The archive

There is a fairly certain sense to my London wanderings, built around a particular set of trains and a surprisingly uniform pattern of travel. I haven't, in the main, set out to do this consciously - more it's a mixture of necessity, comfort and the repeated urge to walk certain paths.

Once again I found myself in London today, again without a firm plan, though not quite as unexpectedly as last week's jaunt. This habit of dashing to the capital runs counter to my original plan - that I'd not even try to visit the city during the Olympics or Paralympics.

I used to refer to these strange interludes when something went wrong with the plan as "Lost Weekends". They've mercifully been rare over the years - save for the bad patch in 2007 and last year's "Lost Week" which oddly enough coincided with the…

Right now, a very low-key bit of industrial action on the part of a train operator means it's very hard to run charter trains. It has already been a tough summer with rolling stock commandeered for Olympic additionals but in effect sitting idle - bought and paid for of course.