One of the (many) benefits of being retired is the freedom to go to places midweek when it's quieter.

I'm a grumpy old biddy, and get all white and spiteful when a pub has those ghastly slot machines and one-armed bandits that make silly tinkly-tonk noises. I hate loud taped music and poncy food menus ('lightly-seasoned home-cured tortoise on a bed of tossed Japanese knotweed, with a side accompaniment of turds-in-brandy')

I well remember in the early fifties going up to Kings Cross to get the steam train to Durham (LNER?) Every platform had massive hissing engines and they seemed enormous to me. The noise when they started off was tremendous, and smuts came flying in the windows in a tunnel. Would it have been the Flying Scotsman, (or something equally famous) or just an ordinary workhorse engine?