It's all gone horribly wrong already, and its only the 8th of January. I'm talking about the New Year's Resolution, you know the one where you promise you're going to go to the gym at least three times a week, cut down on the alcohol and comfort eating and generally spend less time sitting around.

Yeah, right. That's fine, providing your day doesn't involve anything to do with Last Late Western. Yesterday, I resolved to get to a circuit training session in Salford which starts at 7.30. I packed all my stuff into the car in the morning, so that I could whizz straight over there from the station and start pumping iron with the rest of them. So far, so good. I left the office in plenty of time to catch the 5.51, good service on the Bakerloo line, train left on time, got a seat - there was some small chance this was actually going to happen. The anticipation was almost too much.

And then, we sat at Reading for ten minutes waiting to get onto a platform, and at Oxford we sat for at least 15 minutes, waiting for God knows what. A couple of half hearted apologies did nothing to appease us, and at one point it was looking increasingly likely that LLW would pull their normal shabby trick of throwing everyone off at Oxford. In the end, we limped into Charlbury at 7.43, far too late to do anything other than go home, have a very large glass of red wine, a big plate of cheese and slump in front of the TV in a foul mood. All the things I promised myself I wasn't going to do - and wouldn't have if everything had gone to plan. Just one more example of LLW stealing our lives away.

The answer to this whole problem of late running must be to put a gym carriage onto the train. That way, even if we are regularly half an hour late, it would actually be beneficial, as we'd have longer to work out. We'd arrive feeling virtuous and smug, rather than angry and frustrated, and it would make every journey a worthwhile experience. It could be another revenue stream for LLW, it would improve our image of them and everyone would win.

This is about as likely as me ending up with a body like Elle McPherson .....