In my brief tenure as an advisor on transport to a shadow cabinet minister, I argued strongly that we should not only be looking at transport provision, but at demand reduction.

Specifically, I argued, many people could work from home, if not all the time, than for a few days a week or month. If we could get on average the office population of central London working one day a week without travelling to work, we would get a 20 percent reduction for that cohort – a prize worth having.

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Amazingly just after 9/11, the usage of the video conferencing facilities at a former company I worked for became overwhelmed. People suddenly discovered they didn't need to fly so often after all in order to talk to other people in America. Unsurprisingly the reluctance to fly was short lived and everything returned to normal.

You'd think the climate change lot would be up for it but then, you can't enjoy sumptuous meals, endless expenses and hob-nobbing with your fellow international elite when you're sat at a computer.

.........Nice one, gareth, but let's not extend the idea to the Colleagues; we need them all in one place when the day of reckoning comes.

Whilst working from home has many advantages (but you must be disciplined), it is a lonely experience.

Watching Sky news this morning, they tell us that the Olympics will cost now twelve billion pounds, BUT!!!! that is an estimate, the final figure will be more than double, that sounds like a reasonable price.

When the private sector working from home, they work. Public sector ... um ?

It does not have to be lonely ... and this has been thought about, with the establishment of local "business support clubs", providing photocopying, techie support and specialist services, and a café where home workers can congregate.

If you can't measure their output ... are they needed? If you can measure their output ... no problem. They either meet their expectations, or they are pulled back into the office (or fired).

True. But the chances of public sector homeworking happening like this are .. ? My information is that, at present, a public sector day-worked-from-home is a way of throwing a "sickie" without it appearing on your HR record.

So, for 7 weeks,the commuters will be asked to work from home to stop the transport system from being overloaded. It will work in some cases,but,when the show is over, there could be some redundancies on quite a large scale.Then you will get the railway companies complaining of loss of profits. So the whole idea of the Olympics in this Country is going to cost us dearly.

Transport networks do not make money out of rush hours ... every train going into a station might be full, but they are empty going out ... effectively doubling your train cost. The rush "hour" might last four hours, but you are employing staff for 7-8 hour shifts ... and so on. This is why long-distance operators tend to be profitable, while suburban networks lose money.

My, Richard, that operation really gave you a new lease of life.

I'm getting there ... the rule of thumb is that it takes 12 weeks to recover from the operation - and longer to get over the effects of the underlying condition. I'm still not right yet, but it is a measure of how badly I was affected, pre-op, that you see the difference now ... I hope!!

Public Sector workers....."working" from home....your having a laff. They've all just been given a 7 week paid holiday.