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.

Regardless of how it might sometimes look, I'm not a public transport advocate. I really don’t worry too much about how other people get around, aside of course from wanting people generally to think about the effect they're having on the rest of the planet wherever they can. It’s true I love rail travel and railways, but that’s more of a passion and an interest than any serious political pursuit. It’s also true that I'll get involved in campaigns about things happening to transport locally, but that’s not really borne of a political agenda – more just a wish to ensure those of us who need transport, still have it to use. My relationship with public transport is far simpler than most people think in fact – I use it because I need it. But having done a stint on the fringes of the transport industry, I can sometimes see inside in ways perhaps others can’t, or where they just can’t be bothered to navigate the arcane syntax and traditions. I can sometimes see how the convoluted, contrary workings of the system misalign and cause unintended problems – most often for us, the users. Because I can generally see how the system has unintentionally conspired rather than been deliberately sabotaged, I'm usually a fairly good natured correspondent with the transport companies. I want people to see the problems I do, acknowledge them and fix them. I rarely want blame or redress. A working transport system is worth much, much more to me than a refund or a half-hearted apology after all.

So, this story begins in October. My wife had just landed an interesting job with huge potential for future developments. The only drawback was that it was on the Blackbrook Business Park in Taunton. It’s easy to get to Taunton from here. A short walk to the station, less than half an hour on the train, and aside from a walk or a quick bus into the centre, you’re pretty much there. Blackbrook is another matter. Situated near the M5 motorway on the eastern outskirts of the town, there is little else there. A strip of office buildings on a road which peters out in fields, where the recession is marked by the physical edge where development stopped in 2007. That said, there are a lot of people working out here now. Blackbrook is served by a fair number of bus routes, but the most frequent is the Park and Ride service which crosses Taunton and calls at the end of Blackbrook Park Avenue. We researched the travel options carefully. I do that sort of thing. Past experience and personal geekiness means that I have a pretty thorough grasp of rail ticketing. Bus ticketing though is a mess of local variations and schemes, and we wanted to be sure we were getting the best deal. The winner was PlusBus - the national scheme that bolts unlimited bus travel on to rail tickets in selected towns and cities. It can be added to a Season Ticket so in essence you need only one ticket to make your entire journey – even to an outpost like Blackbrook. For Londoners or other city-dwellers this might sound odd – they generally have a well-integrated ticketing product (such as Oyster or Orca) that makes all this possible – but out here in the provinces, this is a much more unusual prospect. Experience led me to be a little suspicious that PlusBus might not be accepted on the Park and Ride service – these services are often arranged or contracted via different means. But all seemed fine – no exclusions listed on the national PlusBus site, no mention of it on the Somerset County Council leaflet about the Park and Ride, and on the local First Group website the Park and Ride was treated as just another service. We’d found our solution – but even then I checked with First's customer service team. They agreed it was fine. All went well for the first day, but on day two my wife got the almost inevitable "you can’t use that on here" talk from the driver. I’d prepared her for this. Drivers get used to seeing the same tickets day after day, and are very risk-averse when it comes to accepting things they've not seen before. Ticket fraud is a real problem – and drivers have correctly been trained that the little bits of fraudulent travel here and there add up to more than the big fraudster. So they checked. She persisted and got to work. The next evening however, the driver had consulted with his manager who told him that they didn't accept the ticket. A ridiculous scene ensued where he was prepared to leave a female passenger stranded at a fairly remote, dark location which all but shuts down after 5:30pm. Naturally, we complained. Bitterly – at first to First Group. Their email service didn't even provide acknowledgement or the ever-necessary complaint reference number so I turned to Facebook and Twitter. I was persistent and irritating, continually pointing out how long things had drifted since the issue arose, and how much additional cost we'd racked up. They lost the complaint, asked me to send it again, wanted more details – endless delaying tactics. They always promised a response but none came. Eventually, one of the local Operations Managers messaged me. He had seen the situation developing and wanted to resolve it. Initially I think he was worried that customer services were getting the heat for someone else's problem. It was he said, a feature of the contract with Somerset County Council that they couldn't accept any concessions or special tickets. I pointed out that there were no exclusions listed and he agreed to check for us. I was impressed with this persistence – he really did seem to want to run a decent, integrated service which made sense to passengers. But, a few days later the response from the Council was that they did not want to accept PlusBus on the Park and Ride. He said he would try to get us a refund on the PlusBus part of the ticket as we’d been sold it under false pretences but that was the end of it.

But I was determined it wasn't. Firstly, PlusBus is clear – participating operators have to expressly explain any exceptions, and there were none listed. The Council's information was specific about OAP and Disabled Concessionary Passes not being accepted on the service, but nothing else. I figured that at very least I could get the information situation improved perhaps? I started with an email to Somerset County Council. Again, no response at all. So, I did the thing all disgruntled busybodies everywhere turn to in the end. A Freedom of Information request. I was very, very specific in my questions – a little experience in the Local Authority transport world has taught me that vagueness is the currency and obscurity is the ever-present excuse where FOIs are concerned. I asked a mix of general questions which drilled down to specifics, and I asked about the Council's commitment to sustainability and integration. At least if I couldn't immediately change the situation, I could make their policy look illogical. Most specifically, knowing this was a contracted service, I queried the ticket acceptance arrangements in the contract. You can see the FOI request here. The answer took a long time. They missed the statutory deadline and I was geared up to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner just for the hell of being annoying and persistent when a response rather unexpectedly arrived late on a December afternoon. It was a disarmingly simple response to the main question: the contract didn’t exclude any specific ticket types at all. I decided to make it personal and picked up the 'phone. After a long slog through the automation of the Council's new "improved" switchboard I was finally put through to the Assistant Director responsible for Public Transport. I explained the situation and he agreed they didn’t accept PlusBus tickets, but he'd gladly check on the FOI response for me. I was on hold for a long time. It was after 5pm. I thought I'd been left to hang up and likely not get through again that day... but then he returned. And for the first time in all this ridiculous saga he said “sorry.”

He had checked the contract and I’d been given the correct information in the FOI response. They hadn't ever excluded PlusBus at all. In fact, the Council had novated this contract in an emergency from an earlier one with a poorly performing Operator who didn't participate in the PlusBus scheme at all. Naturally, there had been no consideration of ticketing issues in the urgency of the switch over. Subsequently the contract had been won in competition by First under the same specification. It wasn't a deliberate exclusion – or even an accidental one – it was just a complete failure to have any regard to it. He conceded that they would in fact have to instruct First to accept the ticket. He was kind enough to send an apologetic email confirming this. I printed it and gave my wife a copy to take with her on her travels. Of course he stressed that ticketing is reviewed regularly, with the next such update in January and it "may not stay the same". I read this as Local Authority code for "fine, you caught us, so we'll make it official and stop accepting it." That change will have to be subject to a public consultation however, and I think it would look pretty poor to start refusing a ticket which is rarely used anyway, and which adds to the integration of the network in Taunton. Time will, of course, tell.

Since then, things haven’t been without incident. The message hasn't spread fast through the depot and drivers who have been on leave have continued to question the ticket. The email I supplied has been flashed, scrutinised and questioned on several occasions. One particular driver who had caught the beginning of this saga then been off work for a while tried to pick up where he left off with an aggressive and belligerent morning rant. It was swiftly addressed by our friendly local manager of course – but it shouldn't have happened. In fact, none of this should have happened. Public transport, if it is to be successful at all, needs to be easy to access. That’s not just about low floors and wheelchair spaces – it’s about simple, clear ticketing which makes it easy to know what to buy and when. It's about being able to complete whole journeys with one ticketing product, and it's about linking rail to bus and onwards to good walking environments. Of course, some ardent drivers will ask why they should care about any of this – well, I've some sympathy in the reverse of course, but an affordable, accessible and joined-up transport system will ease the flow and improve safety for everyone.

That's a huge claim for a little victory on ticket acceptance I know, but it's a start.

Aside from a brief walk across the eastern fringe, it's been a while since I wandered in the City. Thinking back, once I'd overcome my earliest misconceptions about London, my first great interest was this odd city-within-a-city, with its unusual traditions, archaic governance and strong sense of tradition. It always seemed particularly odd that this layer of the exposed medieval City existed as a backdrop to the intrigue and misdeeds of ultramodern high finance. The strange stories of Livery Companies, giants and royal subservience found homes in those few buildings which survived the great fire, and the evidence which that - and successive more planned conflagrations - has revealed. So, we'd hastily planned our first trip here in some time to be based around the 'square mile'. Yesterday we'd arrived and made a slow bus journey east through the Black Friday crowds. The unwelcome tradition imported from the US was filling Oxford Street with teeming crowds. Finally we alighted at Blackfriars and navigated a clutch of tight little streets skirting the still-noticeable dip of the Fleet Valley to find our hotel for the night. It was good to be back within the city walls.

Our excursion last evening had taken us along the embankment, west towards Parliament. Rising from the underground at Westminster, we skirted the House at dusk. Lights were beginning to twinkle across the river, the bulging oddity of St.George's Wharf now evident on the skyline. We moved along Millbank, passing the weirdly tired looking Millbank Tower which still symbolises the Blair-era machinery of Spin, with its Rapid Rebuttal Unit. Suddenly, the vista opened out and the startling white hulk of Tate Britain appeared. Nestled between the modern extensions and neighbouring buildings, the gleaming building both figuratively and financially appeared to be made of sugar. Still impressive if looking strangely overdone in this setting, the building continues to play a vital part in the artistic life of the capital. Ascending the steps we found the cafe and waited our turn at the Turner exhibition. Deep inside the building, the halls stretched out into blank eternity, the ethereal canvases swimming into view. It was mildly dizzying at times, the blasts of light and tumbles of salt water leaping from the paintings. In a corner was "Rain Steam and Speed" - our first encounter in the flesh, so to speak. As oddly moving as ever it looked on a page, the turbulence of speed, the rush of landscape and memory, and the indistinct and temporary nature of the train crossing a viaduct all seemed less real and more otherworldy in person. It's hard to imagine how this would have struck an early Victorian, experiencing high speed travel for the first time. We left utterly impressed, and on the way out spotted what appeared to be comedic genius Chris Morris collecting his bags as the gallery closed for the evening. We were late leavers too, hailing a cab back to busy Blackfriars along the stop-start tumble of vehicles heading east along the Thames.

Today was planned at least to be a little less hectic. Setting out moderately early we headed to Bishopsgate by bus, breakfasting in a favourite spot from a while back, but alas finding no black pudding on offer. A leisurely start - followed by a much-earned walk through the City streets. Once we left the gravity of Liverpool Street, it fell immediately quiet. Workmen's hammers could be individually heard in the side-streets, the City as ever a continual churn of renewal and remaking. Streets closed for Crossrail were making our progress crazy and complicated. We zigzagged through Courts and Alleys, delighting in the fact they'd been there for centuries, before entering the Guildhall courtyard. The pale stone building gleamed across the amphitheatre, its modern extensions seeming to fall away from the main event. There was no getting inside today - but a moment in this quiet yard was enough, sandwiched between Guildhall and austere St.Lawrence Jewry with his sinister grid-iron weathercock. This was the centre of the city - and had been for many hundreds of years. It was hard to move on from this spot, but eventually we broke off west along the line of the ancient City Wall. At Wood Street, that edifice surfaces - beneath the victorian bricks, Roman stones mark the outline of a tower and the run of the wall along Aldersgate. We followed, ascending concrete stairs into the Barbican complex and the Museum of London. An overpriced coffee from the new concession, then down to the Sherlock Holmes exhibition. Entering through a bookcase, we were plunged into a gloomy corridor. Flickering excerpts from the Consulting Detective's manifold screen outings played on the walls, drawing us in. The exhibition managed to provide something for every kind of Holmes aficionado... For the literary purists there were manuscript pages and artefacts from Conan Doyle's life - his remarkably tidy handwritten notes set alongside the printed versions, indicating that he barely needed to alter a word! For fans of the filmed appearances there were endless clips and props, not least the overcoat worn by Benedict Cumberbatch in the detective's current masterful outing. Finally, for the topographer there was a wealth of material. Several adventures had been mapped across London, with time-lapse filmed runs through Holmes and Watson's routes through the modern-day city. There were also endless paintings and early photographs of the City as it would have appeared to Conan Doyle while he was writing about Holmes. Of particular note were the remarkable prints by Alvin Langdon Coburn - mysterious, only slightly focused cityscapes with brooding mists. His subjects were often not those which merited most attention either - canal scenes, wet pavements in Leicester Square, unusual views along Fleet Street. I was captivated.

We spent far longer than I'd imagined in the exhibit, and after a brief refreshment stop, decided to look around the Modern London galleries. It was very special to revisit this old haunt in company, and good to see the Lord Mayor's Coach again, shining in the last sun of the day leaking lazily into the museum. We headed out on foot, enjoying the Barbican skyline in the wintery glow before heading south towards St. Paul's Cathedral. It's a great omission, and a source of some embarrassment that I've never set foot in this place despite many hundreds of passings by. Today wasn't to be the exception, as a service had curtailed sightseeing for the day - but we resolved to return. We edged around to the southern face of the building to regard the phoenix carved above the doors with it's 'RESVRGAM' motto. It was time to head back west, on a bus headed through the main shopping areas which was unexpectedly and thankfully diverted around the bulk of the traffic, delivering us early enough to relax and reflect on our trip over a drink at another favourite spot. This had been a hastily planned, purposeful visit which had at last returned me to the very city streets where my true obsession with London had begun. I think it may have won the City a new devotee too.

Nowadays, there really aren't too many mysteries left in the media. When every DVD comes with an extra 'making of...' documentary, and reality TV exposes the inner workings of the industry - albeit mediated through a sheen of entertainment - everyone is an armchair expert on how things are done. But one show, more than any other perhaps, has always fascinated me. The BBC's "Question Time" has had an unbroken run since 1979, and despite the flagship BBC1 channel broadcasting little in the way of political commentary nowadays, manages to cling to a prime late-evening spot each week, pulling in just under three million viewers as a result. The format, where the audience questions a panel of politicians and gets to respond directly - and often vociferously - to their answers never gets tired, and the way that the show moves around the country ensures at least a little local colour and diminishes the sense of London calling the shots - just for a while at least. After years of yelling at the TV, I was persuaded a couple of weeks back to submit an application to be in the audience. I'd never have done this on my own - and perhaps this reveals another huge advantage of being married - I have someone who will always test my boundaries and push me, gently and supportively of course, forward. So I found myself waiting with a coffee on a pleasant Taunton evening, watching the bustle of the town closing up for the night and pondering, perhaps a little nervously, the journey behind the screen which was about to begin...

I couldn't resist reading up a little on the show before we headed for Taunton tonight. There were, unsurprisingly, a number of blogs about the experience of being on the show. They broadly followed the same arc - and comfortingly all echoed our experience of being picked to be in the audience. Everyone who has seen the show has, at some point, wondered about this - especially if there appears to be a particularly weighted audience sometimes. But they are extremely careful to avoid accusations of bias and ensure a fair balance. This involved a call earlier in the week from the Producer who wanted a question on the spot, along with details of our work, voting intentions and political allegiances. One selected we were issued with an email to bring along with photographic ID. They are very careful that only the people who have applied and been selected show up - and an incursion of Badger Cull protestors on the site meant even more stringent measures tonight too! Once security checked we were ushered into a sports hall with large TVs showing the day's news and drinks on hand. Here we were asked to write out a second question, as topical as possible. A sheet of A4 also provided the credentials of the panelists tonight. Seeing Baroness Kramer on the list, I couldn't resist a question about railway franchising, but doubted it would get chosen as there were far more pressing events just now. As we chatted to neighbouring tables about questions a hush descended and suddenly I looked up to see David Dimbleby beside me. A little shorter than I expected, remarkably dapper and much jollier than his on screen persona, he talked us through the way the show worked. More than anything he stressed that this was our show - and our reactions and responses would be what made it happen and drove it forward. He was keen to ensure that we felt able to contribute and didn't let the politicians off the hook. Afterwards he also took a few questions from the audience, and managed to spin a few humours anecdotes from his twenty-year tenure on the show.

Finally we were led - in small groups due to the badger people still being on site - over to the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre. A fantastic new building which seems to have incredible facilities on hand, perfect for the show too with steeply raked seating and a generous stage area. Immediately I was struck by the set - that familiar backdrop and sweep of desks with the host town name curving around the front. Close up, it is much more clearly a kit of parts, TAUNTON spelled out letraset style and carefully placed on the stage front. The whole thing is reassuringly low tech - and as a bunch of audience members took the panel's seats for a practice debate, led by the dry witted and sharp Stage Manager, Stan, the camera men ducked and weaved to get the sweeping shots we see at the start of the show, their helped scurrying behind unravelling cable. The practice debate was surprisingly good fun, but seemed to go on for a while before things were ready. During this, all of the writers of the questions which the production team had selected were called forward and given a card with the question printed on it. They were also located in the audience for the sake of the camera crew, and returned to their seats looking not a little nervous! Rather suddenly, with Dimbleby back on stage and the panel queued along the stairs, we were ready! The recording is, rather amazingly, done in a single 59 minute long take. This perhaps explains the immediacy and the edge the show manages to maintain, and it also attests to the skills of the chairman! The first question is asked off camera to get everyone warmed up, and we were encouraged to get involved early. Then, once the link to BBC Glasgow - where the show is now based - was established, we were off. Dimbleby uttered his familar welcome, the camera men did their swoop around the set, and the theme music played. Straight into the first question about today's report on harsh penalties for drug possession, and already Owen Patterson is on the ropes. He admits he hasn't read the report at all and Dimbleby gently plays him on this. Suddenly I see a hand up next to me, and I realise my wife is about to speak. Dimbleby winks and nods that he's seen her. Time slows down. I'm suddenly aware of three million people out there later tonight. Patterson dodges her point about personal choice and relative harm, but not until he's fixed a steely glare on her for a moment for daring to question his Conservative principles. He dismisses it with a glib point about "dangerous drugs" but Dimbleby pushes it home "What about alcohol she said?" Patterson squirms into a point about it being OK for well-off middle class people to take drugs because they have the resources to deal with the issues. It sounds bizarre as delivered - and I think he meant to speak about the disproportionate burden on disadvantaged communities, but this opens up a frankly odd debate on things. It's left to two unlikely champions to bring things back on track - Caroline Lucas of the Green Party who talks eminent sense on policy, and author Anthony Horowitz who presses the point on this being a public health issue, not a criminal justice one.

With our brief moment in the spotlight complete, I relax into the debate. While Owen Patterson manages to shift each response from a reasonable start into a weird, ill-informed finish, Tristram Hunt fares little better. He simply cannot resist the urge to make party political points from even the most unlikely material, and when challenged he faces the audience with knitted brows and a strange disbelieving gurn which turns him into a rather pompous public schoolboy figure. This is all played out particularly on a question about the EU's demand for £1.7bn - which Baroness Kramer dismisses as something which won't be paid and will blow over. Hunt decides to try to blame the Government for not knowing it was coming up. Almost everyone points out that it was the last Labour government who signed the terms. Hunt persists, claims that the deal is secret and only the government can know the details. It's bizarre and almost uncomfortable to watch in person. The stars of the night clearly remain Lucas and Horowitz, who stay on track, don't stray into ill-informed speculation and manage to mostly avoid party lines. Baroness Kramer comes in a close second - smart, well-read and reasonable. The two boys from the big parties come across as hired help - dull-witted and easily led into foolish speculation. It's not a good night for the mainstream perhaps.

All too soon the hour is up and we're filing out into the darkness, badger protesters still yelling. In an hour, the show will be beamed across the country, streamed across the globe and just for an hour, we'll be part of that again. The team that does this, almost every single week of the year, manages to keep it fresh and interesting, balanced - mostly - and representative. It's a pretty amazing feat. The logistics owe more to a touring rock band than a TV show, and that this happens again and again, almost always without hitch is testament to the behind-the-scenes crew too. I left thrilled to have been involved despite my question not being asked, and if possible even fonder of this British TV institution.