Fashionably Late

Residents of the northern wastes who can no longer expect a modernised rail system may rejoice that the real people have a brand new clock, of a design which will trickle down to the provinces in due course. The re-tooled corporate timepiece is the first since before the Thatcher revolution and its demolition of the public sector, and symbolically features the old British Rail logo coming apart so that the fragments can run around in ever-opposing circles. Along with tacking the word Great onto the synonym for efficiency and economy that is British Railways, the design will doubtless compensate a new generation of commuters for all the various ways in which the country continues to remain behind the times, off the rails and jammed against the buffers.