Back from holiday

I've been away for ten days to a place without email, where regeneration starts sounding like the silly word it really is and where the local village (of 60 people) has been trying to get a project to build a new shop off the ground for about a decade. Where the local post office is totally unsigned, and run out of a freezing room in a decaying stone mansion by the batty maiden survivor of the dynasty, alongside her dogs, rabbits and birds. Yet, because this is the British Isles, in the pub people discuss how they can get broadband, and the local smokehouse sells to Harrods. The face of rural Scotland.

There was only one really significant piece of 'real news' while I was away in what the Guardina calls the "booming Highlands". Us Londoners have a newly Ken-ized Overground rail service (why, oh why, not just call it a tube? it will run every 8 mins, just like the Circle line) which will actually help people in London get around. And I will be able to get from my flat to the Arsenal game with much less hassle (in five years time).

Other than that, lots of chatter on the newsfeeds about various wholly pointless initiatives and lots of money being spent on things that no-one outside the 'sector' is aware of. And which I will now continue to feed to your screens and pretend is extremely vitally important and meaningful. Damn holidays, giving one a sense of perspective...