Or make the same cock-up I did of connecting to the Cloud whilst ordering. Result: ordered two rounds of drinks, once on mobile data, once on Wifi.

I think it's reasonable to distinguish between leisure travellers, who may well want to go to a city two hours away for lunch (which the Two Together Railcard's 10am condition makes extremely hard on weekdays) and lifestyle travellers who rake in exorbitant London salaries and overburden the railway network on two afternoons per week.

Then just make "peak" follow a sensible InterCity definition everywhere, with peaks on Friday and Sunday afternoons (except Regional Railways, where there is no sense in having peaks to Melksham or Llandrindod at all). Commuter trains lose shedloads of money anyway; no point in bothering pricing things for them -- the more lines that can be dropped on TfL^» (Transport for London - about) the better, so long as they don't disrupt the main lines.

A more sensible idea would surely be to redefine "peak" to match usage. It should no longer be peak to ride InterCity trains early mornings on weekdays. It should be peak to ride them on Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday afternoons.

Rather predictably, CrossCountry's Advances cost more than the normal return fare. I could buy a First Class Advance from Cardiff to Gloucester at £27.40 and back at £26.90 (no idea why it's 50p different...), or just buy an unrestricted First Off Peak Return for £42.40. Britain's worst InterCity operator strikes again.

There's a really annoying way in which they make rovers useless for people from Birmingham. Take for instance the Coast and Peaks one. You have to buy a separate ticket to Telford or Stafford first. Absolute madness (somehow Manchester doesn't get revenue-gouged in the same way on that one – no idea why they're that inconsistent). Likewise the East Midlands one, which starts at Tamworth or Nuneaton. Likewise the Severn and Solent one, which starts at Worcester or Ashchurch. The Explore Wales one will let you go from Birmingham, but only towards Crewe (with massive TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) restrictions) or Shrewsbury, and not towards Hereford or Cheltenham. Of course the main culprit is Britain's worst InterCity TOC, CrossCountry (wouldn't it be a better world if we could abolish them, and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), Avanti, and EMR^» (East Midlands Railway, also known as EMT^» (East Midlands Trains - about) (East Midlands Trains) - about) could run InterCity services terminating in Birmingham?). But there's a proper dog-in-the-manger bunfight between TfW and LNR going on there – LNR won't honour TfW's rovers between Birmingham and Hereford, and TfW won't honour LNR's ones between Hereford, Shrewsbury, and Crewe – bring back Central Trains, all is forgiven...

I've been on one that did an emergency stop from reasonably high speed (75mph, I think). Wednesday February 5th, 2020. This was on 1B21, the 1548 Paddington (1742 Cardiff) to Swansea. The guard had checked our tickets after we'd left Cardiff and gone into the kitchen, and we'd got our free wine (glass of red, nice) and thankfully the host had also just made it back into the kitchen with the trolley. We get to the last signal before Pontyclun and I was very glad I had a napkin under my wine to slow its journey across the table enough for me to catch it (could have been messy!). We came to a stop with First Class short of the platform at Pontyclun – very impressive. No sooner had we come to a stop than the guard emerges from the kitchen muttering "this isn't good at all", followed by a louder "is everyone okay?" What it turned out had happened was that there was a thankfully totally incompetent "distressed person" on the line in front of TfW's stationary stopping service at Pencoed (there was a steel train between them and us (yes, brilliant work from the signallers there...) – hence the quite so awkward location for an emergency stop – the natural worry there is that that's the signal where you'd find out that something had gone awry with the barriers at Llantrisant West Level Crossing, but the front of the train wouldn't have reached that). We had about a 40-minute delay as the police persuaded the distressed person to leave the railway. Everything was all right in the end (and we all got seconds of wine). But the rate at which that stopped was truly staggering.

Yeah, that's what the staff told me. Also an hour earlier on the eastbound (so more lunchtimey from Wales).

There comes a point when an RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector (or Retail Price Index, depending on the context)) won't know. I once got inspected by an RPI off-route about 20 years ago – I was doing Epsom to Birmingham, which was valid back then either via London or via Dorking/Deepdene and Reading. I of course was going via the Bookham branch, which technically was not permitted. But it was utterly plausible to go to Guildford, then Reading for Birmingham, and they had no idea that it was technically naughty. All they were worried about was that I was travelling against the peak direction, which I was.

That's just it: if I were stuck in Birmingham, I'd just nip across Stephenson Street to the Burlington Hotel and sit in the bar (the Berlioz bar upstairs, not that dive in the basement).

AIUI^▸ (as I understand it), the 1748 to Carmarthen is going to have a Pullman shortly. I know you'd rather they moved that bloody signal already, but will they do it?

Not really. Dispersed population in Berkshire is nothing on actual cities like Bristol and Cardiff and Plymouth. Or even Newport.

I just think about why I avoid that service: it's standard class only (and because it serves Bristol Temple Meads, which makes it too busy with short-distance passengers). I'd much rather go from Wales to Westbury via Swindon. If I ever wanted to go to Southampton or Portsmouth, I'd go via Reading.

If they were serious about making it work, they'd run IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) on it (and single the track over that bridge in Hampshire if needs be).

I was surprised by this on Monday. I took the Jubilee Line from North Greenwich to Baker Street and was astonished to get WhatsApp notifications.

Yeah, the point was I was going to Wales: so that line is useless if the trains don't reach Hereford (and would be much better if they extended them to Newport in such circumstances, rather than cutting them back to Worcester Shrub Hill).