James’s post reminds me that it’s time to check back on my eight wishes for 2008 to see how they turned out.

1. That the fourth series of <DOCTOR.WHO> will be at least as good as the third; that the second series of The Sarah Jane Adventures will be at least as good as the first; and that the new series of Torchwood will be better than the first (and I’m sure it will).

No, yes and yes. The most recent series of Who had the usual mix of good (Midnight and Turn Left) and not so good episodes (Planet of the Ood, The Doctor’s Daughter), but overall it couldn’t match the third season – but then it had a lot to live up to. SJA put in an excellent second series (although I’m yet to see the finale) and Torchwood was much improved.

2. That the Lib Dems get good results in the London elections and the English and Welsh local elections in May.

There were good local election results, gaining seats, councils and a good share of the vote, despite the predictions that we would fall back. London alas saw us squeezed between the Livingstone and Johnson megaliths.

3. That I’m able to find enough spare time to make some progress on various projects currently sitting on the back burner.

Yes and no. The ones I were thinking about have still largely remained in drawers but a few newer projects have taken shape well.

4. That in the light of its inability to handle personal data securely the Government abandons the illiberal, costly, and technically monstrous identity database.

OK, this was just wishful thinking. But the Government and its agencies have continued to lose personal data all over the shop.

5. That I maintain a reasonable record playing Scrabulous on Facebook and at some point win a game of Settlers of Catan.

Don’t think I managed to win Catan, but my board game playing took a bit of a hit towards the end of the year as I got tied up with various other stuff. And this was the year, of course, where Scrabulous was destroyed by the owners of Scrabble. I’ve done reasonably will in the handful of games I’ve played on the cumbersome Scrabble application but don’t play anywhere near as much as before.

6. That the majority of my commuter trains into London are on time (December’s score: 0%).

In true OCD style, I’ve kept a record of every commuter train into London I’ve caught this year – with Southern spared the indignity of my measuring their evening service. There were positive signs at the end of February and it turns out that I got my wish: 52.5% of my trains left on time. That’s still a pretty poor figure and doesn’t take into account that few of those actually arrived into London Bridge at the scheduled time, but it’s better than a kick in the Travelcard.

7. That a sensible Democrat wins the US Presidency.

I think we can put this one down as a WIN.

8. That I lose some more weight, although ideally not through amputation, decapitation or any sort of wasting disease.

This, on the other hand, remains a work in progress.

I may not be the train regulator, but… One of my eight wishes for 2008 was:

That the majority of my commuter trains into London are on time (December’s score: 0%).

Two months into 2008, how is Southern – my local train operating company – faring? I’ve crunched the numbers and the answer is that they’re getting better, but are short of my target.

Based on the wording of my wish, these stats are limited to journeys I’ve made into London for work, and only count the train I actually took: if I got to the station and a train due earlier than the one I was aiming for arrived late and I caught it, that counted as a late train; but if it was so busy that (rather than squeezing in) I waited for the next train and it was on time, that counted as an on time train.

On the one occasion that the train I went for was cancelled, I’ve made an exception and counted that as a particularly long delay (17 minutes; the longest delay otherwise was 9 minutes).

Here are the stats:

So my morning train did manage to be on time the majority of the time this month, but, averaged out against January (when I caught more trains), the proportion for 2008 so far is 45%.

Not great, but only a little way to go to get over the key 50%. And what a triumph that would be.

What a depressing array of news stories on the BBC site this morning.

Jolie causes stir on Mumbai train
An actress caught a train. Whoop-de-doo.

Bodyguards made sure no one got too close – quite a feat on Mumbai’s crowded transport system.

They would have had the same problem on the train I caught this morning. Not the train I was planning to get, mind, as that – a half-hourly service – was remarkably 34 minutes late.

Leeming bitten in TV tucker trial
OK, a seriously ill celebrity is worth reporting. Oh no, hang on…

Ex-newsreader Jan Leeming has cried after being bitten by ants on the first ‘bushtucker trial’ of reality show I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!

Someone cried. Stop the presses. Hold the front page.

Now another food scare story is of course worthwhile so that we can make informed choice.

Eating large amounts of red meat may double young women’s breast cancer risk, a study suggests.

In other news, eating large amounts of food may make you fat.

Oh, this is absurd too, although I suppose if you can have honorary degrees, you can have honorary rank without it being a slight to those officers who actually have to work for it. When I shout at the radio, it’s almost always the Today programme; today it was for the thoroughly pointless playing of the National Anthem to mark Charles’s birthday which interrupted it as I made my sandwiches.

Train problems + cold weather + rain = me grumpy.

Update: What a way to pass 150,000 words and 800 posts on this blog…

Bothered by leaves on the line? They can really mess up your train journey, can’t they? But why do they cause problems? Surely they’re only leaves? Soft, floaty leaves – how can they harm a big, butch, intercity train?

If only we knew, then we wouldn’t feel so frustrated. We wouldn’t mind late trains because we’d understand.

Fortunately, help is at hand in the form of a leaflet, produced by Network Rail and a couple of train operating companies, called The Challenge of Falling Leave. This brings to life such concepts as “carbonisation”, “Sandite” and “Low Adhesion Training” in a simple, pocket-sized guide that every commuter will cherish.

The back page even features a helpful rundown of some of the most common leaves, so never again will you have to wonder “Is that a sycamore I see before me?” as you stare impotently out of the window of a stationary carriage.

Signal fault brings train chaos

Rail services into and out of Edinburgh have been slowly resuming following an early morning signalling failure which hit rush hour trains.

The fault near Haymarket station in the capital brought trains to a standstill with thousands of commuters affected.

I resorted to a bus journey in the end, which took 1 hour 42 minutes. It took a circuitous route through various towns – I got off less than 40 miles from where I boarded. I arrived at my desk three hours after leaving the house.

To put that in perspective: I could have been in London via aeroplane in the same amount of time.