Breakfast is by far my favourite meal. There are a number of reasons for this: firstly, it's usually accompanied by copious amounts of coffee. I love coffee. Don't misread this as "Mike likes coffee" - I appreciate it's subtleties and variations, I love the flavour and the ritual of making it, and I drink a ridiculous amount of it. I really like it a lot. Secondly, I'm an early riser - and by the time breakfast comes around, I'm really hungry. So, I don't suffer from the "hmm, I just woke up and I can't face food" thing which many people do. At breakfast time, I'm ready to eat! Finally, and rather simply, breakfast gets all the best foods. While you're probably inserting your own favourite breakfast food here - maybe a glistening link of Cumberland Sausage, a gloriously sticky waffle, a flaky croissant, a crisp edged sliver of back bacon or even a fluffy golden pancake - there's one food that I grew to love and which I feel the need to speak up for - and that is Black Pudding.

I grew up in a Midlands household where three generations of the family were living close together. My great-grandparents had come from farming stock and were certainly not squeamish or sentimental about livestock. My grandparents had survived the hardships of the Second World War too, and didn't believe in wasting food. As a child, I was more than comfortable with the idea that kidneys, pigs feet or chitterlings were being cooked in the kitchen when I arrived home from school. Some of them even smelled pretty good - but I never really tried them. They were 'grown up food' which I imagined I'd discover one day in some greasy-fingered right of passage. Black pudding fell squarely into this category, and stayed there for many years.

Travel broadens the mind in many ways, but for me one of the things it opened up was the joy of breakfast away from home. Perhaps in some lurid, plastic-tableclothed B&B or better yet on a train scudding north - it's hard to beat the travel breakfast. It's here I found myself experimenting with Orange Marmalade for the first time - something we rarely found at home - and it's here too I first tentatively tried black pudding. By turns smoothly unctuous and rather grainy in texture, the rich pork flavours lured me in. It was like the most bacon tasting bacon ever, essence of fried pig. In short, I was hooked. A lot of my travels took me to points north, and I found it easily enough. I remember strolling through Bury Market and seeing a stall entirely devoted to it. It even formed the basis, along with haggis, of one of the best hangover cures I've ever had one fuzzy-headed morning in Anstruther. Suddenly TV chefs were using it too - sliding it under seared scallops as a sort of middle class middle finger to 'poor food'. I could have found some woolly-headed Liberal offence to take here, but I was happy. More black pudding is a good, good thing.

But it's not always that simple. Black pudding has a pretty poor reputation in many quarters - which might be down to that complex class-related issue, or might just be because people don't enjoy the thought of fried pig's blood? Certainly, living as part of a joint UK/US household I've had my own acceptance challenged of what we delicately call 'offal', but what across the pond is known plainly and anti-euphemistically as 'organ meat'. But my position remains that if people taste the stuff, they'll at least decide on rational grounds - and sure enough, this household now has TWO pudding eaters! However, this ambivalence to the stuff causes some very strange things to happen. Firstly, its sudden vogue means it can be found on the menu everywhere - but the generally lack of enthusiasm means it's equally often the first thing to become unavailable. I'll often find my lips smacking at the thought of a slice of glistening, dark savoury pudding only to be told the chef is out of it. Or more strangely still, it appears to be listed as a standard breakfast item but simply doesn't appear. Is the assumption that it's OK to leave the pudding off because people don't like it? Or is it something more sinister? I've noted this and pointed it out as we travel around the country - and I think at first it sounded like I was being over-dramatic or pudding-paranoid, but after yet another non-appearance today I think my conspiracy theory is gaining more general acceptance here. Today's excuse? They are changing the menu but hadn't updated the card yet. But of course because it was 'only the black pudding' it didn't matter at all.

I realise that this is an awfully long tirade about something very, very unimportant. The very definition of the first world problem perhaps. But there is something slightly serious hiding here. The whole North/South divide thing hasn't gone away at all - it lurks in these strange culinary, linguistic and class prejudices which are riven through British life. But please, breakfast chefs of Britain, don't deprive me of this wondrous food on the basis of an amateur semiotic analysis. It tastes good, it's traditionally British and it's pretty darn cheap.

Give me back my Black Pudding!

It's been a long-standing tradition here to escape between Christmas and New Year. There's something about getting back out into the world after a period of staying indoors, eating and drinking which is both refreshing and cathartic. We'd thought about various trips, but as it had been a pretty hectic run up to Christmas, and with the changes around jobs and finances here it wasn't really clear if we'd manage to get away as we'd hoped. Eventually, things resolved themselves and I found a reasonably priced night at a hotel in Plymouth which I'd stayed at once for a First Great Western Customer Panel meeting. It's quite a while since I'd been to Plymouth - aside, that is from passing through on route to Cornwall or very occasionally changing trains here on jaunts around the South West. Since my last visit I'd read a lot more about the Abercrombie planned City Centre and I was keen to visit again. Also, with a tourist's eye I realised that I'd never quite made it to Plymouth Hoe or The Barbican. So, we set off around mid-day on a series of surprisingly quiet trains and in remarkably good weather. A swift change at Taunton, then a dash along the sea wall at Dawlish before cresting the South Devon Banks. It was very good to be back on the rails again.

We arrived and headed straight for the hotel to check-in and deposit our bags. At the head of the long boulevard of Armada Way, our hotel was a strange, concrete-clad example of the strangely dated architecture of the new city centre here. I'd recalled it as a drab, grey corner of the city - but once inside it was warm and clean, if a little dated. Armada Way too was looking a little better - a mixture of some very smart landscaping and some very effective Christmas decorations actually had it looking very bright and welcoming, so we headed out into the city as dusk fell. The long stretches of modernist blocks seemed softened by the silver-grey evening light and it was difficult not to feel comfortable here. Something of a contrast to previous visits. We pressed on through the impromptu fairground, still whirling and blasting ill-advised pop hits, and into the Civic Zone. The towering and ill-fitting Civic Centre, topped by a breathtaking roof sat across from the almost caricatured period-piece law courts and granite-blasted Guildhall. It is an uneasy mix - and not how the plan was meant to turn out of course, but it remains an interesting footnote in British architectural history - and despite being seen often as "how not to do things" all three buildings remain in use today.

We turned aside into the backstreets between the City Centre and the Hoe and soon stumbled across the Merchant's House. An entirely different proposition which signifies the 'problem with Plymouth'. This house is first recorded as being extant in 1601, and it still sits top-heavy and ramshackle just feet from a 1950s Methodist church, hard against a modern building. While Plymouth has many such historic buildings, they're mostly crammed into the tumbling, narrow rookery of the Barbican. This strip of no-man's-land where modern and ancient meet feels difficult and unresolved. Local Authority housing blocks front the Hoe, and a crumbling row of shops face them. It's a stand-off. Happily, we found our way through and into the Barbican. Beside the Custom House in a little pub we regrouped with good food and local ale. In this cosy haunt, alongside the water, we knew we'd come to the right place. As if to cement this, as we left content and warm, we skirted the wharf and came across the Mayflower Steps. It's a remarkable spot for anyone - to contemplate the voyage which began from here, what drove it and what came of it is to contemplate the beginning of modern history in many ways. For us though, it's considerably more significant. Here the Westcountry looks West, and it echoes our own story.

After a leisurely dinner and a comfortable night, we set out to explore further. This time we crossed onto the Hoe, ascending to view the vast War Memorial which faces down the city defiantly, aligned on the long axis of Armada Way and elevated. Beyond this, the relocated Eddystone Lighthouse is a reminder of the naval pedigree of the city. As we crested the rise here, the vast sweep of the natural harbour at the mouth of the Tamar was evident. A silvery sky reflected on the water, the near-distance shrouded in rainclouds. It was an atmospheric and stirring view which somehow made complete sense of the city and it's curious alignment. We lingered for awhile before moving off towards the Royal Citadel, skirting it's forbidding stone walls along the waterfront to find our way back to The Barbican.

We set off home in the dark, a cosy train ride north to close our year. The train was quiet and warm, and I reflected on our travels. We hadn't managed to cover nearly the ground we'd hoped this year - but it looked like we could perhaps redress that a little now. As it was though, this trip was a good indication of how things should be - with places seen afresh and explored anew. It was a fitting way to end a tough but rewarding year, and a statement of intent for the next one.

I've written little in recent months, but one recurring theme has been the experience of seeing places through new eyes. It's become a defining characteristic of the second half of the year, and it's perhaps no longer surprising to me to find myself challenged or intrigued by places I thought I knew. But the last week or so has been a little different - experiencing London, and specifically some segments of it I really don't know well at all, completely afresh. Exploring in tandem with someone who has never experienced the maelstrom of the city before, and who has probably been exposed to - and equally cynically rejected - most of the storybook pre-conceptions that I arrived with all those years back. This was a strangely fitting way to end the year.

The first new horizon broached was Camberwell. Until now for me, a conspicuous gap in the atlas. It has no railway station anymore - despite once being a desirable village suburb on the southern fringe of the city. In the intense, hot whirl of the summer the BBC ran an episode of "The Secret History of Our Streets" which covered the rise and fall of the area, and the durability of some pockets of leafy perfection. At the time this seemed like an interesting but anodyne programme - why did I care about this southern suburb which wasn't even worth a stop on the train? But arriving at the junction of Camberwell Church Street and Denmark Hill, we found the intensely busy hub which is repeated all over London. The locus of thousands of lives - which really is their London, and bears little relation to the gilded gates and ancient towers north of the river. Buses edged around the traffic, the Sophocles Bakery leaked enticing fumes, the pubs belched merry punters onto the after-work streetcorners. In the midst of this, the Church Street Hotel. A strangely latin influenced hipster boutique. A strong vein of Catholic iconography, lots of bold colour and crazy tiling. A beautifully detained interior behind a suitably anonymous, toned-down grey frontage. This was our home for a couple of nights - and a base to make some early forays into the city. First impressions are of course important - but where places are concerned they are malleable. Few cities more so than London, which throws surprises in at each turn of a corner. Starting as we meant to continue, the first night was a whirl of activity. A bus to Waterloo, and dinner under a railway arch. A walk along the river, Parliament lit yellow and looking deceptively benign across the water. Then another bus along The Strand and through the City. St. Pauls gleaming above the Thames, the Bank, the towers of Bishopsgate. Then south over London Bridge and through The Borough to return to Camberwell. It was dizzying - perhaps over-ambitious for a first trip into London. But it was an arc through the layers of history which is something I've always tried to convey in words and likely failed. Tired and bewildered, Camberwell felt strangely homely on our return. The little knot of streets still busy with traffic and pedestrians, little open now except the supermarkets and convenience stores. We stop into a pub, where there is surprisingly good music being played and a pleasant babble of conversation. Despite the incredibly cosmopolitan nature of the district, the clientele is surprisingly uniform.

Regular readers will know that the West End is a closed book to me, as is much of Westminster and the more traditionally tourist side of London. This isn't wilful obscurantism - I'm really not fond of crowds, and my first visit to London during a cold December many years ago included being swept along Oxford Street in horribly dense eddys of humanity. I've avoided the place since - I've rarely the urge or the means to shop, and there has always been something more interesting elsewhere. Aside from the area immediately surrounding Victoria station, the environs of Buckingham Palace are equally obscure to me - but it was here that we ended up. After a superb and lazily drawn-out breakfast at a tiny cafe near Victoria, we skirted the back wall of the Palace - the drab, spike-topped cordon which would appear entirely un-royal if not for the frequent plaques warning of its special legal status, posted in suitably discreet white on grey and in a less-than-officious font of course. This approach has the advantage of concealing the grandeur until the very last second, the great facade suddenly appearing to our left, St. James' Park and the public space around the Victoria Memorial opening before us. As ever, a crowd of tourists milled and photographed. We did the same, and I confess I enjoyed it. It might have been the company of course - and certainly the novelty - but seeing this at the end of a year when royalty has been ever-present was odd and surprising. It hasn't felt particularly real to most of us I'm sure, and the dreadful TV coverage of the Jubilee did nothing but distance the Royals from the viewing population. But here, in the middle of the whirl of the city is the iconic balcony - smaller and lower, strangely close to the people milling about. Guards march back and forth, cameras flicker for the shot. We walk along Constitution Hill - our original plans changed by jetlag and time constraints. Another bus ride later I'm in more familiar territory around Marylebone, a stroll up Baker Street marvelling at the line for the Sherlock Holmes museum even at this late stage of the tourist day. Sick, dizzy and tired - it was time to head home.

But this wasn't the end of the London experience... Travelling on the last day of the year, we returned to more familiar ground for me, descending on Bishopsgate in the early evening. If the first part of the visit had been a confusing, sometimes disconcerting whirl - I wanted this at least to reflect a little of the London which I experienced. A city where one can step back from the tumult and see the accretions of time. We wasted little time into getting out into the evening - the city was shifting into party mode, the stores closing early and the crowds beginning to appear on the street. New year in London is an event, a public spectacle of fireworks and drunkenness. We skirted this and turned east, heading for The English Restaurant in Brushfield Street. Oysters and robust, excellent fare in the dark, wood-panelled dining room was a fitting way to spend the evening. It was possibly the best meal I've ever eaten, and it was distinctly of the city. The dark but warm interior of the building discharging atmosphere, the solid Englishness of the dishes completely in context with the surroundings. In true London style, we were served by a range of non-natives - Australian barmen (naturally) and a genuinely pleasant northern waitress who was enthusiastic about the food. We wandered in the chaos of the late evening happily fed and watered. This was a new experience for me - this part of the city is about desperate, high-speed runs, about snatched moments in busy days. So to be here with accommodation on the brink of the east was a luxury. We plunged into Spitalfields, navigating around the glowering hulk of Christ Church and sliding into the darkness of Fournier Street. This part of the city seems so familiar, but it's new to see it in the dark of a winter evening. The buildings glow with an inner warmth. Generations of ghosts cluster at the windows, clamouring for a look at the gaudy, neon swirl of Brick Lane. We emerge into the maelstrom. The curry houses are doing fine trade - but still the patrons send their staff out to press-gang more trade from the streets. The New Year has been adopted by the locals here, and Indian girls totter by on impossible heels while another of their number tries to loudly encourage a drunken colleague back onto her feet. She hasn't quite made it to the new year - slumped against an old brick wall which has propped up the dissipated for many, many years. We turn a corner and regard a significant spot - the sundial on the Jamme Masjid. It's odd to be here now, tonight - completing a circuit begun years ago when I first took the picture of this curious device and it's sonorous motto. Then continued when I sent the picture flying across the world last summer - a significance which only now begins to reveal its magnitude. We stand a while, and yes - it's an emotional moment - one which closes the dizzy, unbelievable swirl of 2012 in an appropriately reflective tone.

We want to get back in time for the bells and fireworks, and take a crazy dash through the detritus of Petticoat Lane market and the commercial edgelands which divide the City from the East End here. It's been a whirl of new experiences these past few days - endless dashes from train to bus and back, time spent renewing my acquaintance with the city through entirely new eyes. I appreciate again what an enormous, unmanageable churn the city is. I remember how early on I learned to break it into chunks - the villages of London, so well illustrated by our entry point at Camberwell. Real life, of course, is always different - but to be reminded that this is practically on my doorstep is never a bad thing.

I've resisted posting about the events of last Saturday so far. Partly, because I felt incompletely informed and didn't want to add to the spiralling conspiracy theories already being spun by some of the usual suspects. Also because I'm still rather angry about how things happened, I felt I'd probably end up sounding like a petulant little chap who'd had his Saturday ruined. In essence, there are several hundreds of us who all feel the same and one more bleat will be insignificant. For the record though, here is how the day developed from my perspective...

Woke early, still feeling crappy and wondered about the wisdom of doing this trip with a nasty dose of some virus which has been doing the rounds. The thought of a few hours in Glasgow soon got me moving and down to Redditch station for the 06:27 to New Street. Arrived in good time to get coffee, suppress a violent coughing attack and locate the platform with the help of customer services, since once again the charter had not made the screens here. After finishing my coffee, noted that platform 7 was looking rather empty so wandered back up to the concourse to find much confusion and many groups of gibbering enthusiasts providing entertainment for the locals. Noted the tour now on the screen and 'delayed'. Ominous, but not disastrous by any means, and a driver working to a tight schedule means a spirited run! Since talking hurt, listened in to some of the circulating gen - the stock remained at Oxley due to faults, but it was unclear whether the loco was a failure. Suddenly the cry went up "To Wolverhampton!". After checking that my medications hadn't plunged me into some delirious black country version of Braveheart, got myself together. Tried for the 07:57 to Shrewsbury which appeared to be full of frothing bashers, but my tired legs didn't make it - and since Virgin had announced that the 08:03 would connect I wasn't too concerned. So, unexpectedly continued my journey on 390024 and soon found myself on the chilly platforms at Wolverhampton only really a few minutes after the train's booked time here, which was 08:12. All seemed optimistic again. I didn't bother to get a drink - since I'd soon be on the train.

Two hours later, platform one was a sea of discontented folk milling about. The tour was on the screen, still delayed, and bits of gen were circulating - the main one being that the train was not yet cancelled. There was some problem with the stock, which was being sorted. I was convinced people would work on getting this train out - being a finale and all - and whilst the wait was inconvenient and rather painful, it would all be worth it eventually. Found myself near a group of people I took to be Spitfire employees, who remained buoyant - so why shouldn't I? Soon after, a little more positive news via one of the few announcements made regarding the train - 87022 would lead the stock south from Oxley on a test run, looping back around to Birmingham. We watched the rake pass - the loco gleaming, radiating quiet power as it purred by. The DRS stock equally resplendent behind, before giving way to some rancid purple stuff on the back. Not long now, we all thought - much encouraged to have seen the train move. Only at this point did I remember not seeing any labels on the carriages, which I took to be odd. This haunted me a bit, as we settled in to wait for the train to return, but perhaps that would be put right on the test run?

At almost departure +3 hours, people began to get restless again. The gen was that the tour was around the corner at Crane Street, that it would run, and that all being well we'd still head for Glasgow despite a much reduced stopover. It meant my symbolic wander to the Molendinar Burn would have to wait - but I wasn't really in any condition for it. By now I was aching and cold, and my nagging cough assured me of plenty of space on the otherwise packed platforms. We were going to see the 87s off in style, that's what counted. The Spitfire people seemed almost jolly, and we were all rewarded with the sound of a horn and the sight of 87022 creeping forwards into the platform. At last.

The events of the next sixty seconds remain less than clear to me now, so I apologise if I overdo the journalistic tone here. With the stock heading towards me in reverse formation, I started walking back to where First Class would end up. There were still no labels, and I didn't want a scrap for a seat or a struggle through a seething rake of Standard Class coaches doing the same. As I walked, the Customer Information System comfortingly showed the tour, it's original departure time and proudly announced the 'Farewell Electric Scot'. Relieved it was all going to happen, even if it was a little later than expected. Now out from under the canopy I saw a DRS steward in impeccable uniform leaning from the droplight of a beautifully turned out dining coach. He was shaking his head in disbelief, and waving his hands at a small group of punters. "I'm sorry" he was saying "we've been on this train getting ready since 05:30. I just don't understand". Much confusion - word was people were getting on at the front but being asked to leave. The announcer stated that the fault hadn't been rectified and that the train was not ready for boarding yet. The steward, clearly devastated insisted it was all over and how disappointed he was. Suddenly, the Spitfire people were gone - likely swamped by enquirers.

And then the announcer gave the news the train was cancelled and would return to Oxley. As the stock passed slowly out of the platform, I realised I'd not even got a picture of 87022. In one of the First Class coaches, someone sat with his head in his hands, being comforted by a colleague. As the taillight passed me, I thought I better try to find out what was happening. Platform 1 was in chaos - no tour staff, few Virgin staff and a lot of confusion about what to do or where to go. I asked a Virgin staff member about getting back to Birmingham, and he stated that unless I had a valid National Rail ticket I should now leave the station. I showed my tour ticket and he said "No good, sorry". I decided to get the tram back to Birmingham Snow Hill because arguing didn't seem like a good idea just now. I've heard that others had much more sympathetic responses from Virgin though, so perhaps I was just unlucky - or my gravelly voice and unkempt appearance worked against me!

So today, a whole host of non-OTMR fitted locomotives become stored. Some, like the 87s will go on to have useful lives elsewhere, others will of course be scrapped or move into preservation. A great deal has been written about this tour since Saturday - some of it useful insights into the stock faults which appear to have been the main reason for the failure, some of it less helpful frothing about 'the old days'. Overall though, there are a lot of unhappy people out there who feel cheated of a chance to say goodbye to a bit of railway history. We railtour passengers take the reschedulings, re-routings and changes of motive power in our stride, sometimes voting with our feet - but mostly just complaining a bit and getting on with it. I'm sure if this hadn't been such a final opportunity it would have been the same for this tour - but it can't happen again. Spitfire's conduct after the event has been exemplary. Lots of info, promised refunds, much concern and understanding - and people appear to have genuinely accepted that they hate how this has ended more than anyone. It's a shame that on the day they weren't a little more communicative, but that's not entirely down to them - and getting station staff to give explanations is never easy of course.

So that was how things were for me. Bitterly disappointing, and a rather sad end to a sparse year of travels. I won't have nearly the opportunities to get out I have in the past this coming year - and I just hope that I do get the opportunity to travel with Spitfire again sometime.