Travelling - a Bad Idea

Have you been discommoded by the Railway strikes? Strange word, discommoded - does it derive from some one, several centuries ago, being thrown off his commode? Anyway, if you have been delayed, disrupted, annoyed etc by the railway strikes, well, that was the purpose. No point in striking if it doesn't inconvenience anyone. Here's a little piece from mr ishmael's drafts. Michael Portillo imagined in conversation with Andrew Neill.

THOSE TRAIN FARE PRICE RISES. AN EXPERT SPEAKS. 2014

Well, of course, what I would say, Andrew, about these inflation-busting rises in train fares is that this is the only way we can get the investment in directors' bonuses which are so essential to, well, the directors.  But make no mistake, privatising the railways was entirely the right thing to do and that's why we should privatise the health service, the armed forces, the education system, everything, really, even this programme of ours, sorry, Andrew, yours.  But no, as I travel around the country on the railways, making unspeakably banal programmes about their history, I am struck by how much money they pay me for talking absolute rot, as though I was some sort of mutation of Fred Dibnah, goin' to wuk, on't railways, like, in't great days of steam and whaddavya,  although somewhat more fetchingly clad.

And I must say, that many of my Jewish friends are simply amazed at the quality of our rail system.  And many of my American friends are, also.  And you will know that I am half-Spanish, half-Scottish, half-American and  half-English on my mother's side, well, all my Spanish and Scottish friends think we did very well to privatise the railways because they tell me so, every time we have a televised dinner party complete with the fascinating conversation of important people.  And I was in America last week, and I was stopped literally everywhere by just literally everyone and they were all saying Shucks, Mikey, our Union Pacific, our AmTrak, our Acheson, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company,  they ain't nothing; compared to your Virgin. Let's face it,  they used to be, frankly, late and dirty and unreliable,  the trains,  whereas now they are late and dirty and unreliable and overcrowded and that's what I call progress and I for one don't mind the directors of DeathRail or BeardyTrains4U coining it;  I mean what's often forgotten in these debates is that there's no point in rich people getting bonuses unless they're greater than inflation, otherwise they might all just as well  work for a living.

And if you were contemplating air travel as an alternative........

AIR BEGORRAH TO BOMB MANCHESTER AIRPORT

It's fucking sick of them I am, so it is, raged Air Begorrah boss, Michael O'Looney, on skymadeupnewsandfilth. It dosn't matter, so it doesn't, how many passengers I cram into these fucking old crates, they're always putting up the fees, so they are, these eejits running Manchester Airport. 

Now, if there was some way I could charge me passengers extra for landing them as well as for taking them off then that'd be a foine thing, so it would, Begorrah, wouldn't it just, except that there's no frigging way Oi could leave them up there, is there now, I have to land the fuckers.

FARAGE OVER AUSTRALIA

Well, lessbeclear about this, Australia's a great country;  I know it has its own problems with immigrants, lessbefair, there's not a lot you can do with a bunch of people who wander about in the jungle wearing loinclothes, now, is there, do be fair. Aboriginals, I believe I'm correct in saying, that's what they call their immmigrants. No, no, I'm a firm believer in freedom of Worship, each to his own, 'swot I say, if they wanna worship the ground and the rivers and the weather  and the animals and the trees, well, what's not to like, rather like the Green Party, actually, tobefair?  Not a proper religion of course, like, worshipping Money but harmless enough. And they drink rather more than  is good for them, not that there's anything wrong with being pissed as arseholes, quite the contrary, but some of us have the decency to do it in the proper place, like in the 'pub or the teevee studio or the parliament but certainly not walking around in the fucking jungle.  Outback? Well, do come on, now, 'sjust another word for jungle.  I mean it's probably the same sort of terrain they're used to, back in their own countries, which, as any decent person would agree, is where they belong, wiping their arses on banana leaves and worshipping cows, or whatever it is they do.  No, no, lessbeclear. Australia was always a white country and if I was their prime minister I'd  quite frankly, lessbeclear about this, I'd be doing my darnedest to keep it that way. And it's straight-talking policies like those that have got me where I am - the prime minister designate  of England.

Now, as to recent events Down Under, it's obvious to me that if the decent white Aussies had done proper border checks on the Abos, only  let in those who were surgeons or accountants or whatever, then none of this would have happened. I mean, one of them, bold as brass, just went in and took over a coffee bar, didn't he, that's the sort of thing you get when you let foreigners in, the wrong sort of foreigners.