Through the looking glass

ABOARD the 07.50 from Paddington. Black sky pressing down on black buildings, faces lit by mobile phones on commuter platforms. For once, rather than stick my head in a thriller, I decide to view the passing of England through a carriage window.

For city miles, the unfeeling metal architecture of railways: parallel lines and skeleton gantries. Beside the track, spavined, diesel-dosed bushes of buddleia. Creeping bramble, as bad as barbed wire. Not much to see.

Slough. Poor Slough. Doomed forever by Betjeman for its urban (lack