Le train c’est bon, oui? Non.

Hello folks.  The dust has settled after landing back in the UK and normal service (that is, a tendency to complain about trains) has resumed.  If you’re wanting another fix of “Live Slowly. Die Old” do stay tuned because I have some ‘reflections’ I’ll get around to posting at some point.

Proponents of a Nationalised Railway system in the UK often bleat about how good the French system is.  And I don’t doubt that their shiny TGVs are good if you have a desire to go from major city centre to major city centre.  But I have always been sceptical of the quality of their local and regional services, and if my experience just now is typical then I am right to question whether or not the French system is all it is cracked up to be.

I am looking at the options for travel between Hyeres and Marseille Airport.  These places are not that far apart, and as far as I can tell, we’re not talking the middle of nowhere.  But if I want to go by train, on a Friday, I have a choice of just three trains.  And the last one is at 13.06.  Is it that the French don’t do anything on a Friday afternoon?  Have I just picked an awkward example?  Or is it that they don’t really have anything they can call a train “service” after all?

Answers on a postcard…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the purpose of religion

One of the things which featured in the recent debate on this post is the idea that “religion should be about improving oneself”. This has got me thinking; ‘religion’ of course takes many forms, but in the vast majority of cases I disagree with this. To paraphrase MarkC, religion is certainly something which as a by-product might help with “improving oneself”, but however you measure self-improvement it is not the sole point, certainly not in the Judeo-Christian case. In fact, if your sole aim is to “improve yourself”, why waste your time playing around with the trappings of religion? Most religions are based around the idea of faith in God, and that, surely, is the point. Considering Christianity specifically, Jesus said “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself ” and so ‘religion’ should not be in danger of becoming all about wo...
Read more

atheism is a matter of faith, not science: the debate continues

Following the letters page in last Wednesday's Metro and the follow-up comment on this post I’m pleased to see that the beginnings of a debate are brewing, and I intend to use this post to pick up the baton again. Unsurprisingly, I’m going to start by responding to the aforementioned comment. I apologise if my tone was deemed to be a bit sharp, but I have no hesitation in defending the point I was trying to make. According to dictionary.com , faith can be defined as “belief that is not based on proof.” As there is no proof that God does not exist, belief that God does not exist (i.e. atheism) must be faith. Now, I take your point that “as human beings we are always revising and fine tuning what we hold to be true based on the evidence to hand, what we discover and our ability to determine what is probable or improbable.” To digress slightly, that is why switching on the Large Hadron Collider is going to be something of a milestone, as it could eit...
Read more

milk and sugar?

I've been debating with my housemate as to whether tea or coffee is more popular world-wide. We've both done quick web-searches, and we've both got results to match our different claims. I say tea, he says coffee. So, to settle the debate, it's down to you. Do you prefer tea or coffee? Please leave a comment below - one word is all it takes.
Read more