I really need to buy one or more of Heather Parry’s books, because I get such an absurd amount of pleasure out of her newsletter/blog pieces. (Hmm—clearly there’s something to this whole content-led marketing thing after all?)

Anyway, here she is, three paragraphs into a rail-focussed travelogue of a recent trip to China and Japan:

Using the rail system in the UK is a protracted masochistic impulse, something you do because it’s morally right and theoretically superior even though the actual experience is like paying someone hundreds of pounds to repeatedly punch you in the mouth.

Where’s the lie?

After that, she spends a bunch of words describing domestic travel in China in such a manner as to make one question whether this whole “democracy” sham is worth the candle, and eventually returns to the UK (via Japan) to deliver a few more well-aimed kicks.

Go read it for the joy of the words, even if the trains bit doesn’t interest you, you utter wrong ‘un.