Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

Yesterday evening I switched on Radio 4's PM to be shocked by the first thing I heard. The Indian government has announced plans to build a bullet train , capable of reaching over 200 mph, with help from the Japanese. Operating between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, the project is expected to be completed in just five years' time. It was this shock headline that's forced me to issue this public apology to the Indian government today. Several times in this blog I've referred to Wales as having 'a Third World' public transport system. In the light of the news from India yesterday, it seems that it's nowhere near that good. Sorry to anyone living in the developing industrial nations for any offence I may have caused.  

Since leaving politics, the former Conservative MP Michael Portillo has carved out a new career as a broadcaster. His Radio 4 series The Things We Forgot to Remember looks at major historical events from angles which don't normally get covered in books. However, in my opinion, his real triumph started from a brilliantly simple idea: to use a Victorian guide to the British railways as a basis for exploring the history and culture of these islands. Great British Railway Journeys does exactly what it says on the tin. Mr Portillo criss-crosses a section of the country by train, visiting places which were mentioned in George Bradshaw's guides from the 1860s. At each stop he meets a local guide and gets a potted history of some of the events which shaped this country's development in Victorian times. I watched three of these programmes back-to-back last night, and only stopped because my medication had kicked in. To be perfectly honest, I could have watched them all night witho...

I found this on an old 3½" disk at home a couple of days ago. I'm reproducing it here as a preamble to the next entry  Nice Work If You Can Get There – and as an indication of just how little the situation has changed in nearly twelve years. PM BBC News Centre London January 7, 2001 Dear Sir/Madam, For the past five days the news has been dominated by in-depth reports into the state of Britain's rail network. We have heard sad tales of commuters struggling into London on ageing rolling stock running on a decaying infrastructure, faced with increasing delays and yet another round of fare increases. We are told that the industry needs billions of pounds worth of investment. We have heard reports that the network is 'six engineering resignations' from total meltdown. We have even been told that Transport has overtaken Health and Education at the top of the Government's list of priorities. It's funny how the issue of transport only makes the headlines when Lon...