More Heavenly Details

'I'm on the train', as my fellow passengers keep bellowing, in a variety of languges. I really am - they have a clever mobile internet connection that you can pay for, although it doesn't actully work that brilliantly (and the paws do get in the way a bit at the best of times - which I can freely acknowledge now I've got my secret off my furry chest - let alone on the train, when all the jolting and swaying makes things even more tricky).

But being on the train has made me realise that trains are something else that will have to play a big role in the heaven I would like - in fact, I'm hoping that the bulk of goods-trucking in heaven (and for those who say goods-trucking shouldn't have a place in heaven, I say, 'How do you intend to eat? Is it vegetable gardening and cow milking that you envisualise for eternity? Or - surely not - were you planning to give up eating?', an activity very high up in my top ten of life's pleasures) will be done by freight train, instead of going via the highways, and trains will be so cheap and widespread, with all the little stations everywhere reopening, that people will hardly need cars at all.

There is so little stress to a good train journey, particularly if it is conducted by Renfe, the Spanish train company, or Deutsche Bahn. I hesitate to mention the French mob, since, judging by their staffing arrangements, I find it hard to believe they will survive much longer.:

(Yes, last week, all four of the people pictured were deemed necessary to check each ticket on one of their very fast trains.)

What little stress there is though comes from blaring overhead announcements. Therefore, in heaven, I would decree that there would be no electronic sound systems installed on any trains. Instead, the staff would have to do what they did in my childhood - walk through all the carriages, yelling out the lunch options and any other announcements that might come to mind (oddly enough, not many did come to mind in those days, when it involved a bit of effort.)

And, of course, the trains in heaven would all have proper dining cars - not snack bars that rely entirely on microwave ovens but places with tables and cutlery and damask table cloths and menus and waiters and a pleasant sense of occasion (but no flash - this would be seen as normal, rather than being an absurdly expensive and naff re-creation that is more about display of wealth than just living well). No noisy packets of anything (crisps et cetera) would be allowed anywhere within a hundred mile vicinity, although people who wanted to would be allowed to bring wrapped sandwiches to eat in their seats, provided the sandwiches were wrapped in nice, quiet waxed paper. There would be old-fashioned train food on offer in the dining car - fish in parsley sauce, roast lamb with vegetables, paprika chicken. The glasses would be crystal, the prices would be low.

Call me dreamy, but I am after all talking about heaven - and, perhaps, also about the past, which, it turns out, is not so much another country but another dimension: in my case, in many respects, the paradisical one.