Nixta Sinks

More good news. British rail prices are set to rise. Lovely. I wouldn't mind you know, but the trains really are sbout as shit as any I've come across, pissed in or puked over. When I went to the west country earlier this year the seat allocations were all messed up because they'd got the wrong carriages on the train: people who had booked a set of 4 seats around a table so that their kids could enjoy the ride and they could look after little 3 year old William ended up strewn all over the carriage sitting next to the bricklayer from Slough, Romford's spottiest slapper and a pair of wee-stained old drunks from Cheam.

I have been keeping track and in the last year my record for having my tickets checked on the Kings Cross to Cambridge return route is 1 in 12. Yes folks, that's just over 8%! My brother used to commute for a month at a time on a single monthly return. That's one return ticket valid any time in the next 30 days. He'd pretend to be asleep when the conductor came by and that apparently worked. Considerate, but hardly a way to run a railway. But I have only seen one conductor in 6 return journeys! I'm sure that half the people on each train have no ticket - in fact, when I did see a conductor, that seemed to be roughly how many he was hauling up.

So, I don't see why we should be paying more, because the train operators are allowing people to ride for free. It's analogous to the US giving illegal immigrants a Green Card amnesty every few years (though that's slightly less objectionable because at least they're working and performing useful services, and the US immigration and naturalisation services are about as evil as the Nazis, as lazy as the French, and as moneygrabbing as... er... well, just about everyone these days).