Way out West (incorporating Way up North)

let the train take the strain...

Two days in a row I have needed to make journeys by train, normally I'm very sanguine about most forms of travel, after all, I've done a 23 hour train journey across Russia with a dance company and I figure I've paid my dues. Yesterday I went to Oxford to meet the Nottingham correspondent and her mother for lunch; a straightforward and short trip by car. Unfortunately, as my car is sitting in Sheffield (I have a 7.5 tonne truck instead), I had to take the train.

It was sort of ok until I got to Reading, where I had to change to a Virgin train bound for Glasgow (apologies to my cousin who actually takes Mr Branson's shilling), there had been a cancellation, and the train was stuffed to the gunwales. No matter, I thought, I'm only on for twenty minutes, so what if the other passengers have to lift their suitcases above their heads each time someone needs to pass because there's not enough room for luggage. I wedged myself into what I hoped would be an endurable position for my brief journey and we set off. Two minutes into the journey it started; it was a student, bastard son of E.L.Wisty, en-route to Birmingham Uni, blessed with a penetrating voice and a limitless set of opinions (did you know that nazi-ism started as a form of satanic worship and Hitler merely jumped on the bandwagon?). He was sat in state with a trio of mesmerised pensioners, whose ever more frantic chorus of 'that's interesting dear' had no more than a contrapuntal effect on the ever more demented stream of piffle that this child was spouting. It was at this point that the guard announced that due to engineering works our travel was to be delayed, and my twenty minute journey became fifty. I swear that the child had perfected cyclical breathing, because his increasingly grating monotone never ceased for the duration of my trip. The passenger who was wedged in opposite me, and had presumably already had several miles of this bollocks already, met my eye as we pulled into Oxford station, and said wearily; 'that gobshite's got the perfect face for a punch'. I looked back, as I left the train, and you know what? He was right.

I just have to record that the rest of my day was perfectly civilised and proper, and we had a nice lunch.

Today, I had to go to Bury St Edmunds for a panto production meeting, the journey out was uneventful, and the meeting very useful. My trip back was less fun; my train was cancelled without explanation or information, the next one was in an hour. Most of the passengers dispersed, I opted to sit on the platform and make phone calls. Twenty minutes later, a train appeared, unannounced and unidentified. The conductor then chased about all over the station in search of lost travellers, and we got under way. At this point I realised that the automated ticket machine had issued me with a single and two receipts instead of the return I had wanted (and thought I had paid £30.00 for). The conductor was about as sympathetic and helpful as it is possible to be, she issued me with a permit to travel, wrote me a note for the conductor on the next train, and even phoned the line controller to say that there was a possible problem. Needless to say, no-one inspected my ticket on the next train.

It was with a sense of relief that I headed for the familiarity of the tube, of course it was buggered and it took me another two hours to get home. Never mind that I spent nearly nine hours travelling today,what made the final part almost unendurable was the person who had a mission to entertain; he was a tall thin bloke, young and dressed in black, unexceptional appart from wearing a cyclist's mask (aha! you say, a careful dickhead, happy to shower bullshit on an unprotected audience, but not prepared to share their bacilli). Despite his best efforts, and in the face of extreme provocation, he didn't manage to get more than a polite negative from his unwilling audience. I swear he was wanting to do a magic trick, second only to mime on the list of tube intolerables in my book.

That is why I fear 'chat on the tube day' this friday is doomed ( http://www.hannahscafe.co.uk/page26.htm ), but feel free to prove me wrong.

Thanks to Annie Mole ( http://www.london-underground.blogspot.com/ ) for bring the latter idea to my attention.

posted by Lampy @ 11/14/2006 01:07:00 am