It costs me about £25–30 in petrol to drive the 55 miles from my home in Hackney to Brighton, and the same 55 back again. First Capital Connect is asking north of £90 for a return ticket for our family this weekend, starting from London Bridge. So if there’s a traffic jam on the northbound M23 this Sunday evening (inevitable), you can blame me.

If I lived in Florence, a family return trip of similar length to Livorno (birthplace of the PCI, home of the cacciucco) comes to about €33. From Brussels, a weekend rail trip to Bruges, 90km away, would cost us just over €49. A slightly longer journey in France, from Lyon to Chambery and back, comes to €59. [Read more →]

There is a body of opinion – let’s call it the “consensus” – that only Chelsea or Manchester United can win the Premiership in 2007. Within that consensus, of course, there are shades: from “catastrophic” that Man Utd should win, to merely very, very bad that Chelsea do. Surely no good citizen can disagree. Well, they can. Because we have a group loosely called the “Redblue-deniers”. Some think there’s only a chance, a small one not worth worrying too much about, that Chelsea or Man Utd will prevail; and that anyway, the emotional pain of that eventuality could be offset by laying a reverse forecast on the title. Most, though, seem convinced it will be Reading’s year.

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