THE £20 million bonus pool for Network Rail bosses is to be repeatedly postponed then replaced by a former school bus.
The bus will be one of those old green ones, with loads of fag burns in the seats, no heating and the floor almost entirely covered in pancake-sized patches of ancient, hepatitis-infused chewing gum.
Transport Secretary Justine Greening said: “The bonus timetable has been agreed and there is absolutely no reason to expect that anything might go wrong.
“As far as they’re concerned a nice comfortable bonus will arrive into their bank accounts at a mutually-agreed time, let’s say for example 16:12 on Thursday.
“At about 17:32, they will receive a garbled, semi-intelligible phone message saying the bonus has been delayed until 18:34. No explanation will be given.
“After another hour there will be a second, barely-audible, phone call, saying the money has been further delayed because of an unexpected shortage of money-senders. They will be asked to go to another telephone, about half a mile away, to await further news.
“In a final message, the executives will be invited to gather in a freezing car park to await the arrival of their money.
“After they have spent what feels like two days in perishing conditions, attended only by a grim-faced man in a luminous waistcoat who insists he doesn’t know any more than they do, a piece-of-shit bus will arrive.
“If they complain they will be told they are not entitled to any sort of compensation because the bus is the same thing as the money.”
Network Rail executive Tom Logan said: “While we don’t always get it right in terms of reliability, cost, hygiene and literally thousands of other things, Britain’s trains are still the best places to buy a single massive biscuit wrapped in cellophane.
“If you go anywhere else and ask for an individually wrapped, frisbee-sized biscuit, they’ll look at you like you’re mental. But not on the train.
“Also, you get free magazines containing pictures of Stonehenge.”
