BBC News 24

I love that statement, it's the statement of the week so far! Please tell me it was a cynical joke and you didn't have a straight look on your face!

My personal favourite experience was a few weeks ago on a train to London. Having waited at Ashford for half hour, an announcement came over: "Apologies, this is due to the new driver being held up in traffic, but he's walking up the platform to the train now". The train pulls away, and a couple of minutes later from the driver... "I've just been instructed this train will now terminate at Orpington due to reasons beyond my control". Bollocks.

Now back to BBC News 24.

DavidJb: Why take a car when I can get there in more comfort, more cheaply, and in a more environmentally friendly way on a coach?

National Express are the most reliable means of public transport in this country. They are hardly ever late, and are about as comfortable as first class seating on a train.

They all have the traffic monitoring systems built into the coaches, so they don't get caught up in jams, it's quieter than a train.

Oh, I could go on.

I once got a DART train into Dublin. During the journey the driver came over the tannoy and announced 'we have to terminate this train at the next station because the train is unfit for service and needs to be repaired urgently'.

Cue terrified look from 100 or so passengers.

"This train will be termintating at Clapham Junction and not Epsom Downs as indicated"

The bane of my existence...especially as my station is the next one along!

What this has got to do with N24 I don't know but...

Never had a problem with trains in this country. Always more or less on time, comfortable, roomy etc.

Used National Express on the other hand twice, and never again! Down to Heathrow from Chester went via Stoke (????!) then stopped in Birmingham Digbeth - if there is a worse place on earth, I've yet to experience it - for an hour. The waiting room was closed (and locked) and all the refreshment machines were out of order. There was a tea van across the road which I and the other bemused passengers went to. I even had to go for a pee behind a wall somewhere because Digbeth's toilets were in the locked waiting room. If I'd had the sense to go by train we wouldn't have even had to have stopped, there would have been a full bar service on board and a toilet! I could have got up and stretched my legs whenever I wanted. On the bus (only drivers and those who work for them call them coaches) I was stuck in my seat in the dark with no leg room with a load of unemployed people and, like them, nothing to do. Fantastic.

On the way back we stopped again at Digbeth. I couldn't bare it, phoned Nat Rail Enquiries and was told that there was a train in 20 minutes. I left the bus where it was and was quite happy walking up to the civilisation of New Street where gladly I paid for a train ticket which got me home just 20 minutes after the bus would have left Digbeth.

The only other time was when I was a student and took advantage of their £6 offer. The bus pulled up, as ever, in Digbeth and the driver told us that there were problems with snow and left it at that. I tried to find out when the onward connection was and asked a man in uniform. He told me he was far too busy to deal with my, in fact my enquiry was the least of his worries. Great!

Think I'll stick to trains!

An unpopular move, perhaps, but I'd just like to briefly bring the topic of conversation back to N24.

I've not yet seen it mentioned anywhere that Head 2 Head has moved out of its usual "mass of black" studio area, and it's now recorded in N6. The Head 2 Head logo appears on the upper half of all of the rearmost projector screens (which consequently results in a reflection of the logo being very visible on screen in one of the back mirrors), while the frosted glass and red translucent strip lying undisturbed beneath. The side screens also displayed large H2H logos.

Curiously, the show now also has three guests, rather than the previous set-up with two. A most unusual three-way "split-screen" was also used in the middle of the discussion, which looked quite poor, and distracted from the debate rather than adding anything useful to it. The lighting for the show is also very unusual; it looks like they were trying to achieve a conceptually similar effect to the previous H2H set-up, but ultimately it just looked poorly lit, like a poker game in a bad casino.

Not at all convinced that these changes are for the better.


Anyway, now I'll let everyone get back to chatting about the really important stuff - how best to travel around Britain. Personally, I fly. And no, I'm not a trolley-dolly.

I've always wondered why they had that Black "effect". It looked cheap and nasty, I haven't seen this from N6 yet but is it different in another way LDN? Is there any reason why Head 2 Head couldn't come from somwhere completly different? - Mill Bank studio, etc?
N6 is rapidly becoming the whore of discussion shows.
Anyhow, I'm off to buy a fish from a man....

Quite right Talking Point on BBC World came from N6 and I think it looked quite good. I wouldnt be suprised if this is going to be permanent.. but then again Talking Point comes from somewhere different each week.

Is Talking Point with Robin Luststig and endless reminders of how you can contact?
I personally think Head 2 Head would be well suited in the BBC 3 News Studio....Like Newsnight was....

On a completly unrelated note, did you know that "Clearing the Community" was a Nazi slogan.... Just a little thing I noticed.

Do you BBC Worldie People get H2H?

Joel

Oh God "Clearing the Community" a nazi slogan... **** whats happeing to me?? a mate at school started cooling me Nazi Scum after I got a haircut.

No us BBC Worldies do not get Head 2 Head and yes those annoying talking point ads with Robin Luststig who reminds me of my deputy prinicpal! Those ads need serious updating and along with that TP needs a permanent host not a different range of however is around at the time!

Robin, Robin, Robin. He's definatly a face for Radio....Mind he's excellent on The World Tonight on R4, every night with a cup of Horlick and a good book....
I personally think only Hardtalk should be allowed to use N6. Im aware of the cost involved with different studio, but like I said before, It is becoming the whore of the interviews.
Joel.

it's the patronising GMTV style v/o for the phone numbers that gets me about those promts for the contact details.