I concede that when the person claiming to be Peter Speaking announced that he was pleased to welcome us to a virgin train I was daydreaming and may have begun to wonder whether this was the born-again sort of virgin, since the train had clearly had what the public prints in my youth used to refer to as "a long and interesting life" before her recent change of dress. Maybe he was really called Phil Drolls, or was that the other person with a somewhat ... hesitant and uneven ... pattern of speech.
Anyway, it does not really matter whether I was paying attention to the tannoy; but I really was paying attention to the sign on the factory we were passing, and I see from my contemporaneous notes, to which I will refer with the court's permission, that the lineside shed carried a large sign which proclaimed that it was owned, occupied, or perhaps merely operated by a concern revelling in the name of `Speciality Slitting Services'. Does anyone have the foggiest idea?
It did not help that shortly afterwards, at Birmingham International, the seat opposite me was occupied by a young lady in a white silk blouse, linen jacket and slightly flared dark cotton trousers, and whose neck bore a distinct horizontal hairline scar about three inches long, starting just below her left ear, and pearled with a line of what appeared - on as close inspection as British train etiquette permitted - to be congealed blood droplets. I wish I could have made this up.
Good evening.