ramblings and things

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Franchise



Pay attention children,
this is no fairy tale
just the story of an entity
we used to call British Rail;
when travelling by train
was almost a pleasure.
You just chose your seat
spread out at your leisure

in a warm self cocoon,
in a world of your own,
long before the days of
the dread mobile phone.
And the giggling girl
chatting to her mate
all the lurid details of
last night's hot hot date.

You try not to listen
but you have no choice
for she is blessed with
such a penetrating voice.
You try to quieten her
with a hard baleful stare
but in her connected world
nobody else is there.

And the bloke with the laptop
slaving there away
as if he doesn't have enough
time during the working day;
or maybe perhaps
he's just a lazy slob
not really competent
or up to his job.

So he slaves on the train
with such an air of gloom
and you can't spread your paper,
his notebook leaves you no room.
Or maybe he's indispensable
makes sure the world knows
his presence is essential
when and wherever he goes.

Oh for those days of joined up trains,
everything run by one organisation
when you knew where you stood
and they called it nationalisation.
It's all split and modernised now with
not enough coaches, constant fare rises
and its profit not travellers that matter
in this time of those damned railway franchises



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Franchise