Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

I was in Cardiff the weekend before last, and while I was walking through St David's Centre I saw a large group of students studying a large mural. I wondered what was causing so much excitement, so I decided to check it out for myself. This is what I found. (I know the photo isn't great, because I took it with my phone, but there's a reason for that.) It's a clever idea, isn't it? Grafting Cardiff and the suburbs onto the Tube map – that iconic piece of design which evolves as the network grows and changes – proves that someone at the South Wales Echo (where it originally appeared) has a sense of humour. Unfortunately, it had totally confused the youngsters. A couple of Chinese students were having a very animated discussion about it; a few West African girls were equally enthralled by the idea of the Barry John Line, the John Charles Line, and the Cardiff Arms Dart. I looked at it with them for a few minutes, took a couple of photos, and then turned to them and s...

I received an email this morning from the Office of Rail and Road. They were following up my 'recent'(-ish) complaint against Arriva Trains Wales (see I Don't Like Thursdays and We Apologise For the Late Running of This Refund ). The eight-week time lag between action and reaction seems to be the new industry benchmark, judging from today's date. Anyway, the ORR sent me a little market research survey to fill in, rating my experience of dealing with Arriva following the Replacement Bus Service fuck-up in early  October. You won't be surprised to learn that I rated them pretty poorly overall. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. On 3 January, I went to Aberdare station at the crack of dawn on a bitterly cold morning to single-handedly promote Action for Rail Day. (Two of the lads I'd invited to join me were working that day; the other was laid up with gastric flu.) It was part of an ongoing campaign organised by the TUC, and supported by a couple of dozen...