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2005-03-23

Anyone who has ever had the unique pleasure of sampling the services of Britain�s National Rail network knows the soothing sound of the posh, upper-crust recorded voice that provides service information in all the train stations. This lady sounds like she�s just come from having cream tea at a polo match to tell you that the one o�clock service to Cheltenham will be departing from platform three. In the madness of missed connections and brawling commuters, the voice of the Announcements Lady is a bastion of sanity and civilisation.

You can imagine my disconcertion upon hearing the unruffled and crisply-enunciated voice tell me yesterday that �We are sorry to announce that the�seventeen thirty-six�service to�Fratton�has been delayed by approximately�six minutes�due to�a fatality�at�Wimbledon. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.� Well, I should say so. To whom was she apologising, I wonder? To me, delayed by an unconscionable SIX MINUTES on my wearisome homeward journey, or to the sad sack who was reduced to a red smear on the rails and then slopped into a bucket in six minutes to make way for the rush hour express? I�m not sure whether it�s more disturbing that a) fatalities are routine enough to warrant a pre-recorded announcement, or that b) wet leaves on the tracks can notoriously hold up a high-speed locomotive for hours on end, but the gruesome demise of a human being causes barely a hiccup in the flow of service. I guess the last is typical of the country that remained stalwart and immovable before the awesome destructive power of the entire German airforce, but crumbles to mere anarchy at the sight of two inches of snow.

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