UNCOUPLING

"Jes, for God’s sake you’re going to get us killed!"

Aloft on his mountainous machine the tractor driver bobs along obliviously like only a tractor driver can, while all around him lose their heads and blame it all on him.

I pull back in behind and thump the wheel. We’ve been stuck behind him for 10 minutes! What idiot has fields so far away from where he keeps his tractor? And with all that power why can’t he find a couple of extra gears to make the bloody thing go faster than 35 mph! Can’t he bob any quicker!

‘We’re going to miss this train!’ I vent.

'It doesn’t matter, just be careful!'

It does matter. The fact we’re not going anywhere on it makes no difference. At this moment in time, while looking at the back end of this agricultural road block for the eleventh consecutive minute, getting to the station is the most important thing in the world.

You see, the Flying Scotsman is coming to Dunfermline and we have to be there. Why? Because we go back a long way. When we lived in Yorkshire we’d go and see it often, in pieces, being lovingly restored in the National Railway Museum. Now we live in Scotland and it's coming to see us. When he was two, the eldest fell in love with the thing, and slept for years with a small replica next to his pillow. We pulled it off the cover of the first edition of Great Locomotives of the World. Special offer; the best 99p we ever spent. Such was his devotion that he took the bold move of introducing the Brio version into Sodor, the only non-fictional vehicle on the network.

STILL HERE

David went cos he lost. Nigel went cos he won. Boris went cos he won but can’t win thanks to Michael, who reckons he can win despite having won. Theresa lost but might win, even though no one who lost can. Jeremy won but, like Boris, can’t win, so he’ll be gone soon too - once someone who can win wins. Tony would probably have to go soon if it weren’t for the fact that he already went. So he’ll stay gone.

Meanwhile, the rest of us - winners and losers - aren’t going anywhere. Us amateur legislators don’t have the luxury of resigning, disgraced and discredited, because we never had a reputation to besmirch. Of fading back into the background, because we never stepped out of it. Of spending more time with our families because we spend too much time with them already.