First Network Rail?

The Independent on Sunday will have caused many a ruined breakfast with its list of industry figures keen to take on Iain Coucher's job.

According to the Sindie the great Dr Mike 'Death' Mitchell "is understood to have privately expressed an interest in the role."

No doubt this joyful news will have been welcomed by the nation's interior designers, whose skills will now be in great demand to remove embedded cornflakes sprayed into soft furnishings.

Once recovered from the Heimlich Maneuver industry bigwigs will also have been comforted to read that two further First alumni - Nicola 'Not So' Shaw and Andrew 'I Closed the Skies' Haines - are also rumoured to be in the frame.

Perhaps there is a chapter on career progression in Sir Moir's Lovely Book?


Fortunately, before any further damage was done to the nation's stock of rail executives, the Sindie piece made clear that NR has hired headhunters, Egon Zehnder, with a brief to seek candidates with experience running international companies.

The resulting sighs of relief issuing from across industry breakfast tables are apparently audible in deep space.