Network Rail regularly advertises for “members”, ordinary people who will sit on the 100-strong body that ensures the public is represented and the voices of ordinary travellers are heard in the boardroom. The polite fiction is that this is a public service and that their views will be treated with respect.

Yesterday saw the publication of the KPMG report into corporate governance at Network Rail - whose chairman, Sir Ian McAllister, has yet to hand back the knighthood awarded while the railways were in chaos last new year, of course.

Buried in the report are damning remarks by unnamed members as to the effectiveness of their role. “Given the high calibre of the board I doubt whether members' questions really have much of an effect . . . water off a duck's back,” says one. “Too many elderly white men in suits,” sneers another. “Some members lack the capacity to understand the workings of Network Rail and cannot possibly exercise any degree of oversight,” says a third. As I said, these are the people who are supposed to look after your and my interests in this peculiar, quasi-public body. It doesn't inspire much confidence, does it?

RBS analysis missed the personal banking link

Radio 4's Today programme had Terry Smith on to discuss the Royal Bank of Scotland figures. (And how clever of RBS's spinners to allow us to assume they would be announcing the worst loss in British banking history and then come in with the second worst. Almost makes it sound like good news, doesn't it?)

Smith, who was a banking analyst before he started running them, was asked by Robert Peston if this was the worst it could get. “I think much worse lies ahead,” said Smith cheerfully. RBS has written off more than £5 billion but one of the axioms of banking analysis is that “banks provide for what they can afford to provide for, not what they need”.

Smith and Peston debated their respective 34 and 25 years analysing the banking sector. What they failed to mention was that for part of it, Peston worked for Smith at Collins Stewart. Small world.

— A friendly cabbie tells me that the speed cameras on Tower Bridge, according to a mate of his who has one of those gizmos that tell you, are switched on again. This is a 20 mph route and one of the easiest ways in the City to get caught unwittingly. The City of London Police won't confirm this either way. But my cabbie assures me that there is a way of beating the cameras, if you are snapped. You do a U-turn at the other end, drive back across the bridge the other way, turn round and cross again. He claims the cameras can't tell which way you are going. I would not advise you to try this, and I am not saying it would work. Best not to exceed the speed limit.

— Blame the general nervousness but an awful lot more people this summer seem to have their office phones switched through to their mobiles on holiday, or have left strict instructions to forward all calls. Someone rang me back the other day from the Pyrenees. And then there was the bloke who abruptly terminated the conversation thus: “Sorry, got to go. I'm steering my boat.”

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