Silence Again

Too tired to cogitate, nothing to rant over, and no inspiration hanging around. I have many thoughts circulating around my head but none suitable for publication - no, none of those missus! For some reason I am so tired all the time, is it age or lack of stimulation? Could it be too much 'Flanders Stew?' Or am I just a slob? Answers on a ten pound note please (used). I have filled some time tonight watching BBC 4, the Freeview channel that I can just receive thanks to the wonders of an indoor Aerial. However, whenever a car drives past the picture wobbles, a bit like my stomach does. This is a shame as tonight there have been several programmes worth watching.

Several programmes have concerned themselves with steam railways, and what could be nicer? Certainly some are old stuff from the nineties, BBC 4 does this, but even so they are far better than the usual line up of soaps and dramas that are no more than soaps. These trailers for such cretinous events appear between the shows here and make me swear at the telly! Routinely such 'dramas' involve a woman, adultery, bad men, a threat or two and an explosion. All the same crap day after day! Meanwhile in the real world I watch a steam railway wandering beautifully through the Devon countryside. Steam rises and flows behind and slightly to the right as she coasts along the coast, a wonderful sight! The sea of the Cornish Riviera greets her, and the hills resound to the whistle as she passes. Indeed there is nothing more romantic than a steam locomotive passing by.

Ah me, I am in love!

Another programme shows a lass wandering along old railways closed by Dr Beeching in the 60's. He was the business man brought in by Ernest Marples to curtail the money being spent on British Railways. Marples had made his money in the motor trade and he was going to support that in place of the rail traffic. While it was clear changes were desperately needed, and nothing had been done since the war, and no railway made money before then, Beeching cut far too much, destroyed jobs, businesses, and much tourism. Very much a Thatcherite before the time. No thought was given to the effect on the society being destroyed, money was the only thought! Buses were supposed to replace the rail service even though it was well known the infrastructure did not exist! It is even worse after the mad Baroness herself took a hand! The lack of a rail service devastated many towns and villages. Now the car rules and the UK has I believe more cars proportionately than any other. But I could be wrong here. The old line fromGalashiels into Edinburgh was lost, the 'Waverley' line, there are plans to reinstate this, forty years on, indicating just how foolish the loss of railways has been.

Anyway, I still want to drive one. Listening to the whistle blow, the clank of goods wagons (the had no brakes and just clanked into one another), the puffing of trains in the distance and the availability of seats! Trains pulling ten or more coaches are replaced now by two or four couches on long distances! No wonder trains are overcrowded. But I digress. These programmes are making my TV licence almost worth the money. I cannot say that every day.

See, I told you I had nothing to say.