All wind and excuses
THERE are parts of the British economy where an excuse is considered as good as a product. This may explain why the men from McKinsey find our productivity so dis- appointing, and why Rover's owners cannot teach their old dog new tricks, but when it comes to fabricating excuses, we are up there with the best. An award must be on its way to Eurotunnel, whose services last week were running seven hours late, because of high winds. How high? Force 6, which on the Beaufort scale is a strong breeze. Blowing down the tunnel? No, no: across the loop at the end. Eurotunnel feared that its trains might get blown over. This is only a problem, so the fabricators added, when the wind is blowing from the south-west up the Channel, which it usually does. My railway correspondent, I.K. Gricer, tells me that at Hawes Junction in the Pennines the prevailing wind is cyclonic, and was strong enough to catch a Midland Railway engine on its turntable and send it spinning round and round. The Midland then built a stockade round the turntable. Eurotunnel could always try that, and then count on high winds and high seas to help it take business off the ferries, but why spoil a perfect excuse? It is what we are so productive at producing.
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