On the road in Luton

I am on the road in UK PLC taking the temperature ahead of the impending election.

Luton is to be my first stop – I catch the 22.32 train from London’s St Pancras. What a station; what a train! A winter palace contrasted with an elderly cake tin.

The cake tin takes off at surprising speed. Ear-phones everywhere, most people snoozing. I marvel at how they know when to wake up.

My brand new iPhone suddenly seizes up. I am lost, I had planned so many calls. The battery? Apparently not.

I stumble out of uninviting Luton station. How can we have sustained such grim provision for those who travel in and out of Luton? There are smart state-of-the-art cabs aplenty.

The hotel is no longer called whatever it was, and in any case the address is naturally locked in my iPhone. But somehow I and the Kashmiri driver work out which one it might be.

I reach the hotel and it’s the right one…more grey. Lovely view of a multi storey car park. I guess this is UK PLC?

I direct dial a number from my room…it doesn’t work…and another, and another – none of them work. So rare is it that anyone uses a hotel phone apparently, that the room phone has to be sorted to make such calls!

I sleep well. The iPhone is still dead when I wake. The car park looks worse in the grey dawn. Why did we do this to our towns?

This is going to be fun!