I'm railing against the injustice of price rises

I'M ALWAYS impressed to discover the folk at ScotRail can tell the time.

Given the clocks at Glasgow's Queen Street station all appear to be in different time zones. Is it 9:09am? 9:10am? 9:11am? Or is Queen Street actually the portal to the fifth dimension, in which case why aren't there more two-headed ticket inspectors on the barriers? It amazes me they turn up to work at all.

But congratulations are in order because the nation's favourite rail company managed to work out exactly when 2 January was, which coincidentally happened to be the same day as rail-fare rises came into force.

It will now cost the average Glasgow-to-Edinburgh commuter 80p more per day for the privilege of travelling on a ScotRail train, a price hike which works out at more than £100 a year. For those buying the "cheap day" tickets, it will cost an extra 50p per day, with the new price a mere snip at £9.80. Yeah. I'd have them up on a Trades Description Act charge too.

ScotRail, of course, is far from the only perpetrator here. Every train company in the country has put up its prices, some of them by a shocking extent. Pity the commuter from Canterbury to London, whose annual season ticket is set to go up by a shocking £448, a staggering 11.11 per cent increase.

Now I understand the need to raise prices, that there are huge costs and inflationary pressures and all that sort of thing, but what I can't comprehend is why the rail companies don't understand why folk like me still get annoyed about it. Rail passengers are not unreasonable people (normally, although I've never been on a train with Donald Trump, so perhaps that's generalising a bit).

We know the trains don't always run on time. We know they're expensive to run. In return, all we want is a bit of understanding.

It doesn't have to be a big thing. As any regular commuter will tell you, it's often the small irritations that niggle the most, steadily eating away at your sanity. So perhaps, as an acknowledgement that we're all paying more on a daily basis to travel on their trains, ScotRail might fix the clocks at Queen Street station. Or turn down the volume on those terrifyingly loud onboard passenger announcements. Or finally get that new Glasgow departures board working so that even those with 20/20 vision will no longer have to squint at the tiny screens, trying to work out when the next train to Aberdeen is on a display so psychedelic in colour it looks like an episode of the Magic Roundabout.

But alas, it has not happened. The prices go up, and everything else stays the same.

The customer has given – indeed, they have not been given a choice to do otherwise – and they have not received anything in return.

Perhaps you have to take a trip to the fifth dimension for that.

James will just have to make do with a fish supper

SPARE a thought for James McAvoy, the Scots actor who was nominated for his first Golden Globe in the leading actor role for his performance in the film Atonement.

McAvoy, whose career has gone from strength to strength since his appearance in Channel 4's Shameless, will be denied the usual pomp and circumstance of a Hollywood award ceremony thanks to the ongoing Writers Guild strike in the US, which has led to a cancellation of the awards. Never mind, James. All that fawning from the paparazzi, endless champagne, designer duds and the adoration of women such as Angelina Jolie – what could possibly be more tiresome to a lad from Scotstoun?

Glued to the telly? Forget it

THERE are few folk around who wouldn't have a bit of empathy with ten-year-old Diego Palacios, the Mexican boy who glued his hand to his bed because he didn't want to go back to school after the Christmas holidays. Diego got up early to fetch some industrial-strength glue from the kitchen and attach his hand to the bedstead. When his mother discovered what he'd done, she spent two hours trying to free him using nail polish remover, before calling the police. Diego, meanwhile, lounged on the be

When he was freed, his mother sent him off to school as punishment. What a fool. She should have just tuned the TV in to the new series of Dancing on Ice. Half an hour of that guff and the kid would have been crying out to go back to classes.

• Good to see the Glasgow Commonwealth Games off to a flying start.

The Welcome to Glasgow sign on the M8 motorway is still accompanied by a notice informing visitors that it is a "Commonwealth Games Candidate City 2014". Just for the record guys, we won the bid two months ago.