"Will this waste of our money never stop?" - Telegraph

Telegrammed by our man at 222 Marylebone Road
Here is Philip Johnston writing in today's Torygraph:

All the familiar ingredients are there: the waste of taxpayers' money on an ocean-going scale, incompetent management, political naivete, wildly over-optimistic promises, IT failures, the liberal use of outside consultants and the refusal of anyone in Whitehall to listen to the experts.

Eye was looking forward to some weapon's grade pyrotechnics once Captain Deltic found out that this Johnston-Come-Lately had wandered on to his patch!

Alas.

Mr Johnston was fulminating about proposals to set up a network of national fire control centres, which in 2004 this was due to cost £72m and be ready by 2008. Now the final bill looks closer to being £240m.

Wonder if he knows about the IEP yet?

New competition to select IEP successor - Shocker

This just in, unbelievably, from the late Louella Parsons...

Darlings, I've been schmoozing with the dishy Lord Andrew.

No, not Lloyd Webber!

The dishy one with such an angsty face who's in every quality broadsheet. Yes! Lord Andrew Adonis.

And he told me, as we 'supped an ale' at the Betjeman Arms at St Pancras, that he is to feature in a new reality show called 'Over the Trainbow'.

Every week Lord Andrew and a team of experts (Stuart Baker) will try out the alternatives to what he calls 'IEP' and by the end of the show we'll know what the future will be for luxury long distance rail travel on your pretty little island.

It all sounds such a gas!

'Do you have a favorite' I whispered into his ear?

"A big chunky loco sounds good", he replied

Dunno what that means, but Andy sure is fun.

He even asked me if I wanted to know how his bi-mode worked? Fresh or what?

'Sorry, I'm just not that kinda girl' I had to tell him.

UPDATE: This from Muttley...

Rumour has it that the BBC were very interested in showing 'Over the Trainbow'.

Unfortunately they couldn't find a studio big enough to fit the judging panel (Dft, DfT Consultants, DfT Lawyers, DfT Lawyers-consultants, Treasury, ORR, ATOC, Network Rail, Network Rail's consultants, affected TOC's etc...)