During lunch one day a few weeks ago, a colleague was talking about the trepidation of her husband using her car. It was her first car. Her pride and joy. And letting someone else drive it was a big thing. Not that he actually drove - he hasn't even started lessons, however will be learning in the future.
Is the tube actually getting better? More reliable? Less problematic? Every time you get stuck in a tunnel, the tuts and sighs come out like nothing has changed. So I guess most people would say no.
Prior to this year, I'd only ever taken one journey on a sleeper train. It was 2003 and we were in St Petersburg visiting my sister, and she decided we should go to Moscow for the day to see the sights. Lenin's Tomb, Red Square and so on. We'd arrive on the sleeper, spend the day there and arrive back in St Petersburg the following morning.
In the UK you can get most places in a reasonable time by train so why fly? The journey from London to Edinburgh is perhaps pushing it slightly, with a journey of four and a half hours. So trying the sleeper train to Edinburgh seemed a good idea.
When it comes to trains, nothing really evokes the romance of the sleeper. Of boarding a train, and of it whisking you through the night to another city, where an attendant gently wakes you crying "Good morning sir" before handing you your breakfast.
Whilst I was up north over Christmas, I had one of those inevitable "cost of transport" discussions. This conversation was on the depreciation in value of cars. The result was that the annual depreciation value of their car was roughly £1,000. So if they bought their car - not a new car incidentally - left it on the drive for twelve months, and then sold it, they'd be around £1,000 out of pocket. If they left it on for two years, they'd be £2,000 out of pocket. And so on.
As you might know if you're in London, three London bus routes are about to be converted from bendy buses to a mixture of single deckers and double deckers. And I was very interested to come across two PDFs published by Transport for London regarding the conversions.
I'm going to let you into a little secret. You might think from my last post that I'm actually really pro-Bendy buses. Actually I don't care one bit about bendy buses. I see them as I see as I see most buses - a tool to get me from A to B. And with any tool, I just want the best one for the job.