Across the pond

Down in Dorset the kids have been missing all the excitement. While  the television screens and the newspapers have been full of spectacular pics of the worst winter for years, we have not yet had a single flake here. And the chances of a White Christmas must now be a million to one against. The gas man who came  to fix the heating system, which had decided to give up the ghost so we could have a real old-fashioned Christmas, had heard rumours of snow in Winchester.

He was right, as I discovered when I dashed up to London for a pre-Christmas party on Monday evening. When we drove back on Tuesday morning the M3 in Surrey and Wiltshire was an almost magical winter wonderland, with snow painting  the trees white. The sun came out to brighten the scene and offer a beautiful picture.

 Alas, I did not have time to stop. So all I have to offer is the picture taken from my London flat on Tuesday morning. At least it demonstrates that London Overground (that’s  what we all knew as the North London Line) was providing a better service than EuroStar. Despite the alleged unusual nature of this year’s snow flakes, London Overground managed to provide normal service. Whereas on EuroStar the passengers on five trains were trapped in the tunnel for 22 hours.

All of the passengers, except for Claudia Schiffer, for whom the Eurostar managers sent a special car.

That’s high tech privatised public transport for you. My vote in the next election will go the party who gives the tunnel contract to folk like those currently running London Overground, who have also planted flower boxes on the stations.