grumpyf1

#NorthernFail It isn’t hard to imagine a conversation taking place at beleaguered train operator Northern, sometime in the depths of winter, that went something like this: “Passengers want more trains!” “Fine – give them more trains.” “What, really? Won’t we need loads more staff to operate them?” “We can worry about that nearer the go-live date.” “But, surely we’ll need time to employ them, train th....” “Shhsh! Stop worrying. It’s cold in here. Chuck something else on the fire.” “How about this large box of customer complaints?” “Perfect – we’ve got loads of those we need to get rid of!” OK, that’s made up, but there is more than enough anger and frustration amongst let-down passengers that it wouldn’t have surprised many of them if it were a true story. Northern have removed 165 services every day until nearly the end of July, as they struggle to cope with an expanded timetable. Some of these are the Lakes Line, running to and from Preston, Lancaster, Oxenhol...

If you were riled by the Right, laughed at the Left or found the political middle ground too vanilla at the recent General Election (the first one, in case there’s been another one since I wrote this on Wednesday), there were some exciting independent candidates. First up, in the local Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency, the (then) Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron was up against Mr Fish Finger, a man who changed his name by deed poll, and dressed as the orange easy-tea favourite. His fishy-pun-filled “Manifishto” included promises of more fish fingers on hospital menus, no tax on chip shops, and an immigration policy guaranteeing “open waters for fish of any race, creed, colour or gender”. That probably didn’t go down well with UChip. With Farron taking the win by just 777 votes following a recount, Mr Fish Finger’s impressive 309 would have been firmly in the spotlight had the numbers bream slightly different. Image if Tim had lost by a few hundred votes. That would ha...

Christmas Eve, 2015. David Cameron is awoken again from his sleep by a wailing noise, as a third ghostly apparition appears... “Oh for Heaven’s sake? What is it now!” grumbled David, as his final spirit visitation stood in the dark corner of the room, chuckling quietly. He couldn’t quite see the spooky visitor, but it appeared to have blondish hair. “I am the ghost of future times!” cackled the apparition, in a Cumbrian accent. “I’ve seen the film...” David said smugly, “...and it’s ‘the ghost of Christmas Future’”. “No, dearie!” shrieked the spirit. “I am the ghost of July the 15th, 2016. Hahahahaaaaa!!!” David looked around the room, wondering if the security team could make it there in time if he dived for the panic button attached to the back of the picture of Margaret Thatcher on his bedside cabinet. The ghost, now hopping from foot to foot gleefully, continued it’s tormenting. “How do you think the Referendum vote went, Davey? Badly. Boris, that UKIP chap and Gove got...

I was contemplating the lack of comments on any of my North West Evening Mail newspaper columns on their website at lunchtime the other day, and noticed that fellow columnist, Tim Farron (local MP and President of the Liberal Democrats), was similarly afflicted. Commenting on this on twitter elicited a response from the man himself: Considering it was the not insignificant day of local and European elections in the UK, I thought it was jolly decent of him to reply. We had an even more bizarre exchange around Christmas time, which was something to do with Santa using cloaking technology to avoid radar detection. And they say politicians are all aloof and boring...