No fun, some people

Boring boring railway safety people

Our train line is a bit suspended at the moment. Or one bit of it is anyway. It's literally suspended, as the rain has washed away the supporting subsoil and stuff and left it sort of hanging there, in mid air. So, it's no longer exactly level. It's no longer adequately supported. It's liable to move a bit if something (like a train) went over it.

On the other hand...

...it's not exactly hanging by a thread, it's just at bit of an angle, is all, and...

...while there's no support, it's still attached to the tracks that are supported, and the sleepers are still fixed to the tracks, and...

...it may indeed move a lot, it may not move very much at all, total catastrophic failure isn't 100% guaranteed.

Nevertheless, the boring health and safety cotton wool wrappers have had the final say and there's a replacement bus service. No imagination, some train operators.

All they need do is tell the drivers to put the pedal to the metal coming up to the (slightly) dodgy bit. That's all. Get up a head of steam, and they'd be past the hanging there section in seconds. It would also bring a bit of much needed excitement and interest to an otherwise boring commute. The 06:20 to Charing Cross would be a better place if everyone put their hands up in the air and went “wah-hooooo!” on the switchback railway bit. They could even set up one of those theme park cameras and sell photos at the exit gates on arrival in London.

Instead, there's a bus. Thanks, dreary folk in high viz vests. Hope you get paper cuts off your clipboards.

The gangs that ran drugs...

...illegal firearms, human trafficing, that sort of traditional gang area of operation, are moving into wildlife crime. The reason? The authorities are soft on them when they get caught. A man with £500,000's worth of ivory was fined £5,000. The maximum penalties are a joke. Something needs doing or there'll be no more elephants, rhinos, and other species with anything considered valuable outside of zoos.

The UK's favourite crisps...

...are, frankly, boring:

1. Cheese and onion
2. Ready salted
3. Salt and vinegar
4. Prawn cocktail
5. Chicken

Here's mine (crisps only):

1. Marmite
2. Bovril (sadly and inexplicably discontinued)
3. Add your own salt (I throw away the blue bags of salt)
4. Worcestershire sauce
5. Ham (France and Spain)

Snacks (in no particualr order):

• Salt 'n' vinegar chipsticks
• Pickled onion monster munch
• Frazzles
• Quavers
• Monster munch (other – beef and spicy)

Upmarket:

1. Scampi and lemon fries
2. Bacon bites (Tooting Poundland was doing mixed bags of (1) and (2), three of each in the multi-pack, for a quid – that's worth three pounds of anyone's money)
3. Pork scratchings
4. Twiglets
5. Cheese footballs

Special mention: French Fries (all flavours).