Coming back

I don’t mean to moan after a long time in the States, as many people tend to do, about how the grass is always greener abroad, and how crap the UK is. The more I travel the more clear it becomes to me just what is great about the UK, and London, and what isn’t. Stating the blindingly obvious there I know. But upon getting off the Heathrow Connect train at Paddington I endured a journey back to SE London, by car, that was more frustrating than any journey I had been in across thousands of miles across many different cities across the Atlantic. It wasn’t even rush hour and it was almost constant gridlock at junction after junction. It struck me then, more than ever before, just how little the mayor has done in his tenure.

Then I returned to daily use of southeastern trains. Maybe someone can tell me if Southeastern have taken to running shorter trains recently? Yesterday the normally 8 carriage train was only 6 coaches on the Greenwich line. I arrived on platform 2 at London Bridge this evening to see a Bexleyheath line train extremely overcrowded, and people having to be pushed on. 6 instead of the normal 8 causing that. Then 4 minutes later my Greenwich line train arrives. Again 6 carriages instead of the usual 8. This mornings train was 6 instead of 8. I think the day before yesterdays was too but I was feeling too gloomy about the first day back at work to remember with any great certainty. What’s going on? Have they cut back after winning their two year franchise extension? Putting in even less effort now? Or is this just a problem these past few days caused by some broken trains?

Still enough moaning for now as there’s good news all around. News Corp and Mr Murdoch are in deep doo doo, and some politicians have emerged from the suffocating blanket of fear he seemed to instill across all political parties. Whether this a brief moment of joy, or the start of a lasting change, I shall enjoy it greatly.