Platform 1

8.15 am at Paddington Station and since I have half an hour before my train leaves I decide to take another picture of a war memorial I'm rather fond of. It shows a - but wait! what's this charging down the platform with a man in tow?
Two handsome golden labradors each with a folded newspaper clenched importantly in their careful jaws: I simply had to stop them for a quick snap but they were in a hurry and there wasn't time to ask where? what? why? do they carry the same paper or different ones, do they have contrasting tastes in reading matter - the Daily Mail v. the Guardian perhaps?

Oh well, back to the war memorial. It commemorates the 3312 employers of the Great Western Railway who died in the two world wars, although it was originally erected in 1922 and depicts a soldier in battle gear holding a piece of paper. It's supposed to be a letter from home but I always wonder if it isn't really a railway timetable and he's trying to find the next train to Swindon. (Predictably a coffee cup's been left beside the plinth!)

Note, too, that there's a portion of Brunel's splendid roof canopy visible here. A statue of the great engineer himself can be found a little further up the platform, seated to survey the passing throng.