While I've made other journeys by train since the last rant, I actually haven't felt like ranting. The services may still have been shonky, over-crowded, late, and insulting even to the Third World, but at the same time nor were they particularly hellacious. Half an hour into this one, and already rant mode's fully operational, and homicide mode is hovering on the side of the stage, waiting for it's cue. There's three hours to go - somehow I think that cue may occur sooner rather than later.
Some of it's my fault - it's the August Bank Holiday, and I should know one fuck of a lot better than to travel on that particular weekend. Anyone with even one tenth of a brain-cell operational hears the word "train" in the same sentence as "August Bank Holiday" and breaks out in a cold sweat. Of course, this also correlates with the fact that everyone on this train (including Yours Truly) has, by definition, less than one-tenth of an operational brain-cell. The collective IQ of 400 passengers is probably about 8. Including the driver and the staff.
However, that still FAR exceeds the collective IQ of Network Rail, the absolute fucking morons who've decided that hey, it's an August Bank Holiday, so no-one will be travelling then, will they? Therefore we've got major bits of train track completely up shit creek. My destination, Reading, has the Reading Festival on - 60,000ish people. London has Notting Hill Carnival all weekend - at least 100,000 people will be there. In Cardiff there's a rugby international being played - to get there from London, you go via Reading. And Network Rail decide that this will be an ideal time to shut the entire track between London and Reading. Pure fucking genius.
As it is, I'm travelling before that particular piece of planning comes into action - but lo, what's this? I know - on one of the busiest Friday afternoons in the year, why don't we put on a train with exactly four carriages - one of which is first class, and thus utterly fucking empty. The other three resemble the Black Hole of Calcutta. If the windows opened, people would be using them as handholds - it's like the footage you see of trains in India. I'm praying there isn't an epileptic in the carriage - if there is and they start fitting, it'll be like sitting in a blender. One person starts moving, everyone else simply has to. Virgin Voyager? Virgin Torquemada more like.
Coupled with the jos of overcrowding (which is rather like calling World War Two "a bit of a scrap") I'm yet again being assaulted by the chemical warfare known to it's afficionados as BO - or SFS (Stinky Fucker Syndrome) to those who have it inflicted on them. He got on after me, and is sat diagonally opposite. I'm wedged in, and there's a wave of hum every time the stinky twat moves - it's obscene, the sort of thing that people should be put to death for. In circumstances like these, BO is no less of an offensive weapon than a knife, or a club. The poor girl sat beside him is paler than paper - I'd reckon the clothes she's wearing are either going to be Febrezed, Fumigated, or Flamed when she gets off the train. If the windows on this fucking train opened, he'd be getting forced through them - assuming anyone planned far enough ahead to have remember to pack theyr rubber gloves. Never before have I more wanted to see a customs officer, gloved and ready for action. But it's not to be. We're lumbered with the stinking fucker 'til at least Birmingham - and this really is the man who put the ming in Birmingham. Do you remember the Peanuts comic strip (Snoopy, Charlie Brown et al.)? There was a character called Pig-Pen, who was followed around by a cloud of dust - you expect the same with this guy, only it's probably made up of flies attracted by the stench. There's a flower in the Amazon that stinks like rotting meat - Rafflesia, my bobble-hatted memory is screaming to me - in this carriage, its leaves would wilt and die in shock. There's no competition.
An aside - what IS it about Stafford and train-spotters? We've just rocketed through, and there were at least twenty of the spods hanging around, camera, video cameras, thermoses and notebooks at the ready. It's like a Mecca for them, most places you only see one or two of them, but Stafford always goes into double-figures. And let's be honest, who is more sad? The train-spotter or the person who spots train-spotters? I always harboured a plan to start a notebook of train-spotters, see if I could collect the entire set. I never did start it though - but Stafford would be a great place to start such a plan.
Come to that, the passengers on the train aren't all there, either. The woman beside me appears to be following the route of the journey on a whole set of maps - maybe she wants to collect the set of train-stations and list all the ones she's been through, as well as the one she's stopped at. I swear I'll never understand the obsession necessary to be a collector, a spotter, a person who has to have the complete set. Someone else obviously has a new mobile phone - I can't think of any other reason to keep on going through all the ring-tones in an effort to find one he likes. Got news for you mate, it's a Nokia, they're all shit. Every single last one of them. Give it up, before I take your phone and see how it handles being used as a suppository.
At least the screeching little bastard® has shut up, either lulled to sleep by the noise of the train, or paralysed by the outright horror of Miasma Man. I don't know what the little darling was upset about, but it was certainly letting the world know of it's displeasure. Any dogs within a five mile radius were probably howling in chorus. (On a tangent, Miasma Man now has his arm raised above his head. Jesus Christ, this qualifies as just cause for homicide - it must do. Please God, end my torture now - I repent of all the sins I've done, and all those that occurred in my past lives. Just please make it fucking stop now. I'm sorry, OK? If he farts, I'm going to renounce God and all his cronies for the rest of my life. Clear?) Anyway, the little swine has finally shut the fuck up, so we're at least getting some benefit from stinky. But it's nowhere even close to balancing out - he owes us big, and will forever more.
Of course, there's no way any of the train staff are being psychotic/suicidal enough to come through the train - the passengers would form a lynch-mob, I think. Fair enough, it's not their fault, but at the same time they're wearing the Virgin insignia, so they're the representatives of Branson. It'd be time for a beating by proxy. Even Mother Theresa or Gandhi would be pushed into sticking the sandal in a couple of times, I reckon. Gandhi was a master of the Delhi Cut - he used it regularly on his opponents as a child when he walked unaware into back-street battles.
Birmingham's hoving into view - please, let Stinky out now - PLEASE! - and the journey's more than halfway done already. So far it's on time too - there's no guarantee it'll stay that way but on a journey like this you take your plus points where you find them.