Mark Pack

Despite the name, you can buy train tickets for any of the UK train routes via the First TransPennine Express site. What's so great about it? No credit card or booking fees. Simple, clean website design. Clever auto-complete (e.g. trying getting a ticket to or from Bristol and the pop up list of stations tells [...] »

Quick, send in the comms and marketing troops: there's a big project which has clearly escaped the modern branding and presentational needs which drive the names of products and give them names with evoke the senses, move emotions and, er..., don't tell you what they're actually about. How else to explain the very prosaic name [...] »

A quick update on my previous posts about the plans to open a theatre just next to Finsbury Park station, on Clifton Terrace. The team behind the plans has just issued a newsletter with latest progress: The Park Theatre Newsletter July 2010 »

What can I say about this? »

Hooray: Planned closures on the Northern Line, which would have seen Tube trains stopping early on weekday evenings through the summer, have been cancelled by Transport for London (TfL). The Bank and High Barnet branches were due to shut at about 2130 BST on Mondays to Thursdays from next week. More at the BBC. »

An impressively quick and direct response to my message. First the auto-reply: You’ve shared your idea with us, thank you.  Was it a food idea?  The food team meet every Wednesday afternoon to discuss our food and everything our customers have suggested.  If you’ve suggested a new shop, we are growing, but slowly (one at [...] »

To warm up before the current season's finale, I've just finished watched The Pirate Planet, from the Tom Baker years and available as part of The Key To Time box set. It's one of Douglas Adams's stories and flashes of his comedic genius come through often enough to entertain but not so frequently as to [...] »

Excellent news that the popular Tottenham market at Ward's Corner has been saved (despite Boris Johnson going back on his promise to help). »

Dear Pret, I could be all eco-conscious about how your amazingly large till receipts mean paper is wasted. I could be all customer service focused about how your amazingly large till receipts result in people standing there fiddling with them trying to make them fit in a wallet or purse, so slowing down the service [...] »

Ross Lydall's account of how a wave of bike thefts was curtailed is a good reminder of the benefits of registering your bike at www.immobilise.com. The service is not just for bikes, but also for a range of other goods which can be hard to trace to their owner if stolen and recovered. I do [...] »