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LIZ JONES: Efficiency? That means wi-fi, tablecloths and china cups

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I can often be heard wailing, when facing yet another long journey to London from my home in the Yorkshire Dales, that it would be quicker, and easier, if I were to move to Paris or Brussels.

I live an hour from the lovely Georgian town of Richmond; but there is no station at Richmond any longer.

The old railway buildings are now a cinema and gym, though the listed cobbled square remains, having resisted council calls to crazy-pave it for health-and-safety reasons. There is also no Costa or Pret A Manger, thank the Lord.

Speedy: Liz Jones relishes her twice-weekly train trip from her home in Yorkshire and says the service is fast enough without the need to build the HS2 high-speed line

So I catch the train to King’s Cross from Darlington. It takes two hours 20 minutes.

By car, the journey can take five to six hours, but when I get the train, the time is four hours door-to-door.

The off-peak return fare is £116, which I think is reasonable. To drive costs about £80, not counting wear and tear, fines for speeding, and parking.

Unlike First Great Western, the company I used to get to my old home in Somerset, East Coast Trains operates a lovely trolley service of food and drink. There is wi-fi on board, so everyone is working, as if they were already in the office. It is not dead time at all.

The only downside is when a man opposite opens his laptop, and the shadow casts me into the shade. I can see the need for speed – but actually, when the HS2 line is extended to Newcastle, the journey time will be ‘just’ two hours 18 minutes. You can already do it on the East Coast line in ‘just’ two hours 37 minutes. The UK is not vast, like the US, France or Germany.

Threatened: The face of countryside like this in the Chiltern Hills could be changed with the new HS2 high-speed train link from London to the North

And given the number of stops being added to the new routes, plus the fact we can never cope with snow or fallen leaves, I doubt even these promised fast times, this miraculous saving of 19 minutes from Newcastle (time soon dissipated in the working day if you are a smoker who stands outside his office,  time-wasting), will materialise. And will the promised jobs in this part of the world really happen? Or will the new lines merely encourage more people to move here, given property prices in the South?

I imagine a faster service will mean more people will commute to the capital, not stick around, to toil in the frozen North. As we all know, all a commuter brings to a far-flung town or rural area is a need for a cleaner, a gardener, a Waitrose, and increased property prices.

Holiday-makers won’t travel here by train, as if you want to explore anywhere beautiful, you will need a car.

And I doubt freight will be allowed on these new routes.

All these accusations of Nimbyism towards those who live in the Chilterns are just not fair: they are thinking of the future, not their own blighted lives. Why not dig up the M1, and place the railway line there?

And anyway, I quite like my two-and-a-half-hour train ride, which I perform twice a week.

I’d make it slower, and add tablecloths and china cups.

I always think, when a man overtakes me on the inside of the motorway: you’re so busy! Unless you are a fireman or a vet or a doctor, what exactly is the rush? Then I had to laugh when the Transport Secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, told the Commons that HS2 was not about speed: ‘Rail passenger numbers have doubled over the past 15 years and demand will keep growing.’

How does he know this? Via a crystal ball?

And while on the train we already tap, tap away on our  laptops, and answer calls, who knows how we will work come 2033? The North is already nearer to London, thanks to technology.

We’ve already ruined this country, carving it up with motorways and mini-roundabouts. What we need now is a bit of inspired imagination, not reverting to the thinking of the Victorians.

Liz Jones can't understand why athletes have to earn so much money after their deeds on the track and thinks they should all go back to doing proper jobs between races

PS: Don’t you loathe the fact that gymnast Louis Smith is the face of a sandwich bar chain? Or that Jessica Ennis is set to earn £3.5 million?

I yearn for our gold medal-winning athletes to return to their jobs as doctors or teachers, say.

I’ve never thought this new breed of athletes to be great role models, as to get that good means they can probably barely read. I wager Andy Murray is a nightmare when it comes to bleeding the radiator, or sitting at a traffic light that remains firmly at red.

Expand the mind, not the biceps. Don’t build pools, ghastly, noisy places full of body fascists and fungal infections: build libraries.



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