Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

And isn't it nice that there's still light at 10 pm?

Well, no; not if one has got other things which need to be done, having just spent many hours gardening, and is surprised to find it is so late.

Carrying on with the theme of 10 pm, the news (yes, I know I could have a theme of every single time known to mankind purely by sticking on BBC News 24*, but anyway) just had a story on proposed rail congestion charging. I'm not sure I've ever watched the news before while thinking "News story B is purely an attempt to gain support for newstory A by making A look good in comparison".

Or am I being far too cynical? Surely the occurrence of a lead-item story about rail congestion charging appearing shortly after a lead-item story about road congestion charging is complete coincidence. In fact, I'm sure the rail operators pay scant regard to the communications issued

Strange isn't it, how while the rail operators, for example Virgin or Sorry What Trains, are usually rather prominent in newstories, in this specific story, where apparently a whole bunch of rail operators co-operated [snorting is undignified] in producing this new charging plan, not one company is mentioned by name. I find it very noble how such ruthlessly commercial companies each passed up the opportunity of free publicity by attaching their name to the scheme. One might suggest that this is due to their unwillingness to be associated with something which could be perceived in a negative manner (perhaps having never heard that "all publicity is good publicity (except backing over the Pope - that's not always good)"); yet I ardently believe that the train operators would be highly unlikely to produce anything which might not be thought to be in the public interest.

I am also wondering if perhaps the rail operators so fully embody the spirit of free enterprise (or is that "herald"?) that they sought to save costs by using DoT notepaper.

And tut-tut; the BBC dares to use the name Department of Transport when the government calls it the Department for Transport (because if it's got a pro-active name then it's obviously a pro-active department [and no heckling about Flora Pro-Activ]).

*Obviously not including things like Early Pliocene (which is like a cheaper version of Plasticine), although that tie/woman/news-story... [insert favourite a-boom-boom-tisch here].

Anyhoo,

PS. Anyone wish to guess just how many different ways I found of spelling Plasticine before I found the TMed version?