Urgggghhhhhh. First day of a week of earlies, I did try to swap but for some reason the Mafia was short of late duties this week. Everything went timetable though during the peak there were four “next platform and hold” calls when someone pulled down a handle, three of which were for “passengers ill on train” and two were at the same station.

Other than that very little of note so here’s another bit of London related but non-LUL observation/opinion.

The Lib-Dems have again selected Brain Paddick as their mayoral candidate so 2012 will be a re-run of 2008 as far as the big three parties are concerned. Lembit Opik, who promised to run the Tube 24/7 at little extra cost, was beaten into fourth place with a measly 8.2% behind Paddick, GLA member Mike Tuffey and Brain Haley, an ex-Haringey councillor who jumped from Labour to LibDem when he was de-selected from his seat but lost it in the following election.

Lembit has been bleating that he was the victim of “a remarkable degree of antagonism and aggression from certain Lib-Dems”, that only he had a sufficiently “high profile” to present a challenge to “celebrity politicians” Ken and Boris and that if he wasn’t chosen the Lib-Dems would suffer a catastrophic defeat.

As his only connection with the London Lib-Dems was sitting as a MP at Westminster for a Welsh constituency perhaps he’d have had more success if he’d focused on winning the local party members who elected the candidate rather than simply proclaiming himself as the only choice for mayor, setting up a vanity website and granting interviews to the Evening Standard..

Either that or get himself invited as the guest host “Have I got news for you”.