Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: London

  • National Express : London Victoria Coach Station to Leicester

    National Express : London Victoria Coach Station to Leicester

    I’ve had a mixed selection of journeys with National Express, sometimes they can be excellent and other times they’re a bit more challenging. However, the fare to get from London Victoria coach station to Leicester was just £4.20, so I worked on the basis that even if the journey was bloody awful, then it was still cheap. There’s a logic there I think, sort of….

    I was going from Gate 2 and this was clearly indicated an hour before the journey. I like clarity and there was lots of it here, all very organised and there was seating whilst I waited. There’s also a Greggs and Pret nearby for those who like such things, and I popped to Pret for a drink….

    I liked this, an old image at Victoria coach station of how it used to look. Today, the coach station is quite cramped and old fashioned, really needing more space and a renovation. There has been talk of moving the site, but I think it’s staying here for the foreseeable future.

    The driver came and made clear announcements that passengers going to locations on the route that weren’t Leicester should board the National Express branded coach on the left. Those wanting to go to Leicester could get on this service operated by Roberts on behalf of National Express. I was a bit puzzled as to how this worked, as there are multiple stops that the coach was meant to take along the route, but maybe no-one had booked to go from, say Golders Green to Leicester. The driver was helpful though and everything was clear.

    This was a clean and comfortable coach, and I spotted that seat on the left was free. It’s near the toilets, but it also has no-one in front, so it remains my go-to seat. Yes, I accept I need to get out more since I’ve now got a favourite seat on coaches…..

    The service wasn’t very busy. Earlier on in the day I looked to see how many seats were left on the coach by doing a dummy booking, but it was showing as entirely full. That meant that I was expecting a packed coach (which wouldn’t have been ideal from a comfort point of view), but the dual operation meant that there was lots of space. This pleased me greatly.

    As for the driver, Tony, he was exceptional. Warm, personable, engaging and with a sense of humour, I thought his customer service was excellent. He added positively to the journey and his driving was professional throughout. An absolute credit to National Express.

    Safely in Leicester, arriving 50 minutes early which was a bit of a result.

    I assume that National Express are getting new facilities here, unless they’ve moved to a little Portakabin for fun.

    Anyway, this was a first class journey representing excellent value for money. A clean coach, friendly driver, professional driving, a cheap fare and lots of space, absolutely impeccable. I’m back to perhaps trusting National Express again and I would use them a lot more if I could expect this sort of service every time.

  • London – Extinction Rebellion

    London – Extinction Rebellion

    Just photos in this post of the Extinction Rebellion protest outside Downing Street in London this morning. I won’t get involved in politics on my little blog (I’m very pro-rail, which is a tricky subject), but it was a friendly protest although some car drivers shouted abuse at the protesters. The police were very professional and were being engaging and helpful, so at least it was well-mannered and cars weren’t overly delayed.

  • British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Glasgow)

    British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Glasgow)

    After a productive few hours at London Heathrow, it was time to board the flight to Glasgow from the domestic gates. I don’t normally take domestic flights for environmental reasons, but more on that later in this post. The boarding process was smooth and efficient, although there was a situation that I’ve never seen before that no-one in Group 1 boarding came forwards, and there were only two of us in Group 2 boarding. The member of staff at the gate said to me that this was unusual, although it wasn’t for lack of customers as the flight was nearly full. I think that more customers are just remaining in their seats until the end of the boarding process, which is what I tend to do if I have an aisle seat.

    The meander down to the aircraft, which I unfortunately couldn’t take a photo of as it was hidden behind the air bridge at both ends with no viewing points from the terminal. The aircraft was an A320, registration code G-TTNR, and it was only delivered to British Airways two weeks ago.

    The aircraft was spotlessly clean and things feel much cleaner than they used to when boarding British Airways flights. There were no maintenance issues, although the aircraft is only two weeks old and so it would be a little strange if there were.

    Every customer was given a Dettol wipe if they wanted to clean their seat area a bit more.

    Ready to depart. I’m still intrigued at watching the bags that customers try and fit into the overhead lockers, with some clearly never going to fit. But, I don’t get involved with such dramas…..

    I had an emergency exit row seat and there was no-one sitting next to me, I’m guessing due to BA’s Theoretical Seating platform.

    The flight was scheduled to depart at 20:15, but the boarding process was so smooth that the pilot made an announcement to say he was ready to go early. Air traffic control were happy, so we left at 20:06. The flight was also meant to arrive at 21:40, but we landed at 21:17, so much earlier than I had anticipated. Above is Heathrow whilst we were taxiing before take-off.

    British Airways flights in Euro Traveller have reverted to offering a free drink and snack. This was the crisps and water offered on this flight, sufficient I imagine for most customers given the short journey.

    The disembarkation process was by seat row, so customers were told to remain seated until their batch of five seats rows were announced. An American in the row behind me said “you’d never get this in the United States, everyone remaining seated” and I must admit that even I was surprised at the compliance. I didn’t have much interaction with the crew, but they offered a friendly hello and goodbye, so that’s good enough for me on a flight of this length.

    Back to the environmental issue that I mentioned earlier. I’m a huge advocate of the rail network and have been delighted at the improvements that have been made over the last two decades. But, for these long journeys, the rail network cannot match British Airways in cost, in comfort, in efficiency or in its ability to allow customers to get work done. This sort of journey should be viable by rail as the best option for the environment.

    Looking back to my LNER journey a few weeks ago, the company is just badly run as far as I’m concerned, and they can’t even get seat reservations right, let alone have enough staff to deal with the problem customers. Long journeys need to be handled more elegantly by rail companies so that customers are actually comfortable. At the same time, British Airways has worked out how to transport people cheaply, with excellent customer service and handles customer loyalty well. And, they’re doing it with the advantage that it’s a much quicker form of transport. There needs to be a much greater capacity on the mainlines from London to Scotland if they want people to get out of cars and off planes to go back onto the rail network. This is all happening whilst the HS2 East leg looks to be cancelled and that wasn’t meant to open until 2033 anyway.

    The nearest best option is the sleeper service and I enjoyed using that, but it’s being threatened with strike action which makes it hard to rely on. If they retain some of their social distancing so as not to pack out the carriage, then that becomes more viable as there are lounge areas and it’s a comfortable enough way to travel. I accept that it’s possible to use coach services and these are much cheaper, but the length of journey and lack of comfort are challenges here. I got the long distance National Express service from Newcastle to London and they hadn’t even bothered to provide seats at the bus station (or outside it in my case, as the bus stations is shut for many departures) for waiting customers and had drivers smoking in the entrance to their coach. I can’t quite imagine the pilot standing in the British Airways cabin vaping away whilst vaguely looking at customers walking by.

    On many Amtrak services in the United States, a staff member welcomes customers and shows them where their seat is and writes their destination above the seat on a card. There is a substantial amount of leg room, there are observation cars, a buffet car and the whole service feels spacious and comfortable. It’s easy to get work done and there’s a loyalty scheme which rewards frequent travellers. On long-distance rail services in the UK, there’s no-one greeting customers, there’s often not even a seat (or someone else is sitting in it), there’s a poor loyalty scheme, crammed in seats, no observation cars and inadequate dining cars. But there’s not much point in offering that to customers given that the network is so busy already.

    So, in short, this was a near perfect flight experience for me and I can absolutely see why customers are choosing this form of transport. I have no need to take domestic flights on a regular basis, but I was surprised to see just how efficiently British Airways are managing the process at the moment. Given the problems with using rail for long journeys, I suspect that the best medium-term strategy is finding more environmentally efficient air travel and I know that funding is pouring into that. Otherwise, we’ll have another 50 years of people staying in their cars and driving everywhere, which really isn’t ideal as it’ll lead to no end of new road projects.

    Anyway, rant over and a very lovely flight from British Airways.

  • London – Hackney (Borough of) – Shoreditch – Goose Island (Sixth Visit)

    London – Hackney (Borough of) – Shoreditch – Goose Island (Sixth Visit)

    Firstly, I accept it’s perhaps a bit much to be writing about Goose Island again, although I have to add that they were my pub of the year in 2020 and so I’m allowed some exuberance here. NB, I also accept having a pub of the year is a bit self-indulgent as well, but here we are as they say….. The actual reason I want to write about this visit is there was a beer that I thought was quite beautiful.

    I won’t write about the bar itself again, I’ve done that to death already. But, this little snack selection from Nanny Bill’s (the in-house food provider) really was rather lovely. The Aggy Fries are rosemary salted with garlic mayo, parmesan cheese, Frank’s hot sauce and spring onions. And they were beautiful, at a hot temperature and the flavours all went nicely together. Those buttermilk fried chicken strips were also beautiful as they were tender, hot, interesting and the coating had a pleasant taste. But, delightful at this was, the beer is the main part of the Goose Island show, the food and staff are just the near perfect complements to it…..

    The Vermont Sticky Maple, a strong 11.3% ABV imperial stout from The Bruery, from Placentia which is in Orange County, in a region of California that I know very well and is perhaps one of the areas of the world that I love the most. Anyway, my reminding myself that I love California to one side, this is a rich and interesting beer.

    The Orange Line beer from Goose Island themselves, a New England IPA with tropical fruit running all the way through it, a lovely light flavour that would go well on a summer day in Maine. A smooth taste and packed with hops although I didn’t get the “flavour of straw” that one person decided they got from this. What flavour does straw have anyway?

    And the shining light of the evening, the Escape Pod Cherry Edition from Pressure Drop Brewing, a small brewery from Tottenham in London. This was quite magical, with rich and smooth flavours of chocolate, vanilla and cherry, and strong aromas of cherry. As may already be evident, there was no shortage of cherry here. A deep mouthfeel with that velvet sort of texture that these imperial stouts can bring, with no harshness from the 10% ABV. The aftertaste was balanced and decadent, a lovely alternating taste of chocolate and cherry. It was like a Christmas chocolate and very memorable, one of the best beers that I’ve had. Quite marvellous.

    As ever, the staff at Goose Island were friendly, engaging and knowledgeable. The bar was clean, the environment was laid-back and this is as far as I’m concerned one of the best bars in the world. And I am unanimous in that…..

  • Southern Railway : London Victoria to Eastbourne

    Southern Railway : London Victoria to Eastbourne

    And another little adventure begins, I’m leaving London (and Pret) behind for a brief time and popping to Eastbourne, the jewel of the south coast (or something like that anyway) for a walking expedition with Hike Norfolk.

    Southern Railways sometimes have an annoying habit of only announcing the platform about four minutes before the train departures, which can be a bit fiddly in a railway station the size of London Victoria (although that can lead to interesting scenes watching people running or tripping towards the train desperate to get it in time). Fortunately, this one was announced over twenty minutes before it departed.

    I like the clear signage of when the next direct train to each location is, although slightly less convenient for those who wanted to go to Arundel or Bognor Regis.

    OK, I’m going to struggle to make this sound exciting as very little happened of note. But here’s the train and the boarding process. Normally on this service a fair number of the passengers are going to Gatwick, but for obvious reasons, that wasn’t happening on today’s service.

    The train did get busier and tickets were checked by a friendly and jolly member of staff. He was checking the tickets carefully and I always get worried when the guard stares at my ticket for more than two seconds in case something is wrong with it. This isn’t entirely rational as I know bloody well that the ticket is correct, I think it’s just a British thing. Anyway, it was fine.

    Coffee and a railway ticket, what more could anyone want for a train journey…. For anyone who gets this train hoping to charge their electrical devices though, they will be disappointed. There are a reasonable number of table seats available on the train and there’s also a small First Class section, although it didn’t look very busy.

    Given the company named here, this reminded me of something that my friend Liam would put up…..

    Welcome to Eastbourne, or as the station refers to it as, “the sunshine coast”. Eastbourne Railway Station has ticket barriers, although they weren’t in use today, so I could meander through (slightly annoyed at the lack of checks because these sometimes create drama from passengers who have lost their ticket between the train and the barrier, but that’s a different matter).

    And looking back at the train that I arrived into Eastbourne on. OK, this isn’t a very exciting report of a rail journey since nothing much of note happened. But that also means it arrived on time, which was handy (although meant I wouldn’t be claiming any Delay Repay). The journey cost £8.50 with Southern Railways, which seems quite a fair price given the distance travelled. And hello to Eastbourne.

  • London – Brent (Borough of) – Wembley – Ibis Wembley (Repeat Visit)

    London – Brent (Borough of) – Wembley – Ibis Wembley (Repeat Visit)

    Before writing this, I feel the need to say that the Accor customer service seems to be in a difficult place (or they just dislike me, which is fair enough, although I’d rather they said that as it’d make for a decent blog post on its own), so it’s probably best to book using a third party booking agent.

    I’ve been to this Ibis hotel in Wembley on a few occasions before (1, 2 and 3 before I stopped writing about it) and it has always been reliable. I wasn’t going to write again given the number of previous posts, but I particularly liked this visit.

    The check-in process was a bit convoluted as I was told that all guests need to show ID. I don’t have my passport as it didn’t seem to be necessary to visit Wembley (although I was in Pimlico yesterday, but that’s an irrelevant reference really) and I don’t have a driving licence. The situation didn’t seem ideal as with the exception of the ever quirky Ibis Styles Walthamstow, I’ve never been asked for ID by Accor in the UK. After dropping out of the queue and finding a photo of my passport on my phone I went back to reception, with the staff member being pleased with this, which was fortunate as I didn’t have any other solutions. He then looked at my details on his device and found my booking, before telling me that I hadn’t needed to show ID. I decided not to question what had gone on here. The staff member was friendly, although I had to ask for the welcome drink.

    Just as I like it, my room was on the top floor and I’ve never had a view of Wembley from this direction. I rather liked the hills (well, what I call hills) in the background, although that building in the front does monopolise the view somewhat.

    This is also the largest room that I’ve had in this hotel, all spotlessly clean and well presented. Its location in the corner of the building also made it incredibly quiet, which was rather lovely. I was also able to open the window so that I could hear life outside, albeit 14 floors down. The room also only had wi-fi in around one half of it which was nearest to the door. It transpired that being in the corner of the building was a problem for mobile and wi-fi signal.

    The bar on the ground floor and the beer selection hasn’t changed from my last visit, with the Goose Island being entirely acceptable to me.

    The prices charged here are generally low (which is why I keep staying here), unless there’s some sort of event on at Wembley. There’s a great deal of hotel capacity in the Wembley area which is designed to serve the events and sports market (the hotel overlooks Wembley Stadium), which has been badly affected by the whole pandemic thing. For me, this is a very good hotel which is well managed, clean and organised. I suspect that I’ll meander back at some point.

  • London – Overheard on the Train (an occasional series)

    London – Overheard on the Train (an occasional series)

    As part of my “overheard on the train” occasional series, which is some of the reason that I like travelling.

    There are what I assume to be two grandparents and their two grandchildren on the train and we’ve just gone by Romford greyhound stadium on the Crossrail train (currently branded as TFL Rail).

    Anyway, the grandfather said “there’s the greyhound stadium, do you know what your grandmother did there back in the day?“.

    The boy (aged about 6), in all seriousness, replied “did she run round the track?”.

    The grandfather is highly amused, but the grandmother looks positively livid. I don’t think the kids will be getting the McDonald’s they had been asking for….. For the factual record, she worked in the ticket office.

  • London – Hammersmith and Fulham (Borough of) – Ibis Earls Court

    London – Hammersmith and Fulham (Borough of) – Ibis Earls Court

    I’ve written about this hotel a couple of times before (Earls Court Ibis and Earls Court Ibis) although I’ve stayed here on around eight or nine occasions now I think. I thought I’ll add this visit just because it’s the first time that I’ve been since the on-site pub has opened, it’s never been busy enough before for them to open. I admit that it’s not hugely breaking news, but it’s something new…. This is a hotel where conferences usually take place, so I can imagine that this gets very busy when these are in full flow.

    This is the former bar, which is just now part of the general reception area. There was quite a queue for check-in, typically when I was in a rush and I needed to be on a Zoom call and had just been stuck on the Victoria line for over half an hour. I tried to look slightly annoyed but there was little point as the staff were working through the queue quickly and they were polite with large smiles. The staff member who checked me in was bouncy and welcoming, mentioning that he had the same first name as me which was a reminder he had been at reception the last two times I’d visited. The reception staff here always seem friendly, it’s a positive introduction for guests.

    All of my previous visits have seen me placed higher up the building (as in on a higher floor, not on the roof), with some rather lovely views, but I was down on the third floor this time. I suspect that they’ve done up the rooms in the higher levels of the hotel with a more modern design, as this is the older Ibis room interior. However, it’s still clean and functional. This remains one of the few hotels that keeps Bibles in the room, something that I haven’t seen for some time.

    I haven’t seen an Accor hotel do this for a while, but these have the dual purpose of being decorative and also advertising other locations from the brand around the world. A nice touch I think, JD Wetherspoon used to do this in their pubs as well to advertise new openings from around the country.

    Anyway, this is the hotel’s own little pub which is located on the first floor. The George and Dragon is designed to look like a traditional British pub and I quite like this, as often hotels go for something with a theme which isn’t local to their environment at all. Without generalising, this is at least something a little authentic for American guests and the like. I say authentic, it’s a hotel bar, but it’s all relative.

    There was a sizeable amount of space inside the pub, although it was also quite busy with many customers getting food as well as drink. It all looked a bit expensive, but since my drink was free I didn’t dwell on this matter for long. They looked a little short-staffed and empty plates started to pile up on most of the tables, but they seemed to be doing their best. These remain challenging times for the hospitality industry, so I’m just impressed that the hotel is still functioning.

    I found myself a high table to monitor proceedings from….

    The beer choice was acceptable, albeit a little orientated towards lagers, but there were at least some choices. I can always tolerate a nice Goose Island IPA for my welcome drink and they didn’t seem to have any limits on what I could pick as my free beverage.

    Anyway, another lovely stay with friendly staff, a clean environment and no noises issues either internally or externally. I shall hopefully stay here again, despite Accor annoying me (which I may have mentioned several times….)

  • London – Newham (Borough of) – Travelodge London City Airport

    London – Newham (Borough of) – Travelodge London City Airport

    I used to live down the road from this large Travelodge hotel, so it was rather lovely to be able to use Pontoon Dock DLR station again all week. It was a reminder of just how many steps there are to get to the platform level and I’m sure I used to get up them quicker than I do now. Such is ageing….

    This hotel usually benefits from being nearby to London ExCeL (I have to look that up every time to remember which letters need capitals and it annoys me very slightly every time) and London City Airport. Neither are quite the draw that they were a couple of years ago, meaning that this hotel has become just a little desperate to get customers in. I paid £21 per night, which was lower than usual as Travelodge have a “buy four nights, get one free” deal in London at the moment. That was a bargain as far as I was concerned, just over £100 for five nights.

    For those interested in the history of this area, if we went back 100 years there were terraced houses lined up here rather than a chain hotel. Today, there’s little residential here, primarily as it’s nearly underneath the flight path of London City Airport. That has been evident from the thundering noise of aircraft from the airport all week, although I find it quite soothing. I accept that a lot of people don’t find aircraft noise as soothing, but there we go.

    The room is on a business floor, which seems to solely mean that they’ve taken out the sofa beds from the rooms. It’s quite a spacious room and entirely functional, although the carpet probably needs replacing. Everything worked as it should and the windows open. I like it when the windows open and I might have mentioned that several times in recent weeks. There was a radiator and fan to give me choices, although it has been a little hot in London this week. I say a little, it has been far too bloody hot.

    The hotel isn’t cleaning rooms on a daily basis, instead giving guests these. The one on the left is a bit pointless, as the default is now to do nothing anyway. The one on the right means that coffee is restocked, towels are replaced, the bins are cleaned and the bed is ignored. I put the one one on the right out on three days and they did do as they promised.

    As one of my irrelevant asides, I’ve noticed on Facebook that people seem genuinely furious, livid and shocked that hotels charge more for the same room at different times of the year. I’m amused that Travelodge ruined a family’s hotel plans as they wanted to pay £29 per night for a week in Blackpool. I’m slightly puzzled that people think hotels charge the same amount every night, although perhaps I shouldn’t be shouldn’t be surprised by these things. It did mean I had a little look at the hotel reviews to see what palatial accommodation some people had been expecting.

    George (surname unknown) annoyed this customer:

    “Extremely bad customer service specially from a member of management called george wast very determine on giving his last name but just to be precise he where’s glasses and has curley hair very bad manner and extremely poor customer service skills and should definitely be removed from site as he is giving and providing a bad reputation for travelodge very unhappy and will be reporting with audio and camera proof of such bad customer services from the BBC”

    Unfortunately, I can’t find any footage on the BBC…… Another guest wanted to punish the chain for their incompetence:

    “Terrible hotel! Manager was so rude and unhelpful. Ended up booking another travel lodge it was that bad”

    Hmmm, I’m not sure that Travelodge lost out here. There is another Travelodge handily located about a three minute walk away though….

    I did quite like the brutal nature of this review of the hotel’s SuperRooms though:

    “Spent a little more for a super room and found it was the same as a normal room but had a coffee maker in which made really bad coffee”

    I’m not actually sure they’re far wrong, but as I know from my friend Richard’s experiences, you do get a free Kit Kat. Another customer really battled the elements:

    “Despite the dust hanging from the lamp on our bedside table, we went to sleep.”

    So brave…..

    I hope that Travelodge don’t mind if I say that they’re something of an earthy hotel chain, although perhaps not in the literal sense. They’re down to earth, generally affordable, honest and clean. They don’t pledge anything they’re not, so I continue to be entirely pleased with my stays. Accor and myself have fallen out with each other (although technically I think I’ve fallen out with them, they probably just think I’m an idiot), which is awkward when I’ve got an entire section on this blog about them. I can’t see myself falling out with Travelodge and what better praise could they want than that…..

  • LNER : York to London King’s Cross

    LNER : York to London King’s Cross

    This is really handy when you’ve looking for platform 5 (I was on platform 6 at the time).

    Anyway, this was the journey I took a few days ago from York to London King’s Cross. I’ll let the guard’s words speak for themselves about the state of this journey:

    “I really wish I hadn’t been on this service, I wasn’t meant to be on it, I’m angry that I am on it”.

    I certainly felt for him, LNER had served him badly, let alone the customers who had paid to be on it.

    It is possible to try and work out where to stand on the platform by following the little code at the bottom. No-one bothered judging by the rushing around from place to place when the train arrived, it’s all a bit complex.

    The LNER Azuma train sweeps into York. In fairness to LNER, these are perfectly nice trains, or would be if they were operated by a proper company.

    I’m normally more polite, but LNER really can’t run a rail service very well, the service is ridden with managerial incompetence.

    They insist that customers book a seat as part of the reservation system. This is so often a policy set for disaster, as LNER don’t bother putting anyone on the trains to enforce this policy, they just dump that problem on the guard. And on this occasion, he was busy dealing with the British Transport Police who were lifting a customer off the service. Nor indeed is the seat reservation policy enforceable anyway. My reserved seat was taken, so I just sat nearby. The problem is that this happened to nearly every customer. We had this ridiculous situation that some seats were kept free as customers thought others would be sitting in them (as the sign by the seat said they were reserved), whilst other customers gave up and sat in the aisle (as visible in the above photo).

    This would be much easier if LNER did what most other rail companies and just make reserving a seat optional when buying a ticket. I don’t want to reserve a seat, I wish they’d stop making me as otherwise I can’t buy a ticket. If someone wants to reserve one, then let them. LNER’s system just forces customers to cram into carriages hunting for their seat, which isn’t ideal during Covid times. I suspect there was a carriage somewhere on the train where there was open seating and there weren’t any reservations, but I have no idea where that was.

    Anyway, the guard put an announcement over the tannoy that British Transport Police had already been called to the train on two occasions and he was now dealing with a third problem. The poor guard sounded fed up and he vaguely attempted to check tickets, but was continually called to deal with seating issues due to LNER’s hopeless reservation policy. Drunken customers were also making his job harder and he reminded them over the tannoy that he would ask the British Transport Police to board again if necessary. He also suggested that customers text British Transport Police themselves if they couldn’t find him on the train. This announcement was made when we had just left York railway station, so it hardly felt a friendly welcome to LNER.

    As an aside, to be honest, people don’t really need to buy tickets for this service (although I’m too well behaved to risk that) as there is no gate line at York and the one at King’s Cross wasn’t enforced.

    The poor staff in the catering section were trying to walk up and down the train to supply food and drink as LNER have this great idea that customers can order at their seat. The system didn’t work as the staff couldn’t find the customer who had ordered it and they had to battle to get past the customers sitting in the aisle.

    As this journey unfolded, there was more excitement just before Peterborough, someone had started smoking in one of the on-board toilets. This positively annoyed the guard who made another tannoy announcement about the situation, evidently just entirely fed up with this service.

    And into King’s Cross, admittedly on-time. The guard must have been relieved that the service was over. I certainly was. The rail network perhaps needs to consider some significant modernisation to its processes as otherwise I suspect more people will just give up and start flying rather than getting the train. Or perhaps they could let British Airways take over the East Coast Mainline……..

    I accept this all sounds a bit ranty, but, to be fair, the guard was too and I agree with him.