OK, the anatomy of the #Perugia story, and why - now with a considerable degree of certainty - Johnson was *not* there on the weekend 12-13 September, and why I was wrong
First of all 👏 @marklowen who got to the bottom of this better than anyone else
Some are pointing the finger at the paper, but look at the statement the airport gave - "al Premier Inglese Boris Johnson, preceduto da Tony Blair" - it's categoric
There was one part of the story that did not work - the dates. Johnson was in a Zoom call at 1700 CET.
Telegraph even reported some MPs thought his location to be abnormal:
I assumed the airport was more likely to have got its dates confused than get its whole story wrong.
That assumption I made was wrong.
Also a note of thanks to @timmermansr & @littlegravitas for all the flight data. That was all spot on - but the assumption as to who was on the planes that were found... was based on the statement from the airport that turned out to be wrong.
We still do not know if there was a baptism, or where it was. Plenty of the incorrect conclusions are still online right now (mine are not - tweets have been deleted in light of what I now know).
I hope that sets the record straight.
/ends
Update: we know there was a baptism, in Westminster. We do not know who attended it.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
This morning I’m one of the first new regional trains Maubeuge 🇫🇷 - Charleroi Central 🇧🇪 #CrossBorderRail
It was a bit of a #fail at the station. I needed a ticket to Erquelinnes, the first station in Belgium. But prior to today trains from Maubeuge didn’t stop there!
Ticket machine ⛔️
Ask at the ticket office. “Le train ne s’arrête pas à Erquelinnes!” I politely told the SNCF employee that yes, it did stop at Erquelinnes. I explained the situation to the SNCB train manager and he laughed, confirmed it did stop there, and I bought the ticket online!
Delays in my favour. Maybe? S-Bahn to FFM Flughafen. Get a late running ICE to Köln Messe/Deutz there. Then try to blag my way onto a Thalys Köln Hbf to Bruxelles? It’s a long shot but it might work…
ICE 612 Frankfurt Flughafen to Köln Messe/Deutz.
This is why accurate live running data in apps matters. Were this not running 10 min late I’d not have caught it… but live data allowed me to plan a connection that’d otherwise not work
Already on the 2nd train of the day: TGV Montbard - Paris. All being well I’ll be in Denmark tonight… but that feels a long way off just now! #EGPCongress#crossborderrail
Across Paris RER Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord, walk to Gare de l’Est (faster than changing into a Métro to Est) and it’s onto the TGV to Mannheim. So far so good, but I banked on this bit working 🙂 #EGPCongress#CrossBorderRail
Franco-German train service. Very French prices! And no, it’s too early (and expensive) for #beerontrains 😉
Jeez. It could take until 2025 until TGVs are approved for the line.
And the whole effing point of Stuttgart21 - of which this line is a part - was to create a Paris-München high speed corridor!
Really, how can everyone mess up *so badly*?
And to those going “yeah but there are few TGVs anyway” true, but so it goes on and on. International services are the lowest priority - even when *they were the stated rationale for building the line*