A moment of pure Monty Python.
The scene: Sitting on a train at London Waterloo station, waiting for it to leave and take me home. An announcement over the station PA.
Station PA: "South West trains would like to apologise for the delay of the 10:45 from platform 3. This has been caused by extreme weather conditions"
('extreme' means the astonishing discovery that sometimes it rains in England)
And then a crackling voice came over the train's own PA with The Truth:
Train PA: "Er, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry about the delay. We're awaiting the arrival of the crew for this train. They're currently on a train waiting for an available platform at London Waterloo. Er. Actually, its this platform they're waiting for. Um. So they can't arrive until we depart, and, er, we can't depart until they arrive... so, er... sorry about all this..."
We, the passengers, looked at each other in horror. Was this to be our Groundhog day? Stuck on a train forever (or at least until Bill Murray arrives to overact and Andie MacDowell to be, well, just faintly irritating.)
And then the British 'can-do' attitude kicked in as we realised that no, we were actually in a Monty Python sketch. Train driver played by John Cleese, guard by Michael Palin. And eveything was right with the world.
