If only the Germans had won

People. I have just had a reasonable exciting weekend spent marvelling at the people of Vilnius and the extraordinary way they have thrown off the soviet yoke to re-invent themselves as a modern vibrant European people, all be it with shocking tasting ham (and I do mean vom-inducing, I have welsh friend who may never smile again), an old skool Stalin inspired police force (no flushing toilets in there men) , and a frankly suspicious eastern nature which was about as welcoming as a skunk with a bleeding bowel wound.

Most of this is not the point however, the point is on arriving back in the the UK, replete with an empty bank account and the infamous 'beer paranoia' the last thing I really needed, and I do mean the last thing (other than the aforementioned skunk perhaps) was a 3.5 hr delay on a train.

What is wrong with us as a people, we know the trains don't work, we know we will not have a 'good' time using these parodies of efficient public transport and yet still we book tickets, and in what numbers (more than there are seats normally).

Having boarded a train for Plymouth from Reading at 21:04, to be told at 22:44 (near newbury or somewhere) that due to a smally problem we would be heading back to Reading I had but one thought...If only the Germans had one the war, if only Hitler could have sat on his ego (wrt Russia) for a wee bit longer, if the Yanks had just stayed out of what was really; none of their blasted business then perhaps, just perhaps I could have been whisked home in fine style on one of these...Rather than one of these (and yes, for my international readership, this is not a model)...