[BITList] "The Flying Scotsman"

[John Feltham]

At long last Gordon Brown decided to throw the towel in and resign.  
His cabinet colleagues thought it would be a worthy gesture to name a  
railway locomotive after him. So a senior 'Sir Humphrey' went from  
Whitehall to the National Railway Museum at York, to investigate the  
possibilities.

"They have a number of locomotives at the NRM without names", a   
specially-sought consultant told the top civil servant. "Mostly  
freight locomotives though."

"Oh dear, that's not very fitting for a prime minister," said Sir  
Humphrey. "How about that big green one, over there?" he said,  
pointing to 4472 Flying Scotsman.

"That's already got a name" said the consultant. "It's called the  
'Flying  Scotsman'."

"Oh. Couldn't it be renamed?" asked Sir Humphrey. "This is a national  
museum after all, funded by the taxpayer."

"I suppose it might be considered," said the consultant. "After all  
the LNER renamed a number of their locomotives after directors of the   
company, and even renamed one of them Dwight D Eisenhower."

"That's excellent", said Sir Humphrey, "So that's settled then...  
let's look at renaming 4472. But how much will it cost? We can't spend  
too  much, given the expenses scandal!"

"Well", said the consultant, "We could always just paint out the 'F' !"



ooroo

Bad typists of the word, untie.