Tony goes to work

More popular than ever. Blair even manages to generate the Blue Screen of Death. Just back in last night from a few days in the UK and it was impossible to avoid the heaviness in the air due to the credit crisis. From the news to the newspapers to talk at the pub, people are worried. Shops continue to slash prices but buyers are nowhere to be seen and rightly so. The British pound has tumbled in recent months, falling from around 2:1 to the US dollar now to 1.50:1 and the pounds previous dominance over the euro is also in jeopardy we it falls nearer to 1:1. I can't see how that's not going to have an impact with the eurozone workers who used to flock to London for work thanks to the strong currency. Now they have the weakling in the area with high prices to boot.

On the positive side, bless those friendly folks at the Boots in Reading station. I'm on my second cold (or whatever this is) of the season and I took a turn for the worse the night before heading over, making sleep impossible. They guided me away from the "no drowsy effect" junk on the shelves and set me up with the old fashioned "Pholcodine linctus". I slept like a baby, finally. If only they could help provide something for the pain of the criminally expensive trains that can't manage to add on enough trains during non-peak hours. Is $21 for a 30 minute train ride - crammed into cold, small spaces including in between cars - really reasonable? What idiot allowed the once great train system to fall this low?