It's Friday 1^st November, I'm going down to Reading to see a couple of friends for the weekend. Sounds great. Well, it would except for the "joys" of being sat on a Virgin train for three-ish hours. That's three-ish hours if it's on time, doesn't get delayed, doesn't suddenly get slowed down by one poxy leaf on a line or whatever.

  And if I don't kill some fucking retard who can't comprehend ideas like seat reservations - or even more to the point, the simple (well, I thought it was simple) fact that Virgin are shite, and can't even manage to organise seat reservations properly, regardless of the fact that their nice new flashy trains have some little digital display to say where a seat is booked from and to.

  I shouldn't be surprised, really. The passengers can't handle things like announcements and displays on the platforms saying "This is the train for x, y and z", and still get on the train and then ask everyone around them "Is this the train for y?". Of course the muttered response from the crowd of "Yes, you chimp" (or words to that effect - it began with a C anyway) makes me smile, but then again, the expressions of mass homicide always have that effect on me.

  Hell, the lower primate sat opposite me can't even cope with the concept of "put your bags in the luggage racks" and has instead shoved it under the table, limiting footroom epically. And of course, being a typical Brit, I've said fuck all about it. Then again, I'm just stretching my legs and pushing the bag towards him, which is much funnier anyway. If in doubt, go for passive resistance, and then find a funny side to it. British anarchy at it's best.

  It's just a pity that Virgin hasn't really seized upon anarchy as a decent excuse for how shit it really is. They might as well say it - they seem to have no regard for organised concepts like timetables, reservations, ticket inspections, or anything else, so anyone else would perceive them as anarchistic anyway. It makes me laugh that the newest trains have got power sockets for laptops etc. - I wonder how many people dare risk their laptops to the power vagaries of a train that can't even keep it's lights on 100% of the time?

  Also, this entire journey is making me think of the current TV advert for Virgin Trains, where the steward is looking for a doctor to help with the arrival of a passenger's baby. I bet the baby was late too - no chance of it being on time, let alone early, if Virgin Trains had anything to do with it. Then again, the train might not have been late at that time - if it was late, the steward wouldn't be anywhere to be bloody seen anyway.

  One other thing that's been introduced fairly recently is the concept of a quiet coach. This is the coach where mobile phones and personal stereo's aren't supposed to be used - not a bad idea, it stops the presence of some knobber answering his phone (and why is it that all of these cretins have either the classic Nokia tune (still!) or some "zany" tune that shows their personality (or lack of) by having the theme from Mission:Impossible or similar) yelling "Yeah, I'm on the train! Sorry can't hear you! You're breaking up! Tunnel!" at top volume. He (it's normally a he) has to speak at that volume level because of the background noise from a mass grinding of teeth by the other passengers.

  However - and you know who you are, Miss "I've got a leopard on my T-shirt, I'm dead cool, me" - this does NOT mean that instead you spend your entire journey yelling down to your mate sat five seats away because the two of you are too fucking retarded to spot a seat together and use that. It also does NOT mean that standing in the aisle next to aforementioned mate and screaming and giggling about some shite feature about "the sex life you can expect from your horoscope predictions" in Glamour/More/Bella/whatever the fuck it is you're "reading". It MAY mean that it's OK to use a gun to assassinate the noisy pillocks, so long as the gun has a silencer and uses subsonic ammunition. I don't know - the sign doesn't say. But the idea of it lets me while away ten minutes...

  We pull into a station - the normal scrum ensues of people getting on and off the train. I've got this to look forward to in an hour or so. But why is it that people suddenly have to be so organised before they sit the fuck down? They stand in the aisle, making everyone queue behind them while they sort out the walkman (which of course shouldn't be being used, as it's the quiet coach - guess that's another unread sign then), the book, the drink, then take off the jacket, put the bag on the luggage rack (or under the table) and then finally they can sit down. And the best bit of all with it is that the person who's been stood fuming and swearing behind person 1 then goes to the next seat and does exactly the same thing!

  Personally, I'd rather get out the way of the people behind me, simply shove bag onto table or into the rack, then I can sort it out far easier once everyone's gone past, without some gormless primate breathing down my neck and looking into my gear. But I'm obviously a freak, not designed to be part of the modern world.

  Finally we get into the destination station. Only 30 minutes late - not bad in a 3 hour journey, and in fact I think that according to Virgin's timetable expectations, that actually makes us about 90 minutes early. Not bad. Two days with friends.

  And then the same journey back on Sunday. Oh joy. I can't wait...