For reasons too dull to go into here, I've spent a lot of the last couple of weekends on the train.

Last weekend I was on a combination of Virgin, Central and First NorthWestern trains in the UK - while this weekend I've been on the TGV here in France.
You know what I'm going to say, don't you?

The trains in Britain were variable at best. One that I caught from Birmingham to Worcester was absolutely filthy, while on the way back I had a mad rush from one platform to another at Birmingham as they got the platform announcement wrong.

Mind you, to be fair they got me where I wanted to be on time, and it could even have been a lot more expensive. But travelling by train in the UK just isn't fun.

My TGV experience, however, has been ace. It's cost me less than €140 for a journey of more than 1000km booked at the last minute, it's comfortable, on time, unbelievably fast and almost eerily quiet. It's a whole different ballgame - and I doubt the British will ever catch up.