Rail awards result in high level exposure

Much excitement after last night's National Rail Awards.

Several attendees at the industry's annual bun-fight were awoken in the wee small hours when the fire alarm at their Bayswater hotel was activated.

But which guest, a director of a well nown Derby engineering firm, exited his room with such alacrity that he appeared in the hotel's foyer with nothing more than a pair of briefs to protect his modesty?

Eye understands that the apparition caused great excitement amongst his fellow evacuees, with at least one shocked lady having a stroke! Sadly several more missed.

The Fact Compiler is of course sworn to secrecy and would never rvel the answer...

Open Access

The Spectator Parliamentarian Awards are “the Oscars of Westminster, the Booker Prize of our lawmakers, the Blankety Blank cheque book and pen of the political cosa nostra.”

This year the Speccie has introduced a new award category: "Readers' Representative".

The on-line blurb describes the award as follows:

"For the first time, a new Reader's Representative Award is being presented. The nominations for it will come from you, the readers. All you have to do is scroll downwards and - in no more than 250 words - nominate your choice. The person can be of any party you want, a frontbencher or a backbencher and you can nominate them for whatever reason you want. The sole criteria are that the candidate has pursued the noble art of politics in what they believed to be the public interest."

Tom 'Blogger' Harris and The Fact Compiler do not always see eye to Railway Eye!

That said we hope that 'Open Access Tom' receives some recognition for having "pursued the noble art of politics... in what he believes to be the public interest".

Credit crunch

Telegrammed by The Raver
The National Rail Awards have been sponsored by Angel Trains for the last nine years.

However, with the media friendly Haydn Abbott shunted over to Angel's European division and a new man running their UK division, the future funding of the event looks uncertain.

Mind you, during his stuttering performance on Thursday night, the new CEO didn't completely rule out sponsoring the milestone 10th anniversary shindig.

But as a devotee of Occam's razor and naturally cautious with the pennies, the new broom is understood not to favour 'monkey suit and champagne' lobbying.

Indeed so discreet is Angel's new CEO that Railway Eye has agreed not to name him.