A happy new year to all our readers, and apologies for nearly three weeks of stasis. Take a fortnight's break from the internet and when you return everything looks very different – somehow crisper. We'll even wish a happy new year to the kindly person who somehow changed our Enetation link to read 'poseurs'. You'll notice that we've since scrapped the comments - not in some hissy fit, but because we didn't really understand the Enetation system (hence the hack) and also because we received, er, about three comments in six months... In truth, we'd prefer email - it's a break from spam and death metal press releases.

Travel. This slightly-too-keen Salon piece about an ad campaign caught our eye. Is the writer's yearning for the ‘luxurious eroticism of train travel’ justified? The mysterious world of Orient-Express style luxury certainly retains an erotic edge over the slam-door reality of our crumbling rail network, but sex and travel remains an uttainable fantasy. Despite our link last year to the world's last 'sexy' airline, perhaps trains still retain the edge over planes.

The so-called Mile High Club (no links - searching for this is just asking for trouble) is and always was a cheap jibe – the private planes of numerous sultans, CEOs, and playboys being the only environments where this kind of aerial orgy could ever possibly occur. The train, on the other hand, comes complete with bundles of ready symbolism – rushing into tunnels, etc., with accompanying, frisky darkness – not to mention a greater sense of freedom (Agent Provocateur, purveyors of exquisite lingerie, once set a steamy catalogue shoot in the exquisitely panelled compartment of a vintage train, which sort of sums up the concept for us. There's also Shadow of a doubt, perhaps the sexiest Sonic Youth song (played on this guitar!), loosely based on Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train).posted by things at 10:59 / 0 comments