Some interesting history

I've not been posting much recently - a combination of sport, work and the boy serving to distract me from politics and having time to post. I'm rather looking forward to the long Easter weekend, when I can relax a little.

The Daily Telegraph has recently been carrying letters on the theme of the clergy and railways. Typically, most of the letters have been about Anglican clerics (the Anglican clergyman most famous for his love of trains is of course the Rev W Awdry). However, a few days ago they carried a letter from the archivist of the Diocese of Brentwood, in which he suggests that part of the reason for the siting of the Diocesan head quarters in Brentwood was it's proximity to Shenfield junction.

Air taxes

I was in Ireland for the weekend, and was rather stunned to read on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph a report suggesting the Tories were going to propose rather punitive taxes on "excessive" air travel. The suggestion is that we'd each be "allowed" one short haul flight a year.

There are a couple of issues with this proposal. My family are in Ireland, so I suppose I could take the boat over instead - of course, I'll spend the day driving to Holyhead to meet the ferry. But if I look around at the group of people I work with - in my own team alone - we have people with family in India, Ghana, Nigeria, Barbados, Australia and Germany. Four of us are predominately UK/Ireland based, but as I've noted before, my wife is from Singapore.

So what exactly are we supposed to do when we want to visit our families? And no, the standard "now you've an excuse not to visit the mother-in-law" joke doesn't work when I actually enjoy going!