trains from Penzance to Inverness, and if you saw a train in the timetable with "IC" at the top of the column, you knew what to expect. Now, the InterCity brand has disappeared, and there's no consistency at all with what you get on board, how the tickets work and the quality of catering etc. There's no logical reason for this fragmentation. I take Virgin's point on board - the rail network is nothing like it was in 1994, and things change fast, but a non-operator-specific brand, with unified pricing and marketing, would be so much better.

You only need to look at buses in London to see that. They're privately run, but TfL manage the contracts and lay down a lot of stipulations that have to be met. It's why buses in London are so good, and buses everywhere else are almost universally crap. I'm now living in an area with no unified planning or marketing, multiple competing operators, and hopelessly bad information provision. Just attempting to get from one end of town to the other round here is a complex and daunting task, because the information provided is so crap. One of the things that has gone right in Scotland is the way that Transport Scotland (the Scottish equivalent of the Department for Transport) has got involved in the running of the Scottish rail network. Admittedly things are a bit simpler here, because almost all train services in Scotland are run by one franchise, but that franchise is operated by FirstGroup. First have a very strong brand on all their businesses, involving a rather garish purple livery, but Transport Scotland have insisted that they use a non-operator-specific livery here, based on the Scottish flag, and instead of First ScotRail, we now have ScotRail - Scotland's Railway, with small "Operated by First" logos you'd miss if you weren't looking for them. This is the way forward, it really is - the next step would be doing this elsewhere with more than one operator using the same brands. All the London commuter operators, for example, could recreate a version of Network SouthEast. I wish they would - Transport for London has worked wonders with things like Oyster, but all the small and fragmented National Rail franchises in London don't want to know, and won't co-operate. The wasted opportunities and inconvenience for passengers are just enormous! I'd like to see all of the rail services inside the M25 (and some outside, where appropriate) handed over to TfL, who would integrate and operate them with somewhat more skill and consistency than we're seeing at the moment.

There's a few valiant efforts out there, but generally we're utterly crap at transport integration in this country, and it's really depressing to see. The waste and illogicality of it all is just crazy. No wonder people just give up and drive everywhere.