Re: Ironic
My daughter currently has several rigidly attached bogeys.
We offer the Vulture Central tip of the hat today to toy train outfit Bigjigs for its audacious bid to run the UK's West Coast Mainline rail franchise. For those of you not up to speed on the West Coast Mainline fiasco, entertain yourselves with this blow-by-blow account down at the Beeb as to how the nation that invented the …
Or for the ultimate full house you could do worse than suffer on First Capital Connect into Kings Cross.
Dirty, late running, expensive and generally shit.
The bod they have on twitter does have a sense of humour and some of the paid trolls can be amusing as well but thats the main highlight of what they offer.
First bus Aberdeen have higher prices than elsewhere in the country compared to the area covered.
The drivers regularly go on strike, with the last series of them planned for the run up to Christmas being averted by a pay rise. Not that they need it as they are the second highest paid bus drivers in the UK, London being highest. Throw in all their benefits too (free gym membership and the likes) and its a bloody good deal.
But I suppose, when someone has to get a job driving, the rest of their skill set must have been low.
Richie: It's not very sexy, is it?
Eddie: No. I must say, I expected a lot more from "The Furry Honeypot Adventure".
Richie: I think this is for kids you know Eddie. I think those Hussein brothers saw you coming again. Well, what else did you get?
Eddie: "Big Jugs"
Richie: [excited] "Big Jugs"! All right!........" [reads box] ".......a history of pottery in the nineteenth century."
Unlike Bigjigs, the Island of Sodor has many documented (even captured on video) accidents. Staff ignoring procedures and a culture of cutting corners. There have been multiple run away locos, several bridge collapses, numerous trains hitting buildings and other infrastructure. It's only by the grace of God nobody has been killed.
As you can see they have nothing to differentiate themselves from the existing companies.
I love the sense of humour of the toy company and the equal humour in the response from the DfT.
I am a bit disturbed, though, that I didn't see anything odd in the title Toy train company bids for West Coast Mainline and had to read into the letter to realise that it was a spoof.
Is it my befuddled brain, or has life got so strange that I could be forgiven for taking it seriously?
From the photos, it looks like Bigjigs makes clones of the classic Swedish Brio train system (http://www.brio.net/ToPlay/3_years/Railway_Sets.aspx), which I recall playing with back when in the kindergarten in the 1960's.
I guess Brio has had some design patent expire, since many toy shops now offer compatible no-name tracks and rolling stock. Much cheaper but often not up to the same quality standards, based on personal experience with supplying my own kid (don't know about Bigjigs, it is not available here). But it is nice that the non-Brio Thomas the Tank Engine locomotives he was a fan of could run on Brio tracks. Industry standard matter.