Travelling
Posted: Sat 8 April, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I’m off to see friends in Middlesbrough.
It’s going to be the longest solo drive I’ve done, by quite a margin – and the mileage involved isn’t far off what we did to get to the Lake District a few weeks ago. It’ll be interesting to see how well I handle it, but I’m not worried by it at all.
So I’ll be coming back on Monday, 600-650ish miles wiser…
Ticket Barrier
Posted: Thu 6 April, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Travel 2 Comments »Bracknell train station has automatic ticket barriers. In general they’re no bad thing (we’ll gloss over the fact that half the time they’re left open while the ticket inspectors sod off somewhere else) and just make getting on and off the platform into a bit more of a bottle-neck than usual. Could be better, could be worse.
I’ve got a season-ticket for using the trains on the way to and from work, and again, in general this works fine. However, somehow this month the ticket’s magnetic strip has been blanked, so the automatic barrier won’t accept it, and I have to go and deal with the Numpty Bint on the gate, who lets through people with knackered, or non-standard-size tickets. I don’t care that this person is female, but I do care that she’s a fucking numpty with, on current evidence, more feet than IQ points.
Last week I made the cardinal sin, while going past her, of having my ticket upside down. Now, bear in mind it’s got “12th April 06” on it in friggin’ huge letters, the fact it’s upside down shouldn’t really matter a toss. But oh no, to Numpty Bint we’ve got to have the “I can’t read upside down, turn your ticket round” episode. Is it really that difficult to figure it out? Obviously so.
Today, though, was the last straw. After a week where I’ve been face to face (and generally fucked off) with Numpty Bint every day, twice a day, today she says “Oh, you’ve got to prove to me that your ticket doesn’t work. I’m not supposed to let you through until I’ve seen your ticket doesn’t work.” So I’m supposed to walk back down to the other end of the ticket barriers (through a shitload of commuters all flooding off the train that’s just arrived) to have the fucking ticket barrier beep at me, tell me to ‘seek assistance’, wade back through the commuters, and get back to her.
Instead, I opted for
If the fucking ticket worked, or had worked in the past fucking week, I’d be through the bloody barriers, and going to the platform, rather than dealing with you
She let me through.
Photos
Posted: Mon 13 March, 2006 Filed under: Photography, Travel 1 Comment »Ok, yes, photos from Lake District break are up on Flickr – enjoy.
Back
Posted: Fri 10 March, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Travel 3 Comments »Yes, we’re back. And a bloody good week it was, too. Definitely feeling far better for it, and with some semblance of sanity restored.
More later, but for now it’s time to get back ontrack, read some sites, all that kind of gubbins.
Oh, and delete 2,500+ spam comments, mostly caught by the anti-spam stuff, thankfully…
Local Public Transport
Posted: Mon 6 March, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Travel Leave a comment »While we’re away, the Mother-In-Law (well, almost in-law) is looking after the house. One of the things I had to do before she arrived was to sort out timetables for the local buses and trains.
Now, the train bit is no problem, and the timetables are always at the station. So that was fine.
The bus situation, however, is a bit different. When I went to the bus station, which always used to have an office where you could pick up timetables, it turns out that they’ve decided it’s more economical to not bother with that, and simply have the timetable p on the bus stands, wrapped in plastic. In other words, you can’t get a copy of a timetable to take away with you. Well chuff me, that’s helpful, isn’t it?
In fact, you have to either get a timetable online (and do they do timetables in PDF format so you can at least get one easily? Do they fuck-as-like) or you have to ring them or email them and get one sent out. Which is OK if you’re organised and getting this kind of thing sorted in advance. But what happens when you’re just wanting to find out when the next bus is? In short, you’re knackered.
And then they wonder why less people are using the sodding service. I sometimes wonder if First Bus haven’t made the executive decision that actually they’d be able to run a decent service if only they could stop people being inconvenient and actually wanting to use it.
Genius
Posted: Tue 24 January, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Hey, I know, it’s bloody cold today, so why don’t we turn off all the train heating systems?
After all, we left the bloody things on all summer when they weren’t needed, so we have to save a bit of money now. So why not on one of the coldest mornings so far this year?
Tossers.
Whale I Never
Posted: Mon 23 January, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »I have to admit, I didn’t want to go and see the whale in the Thames over the weekend, and wouldn’t have wanted to even if I lived in London. Even if I lived right on the banks of the Thames where it was, I wouldn’t have wanted to see it.
I can understand why people wanted to. But in general if a whale’s that bloody lost, it’s going to die. The stupid thing with whales is that when they’re epically lost, they seem to follow the ethos of “I’m lost, I’ll just keep going straight on ’til I find something that’s familiar”. And even if it had been towed back to sea, the odds are that – for that reason – it would’ve come straight back up the Thames again.
So no, I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t even want to see it on TV. When we were in Iceland a couple of years back, we did see some whales in their natural environment – not many, because it wasn’t the right season, but we got lucky. Seeing them like that was fantastic, and I’d love to go on a proper whale-watching trip. (and have every intention of doing so) But seeing one lost, disoriented, and not in its true natural environment? No, that doesn’t/didn’t appeal one little bit.