I went to Edinburgh recently, via Megabus. On a train.
(There’s a whole story in that really, isn’t there, but we’ll save that for
another time.)
Edinburgh is lovely, but just about everything about train
journeys isn’t nowadays. On arrival at
the station, we found that they wanted £8 for us to park for the day? £8?! I
only wanted to leave my car there for a bit, not take the tarmac home! To
complicate things further, the machine didn’t take any form of credit card, so
you needed cash. I always have at least £50 worth of loose change on me, but on
this occasion I wasn’t wearing my trousers with the reinforced pockets. £8? In
change? I’m not a ruddy fruit machine!
One panicked dash to get change later, and we’re ready to
roll. The train isn’t though – it’s been delayed. Probably another train on the
line or something, or perhaps some passengers wanted to get on somewhere.
Our transport of delight was one of those Virgin bendylean-o
things, which really do my head in. I keep looking out of the window (when I
can see through the dirt, natch) and wondering why anyone would put a football
pitch on a hill, or how those cows manage to keep upright without falling over.
And guess what? The plug socket didn’t work. Cunningly, someone at Virgin HQ
must keep a beady eye on twitter, as they spotted my tweet grumbling about it,
and replied to say I should see the train manager, as they might be able to
sort it out. Someone manages the train? You wouldn’t guess.
I shudder to think what the hapless twitter person has to cope
with. Search for “Virgin”? I’m pretty sure they must get a whole lot of stuff
unrelated to trains. Although, if you’re big into trains, then maybe...?
The coffee is clearly made of some new type of bean plucked
from the event horizon of a black hole. Even after two milk ‘stix’ (Warning:
May contain dairy products, but probably not) it still appeared to be as dark
as before I’d wrested the squirty tube thingy open, and managed to get some of
the ‘milk’ in the cup. With the rest on
my trousers.
And here’s another
thing – we’ve put a man on the moon, figured out what DNA is all about, and made songs as brilliant as ELO’s” Mr Blue
Sky”, and yet out trains still smell of poo.
As for those auto-detect soap/water/slightly-warmish-air
sink thingies, what were they thinking? If I want a slightly damp and faintly
warm arm, I’ll hold someone’s baby.
And then there’s the very worst horror of all – other
passengers. Once upon a time, we grumbled about people with their mp3 player
headphones so loud you could hear it not just in that carriage, but on passing
trains too.
Well, it’s worse than that now. It seems to have become
socially acceptable to watch stuff on laptops without bothering with
headphones. Would everyone like to hear last night’s Coronation Street? No?
Unlucky – you’re going to.
Plus the endless, mindless, feckless telephone conversations
of your fellow travellers: “Alright?
Yeah. I’m on the train. Dunno. Yeah. Laters. Alright. Yeah. Respeck, man.
Yeah.” Why didn’t you just shout that at your friend instead of phoning him?
Oh, hang on. You DID.
Anyone want to enjoy the extra pongy snack, shrieking
children, drunks, people with their feet on the seats, swearing, or half a
dozen other irritations foisted upon you? You don’t? Ha! Bad luck, matey. It’s
all part of the deal.
Right then. When does this train leave the station...?
This blog post appeared yesterday as an entry in the North West Evening Mail's "Big Blogger" competition. Do me a favour - click on this link to view it on their website, please? Thanks to clicks, I made it through to the main contest and the final 10. One gets eliminated each week. Eep.
(Blogging tunes tonight provided by Dave Edmunds' 1989 album "Closer To The Flame".)
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