Travel

Not the best of photos today. I am editing it on a train, it is bouncing along rough railway lines, the laptop screen (pretty poor at the best of times) is shoogling around every time the train goes over a bump, and I had to try to use Paint Shop Pro - a package I am not familiar with at all!

Anyway, it is this train that I am travelling on, on a four-hour journey to Stevenage. I am travelling first class, which is nice. The wash-hand basin in the toilet doesn't have any water, so the staff have helpfully left a few bottles of water that we can use to wash our hands.

Trains. Britain is in the throes of whether we shoud invest in a high-speed rail line, to link two cities in the south of England. This could have been a wonderful unifying project, getting the whole country behind a national network of railway lines covering the country from the very north to the very south. The country could have been opened up, with huge benefits in prosperity for every part of the country.

Nope. The plan is for two cities, just over 100 miles apart, to get the link.

Taiwan has a real high speed rail network. Anyone from any part of the industrial west of the country can travel the length of the country in comfort and a short journey time. There are huge benefits for congestion, communications and investment. Sadly, that;s not our approach...