Horror on the Swindon Express

The other day I boarded a First Great Western train from Reading to Bristol, and was treated to an announcement from someone calling himself "the Service Leader". (Which makes the heart sink in itself.)

He told us he wished to apologise for the lack of hot drinks on the train. This was, he revealed, due to the fact that the boiler had broken down.

Unsurprised, we trundled off towards Swindon. There, new passengers joined the train, and the Service Leader made the same announcement. Almost. This time, when he apologised for the lack of hot drinks, he said it was "due to operational difficulties in the kitchen area."

Whatever forces acted upon this poor man between Reading and Swindon remain a mystery. I can only imagine that unearthly spores may have drifted through the train window, engulfing the hapless Service Leader in a malignant Tone Of Voice Field from Beyond The Stars.

Perhaps the real Service Leader is, even now, being ferried across the limitless gulfs of the cosmos by beings of fearsomely superior intelligence, while a crude automaton, programmed with a repertoire of what the aliens believe to be suitable phrases, takes his place aboard the 12.31.

We shall probably never know. But what really bothered me is that none of the other passengers seemed to have noticed. Come to think of it, they did look rather glassy-eyed, and their movements were a little jerky...

The last word on punny business?

The ever-helpful David Hares, photographer extraordinaire, spotted a double page spread in the Guardian magazine recently. It was filled with marvellously punny shops, all photographed by Guy Swillingham - whose own name no doubt invites all manner of japes, especially down the pub.

I've included three of the best above. If you can't quite see, "Norman D Landing" sells militaria. And deserves a medal for punning above and beyond the call of duty.

Other delights included The Leaning Tower of Pizza (High Wycombe); Melon Cauli, a bittersweet greengrocers in the West Midlands; Aloe Petal and Floral & Hardy, florists; Wooden It Be Nice, a furniture shop in Hackney; Tanya Hyde Tanning Studios in Bourne; a Scottish souvenir shop in Edinburgh called Thistle Do Nicely; and Wok This Way, a Chinese takeaway in Grantham. (Battersea Cod's Home is, somewhat bizarrely, in Sheffield.)

There was also a vegetarian restaurant called Kumquat Mae, which took me a while to work out. It may be the most tortuous so far. (Although I recently came across a barber's in Barbican called Scissor's Palace.)

Thank you, David. You've been a stalwart of this feature. If you think you can beat this latest punanza, please do have a go. But it'll take some doing.

Punny names pt 4

The quest for funny people's names has been running for a while now, and I think I've been remarkably good at steering away from the "Carry On" end of the market.

Inevitably, that happy time has come to an end. I've received a submission which, frankly, had to barge its way past the Taste and Decency filter here at Finlay Cottage.

It comes in photographic form (left) from Fraser Stevenson, of RNM Systems. It seems extraordinary that these sorts of things happen, but happen they apparently do. Even on Nationwide.