Mirabile Dictu

The train journey down to Reading on Thursday evening was nothing short of miraculous. In fact, I think it was actually a first. Uncrowded – busy, but not rigid.

But the miraculous part? The part that made me think Virgin didn’t know I was on this train? The thing wasn’t just on-time, but it actually came in to Reading FIVE minutes early! My flabber has never been quite so gasted.

Plague Ward

Rail safety experts are investigating the cold and flu risks faced by commuters packed on trains. With the flu season upon us, we ask experts what does lurk among bus, rail and Tube passengers?

It’s another of those “no shit, sherlock” moments. People who commute to work in public transport are more likely to catch colds etc. Shocker. You only have to be doing it to know how many people at any one time are sniffing and sneezing their way through the journey.

However, I also feel that on occasion it has a beneficial outcome too – because it results in a tougher immune system than the people who commute to work in their own little environmental microcosm. Or “car” if you prefer.

Stagecoach Services

Regarding that poxy bus company I referred to earlier, they’re going to piss about with the route I use daily. the posters on the buses say “check on our website for more information”. So I go and check and guess what? Absolutely fuck all info at all. It’s only happening this wekeend, after all. Who needs to know beforehand?

So, I email them, saying “Ok, where’ve you hidden the info?”. And get this back…

Thanks for your e-mail regarding the upcoming service changes.
Firstly, I am sorry to learn that you have been unable to find the information from our web-site.
In order to download the information you need to go to the Manchester site from the Stagecoach bus home page. In the middle of that page there is a section on the upcoming changes and a hyperlink to download more
information.
If you have any further problems getting this information please contact me back and I will try and help if you have a more specific query regarding the 219.

Not a URL in the entire thing. So I guess their main site is stagecoachbus.com – only I can’t get the fucking thing to even load. Opera’s still sat there as I type this, saying it’s been trying for 15 bloody minutes. And it’s definitely not on the site for manchester because the useless fuckwits have all the IQ and co-ordination of a roadkill marmoset with Alzheimers.

Ok, I’ll calm down again now.

Oh – and for the gay members of the audience who are saying “well you should be boycotting them anyway, because their boss, Brian Souter, is a homophobic fuckwit” all I can say is “Yes, you’re right, I should. However, I don’t fancy paying either double the fare to ride on shittier busses, or walk the 4ish miles into town and home again each day purely through principle, and with the idea he’ll somehow notice my �7 per week“.

Sorry, but principles on this one would mean a Pride march twice a day every day, and to be blunt, keff that for a bit of principle. Traitor to the cause, blah blah.

Updated 19th Sept 7.30am
OK, the stagecoachbus.com site now loads, and it looks like – yes! – the timetable changes are hidden under www.stagecoachbus.com/manchester/index_html/index_html that address (I had to copy it in it’s glory just for techie humour – the “index_html” directory made me laugh anyway. Except it doesn’t load in keffing Opera. Nice to see browser standards are alive and well.

Ah, having done it in Nutscrape, it’s a keffing PDF – not quite sure of the reason why, but there we go. Technology. It’s a wonderful thing.