Thank you, Mr Beeching....

Ah yes, indeed.

I find myself wondering how in Hell's name someone like me can get to Saffron Walden without a car. The website is useless - it has a link to the National Rail website, but apparently there is no railway station in Saffron Walden.

Clever, eh?

I'm not walking, that I can tell you.

I think an email might be in order....

Grumble.

Thank you, Mr Beeching....

Ah yes, indeed.

I find myself wondering how in Hell's name someone like me can get to Saffron Walden without a car. The website is useless - it has a link to the National Rail website, but apparently there is no railway station in Saffron Walden.

Clever, eh?

I'm not walking, that I can tell you.

I think an email might be in order....

Grumble.

The excitement of routine.

There's something about the easy jobs, the ones you can do in your sleep, that demands that they just swallow energy, motivation and effort.

Each year about this time, it falls to me sketch out a timetable for the annual subsidy determination round. With a couple of exceptions, the dates are highly provisional at this stage, and the purpose of the timetable and accompanying note is to remind people of the hoops we will have to jump through between now and December when the damned thing has to be completed.

I can do this in my sleep, and it's coming very close to being done just that way. It's particularly annoying this year too, since all our major policy objectives are complete as of last December, and this will be the first determination round for several years where we need only produce the basic documents with only very few frills - it wouldn't be government if some tinkering wasn't being done, but this time, it's just playing around with a few definitions and tightening up some formulae rather than rewriting the book as we have done each year in the past five.

The damned thing will take just enough concentration to prevent me from thinking about something else, but not quite enough to stop me from getting bored out of my gourd.

Still, it puts the beans in the tin, doesn't it?

The excitement of routine.

There's something about the easy jobs, the ones you can do in your sleep, that demands that they just swallow energy, motivation and effort.

Each year about this time, it falls to me sketch out a timetable for the annual subsidy determination round. With a couple of exceptions, the dates are highly provisional at this stage, and the purpose of the timetable and accompanying note is to remind people of the hoops we will have to jump through between now and December when the damned thing has to be completed.

I can do this in my sleep, and it's coming very close to being done just that way. It's particularly annoying this year too, since all our major policy objectives are complete as of last December, and this will be the first determination round for several years where we need only produce the basic documents with only very few frills - it wouldn't be government if some tinkering wasn't being done, but this time, it's just playing around with a few definitions and tightening up some formulae rather than rewriting the book as we have done each year in the past five.

The damned thing will take just enough concentration to prevent me from thinking about something else, but not quite enough to stop me from getting bored out of my gourd.

Still, it puts the beans in the tin, doesn't it?