Trained observers

The Prince of Wales, soon to be Edward VII, embodying the Naughty Nineties, hurried in 1897 from Marienbad, venue of his annual cure, to join the royal yacht at Copenhagen, travelling by rail incognito as Lord Renfrew. To travel by train incognito always seemed comical in Britain, where unlike the poor Continentals, we do not forever have to show our papers. Nor does one volunteer a name – Lord Renfrew or any other – to buy a ticket. But now, we report, British Transport Police are watching you. Spend six hours on the Underground and you are “possibly a pickpocket, possibly a predatory sex offender”. Or the Baker Street signals have failed again. Such surveillance, alarmingly like that of Communist China, relies on the use of a travel card or credit card. Stick to honest cash and you can travel royally beyond suspicion.