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The daily travels of a commuter in London and beyond
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| ... In 2005 |
| ... Or in 2006 |
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Happy New Year We saw the new year in in style last night, and the not so early hours of this morning saw us setting off for the train station at Hampton Wick as confident and trusting as a pair of baby penguins* that there would be trains to take us home when we got there. And there were. Some of them had been cancelled, they were only running every half hour, but there were trains, all of them filled with passengers who had the look of people who didn't want to make any sudden head movements, at least not until some time late on Thursday. Tescos was shut, Lambeth North was bolted and padlocked, the streets were deserted, but the trains were still running. Which is fortunate, because Hampton Wick train station is a bleak and windswept place in winter. So thanks to the train driver who not only turned up this morning, but wished us a happy new year, thanks to the automated train announcement person who didn't (it would have just been too creepy) and thanks to the pair of yellow jacketed 'Travel Safe' officers who passed slowly through our carriage disguised as a pair of unfit middle-aged men but who were clearly the crack storm troops of the British Transport Police underneath. And thanks to everyone at Silverlink and Southwest trains who have been so generous with their blogging material in 2005. Long may it continue. Or not. Either way, I win... * no reason, I just liked the mental image. |
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1.1.06 21:58 |
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New Year - New Unreasonably Large Price Rises Ah yes, first working day of the year: time for all of the train companies to award themselves above-inflation price rises - even the regulated season ticket prices are going up by more than 3% and some of the unregulated ones are rising by more than twice that. I'm insulated for a couple of days because I (for once) had remembered to get my travelcard before the prices went up (and more importantly before everyone else in the entire world attempted to renew their travel cards this morning) but it will mean an extra quid a week for me from Thursday. SouthWest trains are being extremely coy on their website about how much they are raising prices by, but according to reports in the press GNER are hiking fares by almost 9% and Silverlink by around 6.5%. In Silverlink's case they are simultaneously introducing penalty fares which should mean a large increase in revenue if they ever manage to enforce it - all, apparently, to be spent on increased investment. Hmm. I'll believe that when I see it. (Of course, sending out a bloke with a can of paint and a roll of see-through bin liners for the Silverlink station platforms would count as a substantial increase in investment compared with last year's spend so maybe it will happen after all...) Meanwhile the real losers are the tourists and other visitors who want to keep buying single tickets on the underground, as the oyster card users simultaneously see their fares fall. This is obviously an incentive for most people to shell out the three quid deposit and get a pay as you go card. Putting my paranoid conspiracy theorist hat on (it's black with a tinfoil helmet lining) I did wonder whether this was to encourage us all to be making nice traceable oyster card journeys instead of anonymous cash only ones but if so they've made the penalty too steep. Just two zone one journeys on an oyster saves you £3 over the paper ticket price - enough to cover the deposit on a pay as you go card - so you can get an oyster, commit your nefarious acts under an assumed name (or spend your three day mini break travelling around London ... the two may not be mutually exclusive) and then chuck the incriminating piece of non-biodegradable plastic in the Thames. My prediction? Southend's beaches will be knee deep in discarded oyster cards by the end of the decade. Remember, you read it here first. It only remains for me to wonder what SouthWest Trains will be spending their mystery fare rise money on this year. Probably not more shiny new trains as they've got quite a lot of those already. Hopefully not booking more studio time for the automated train announcement voice man to record more annoying messages to while away the journey with. My request would be for them to hire somebody at Vauxhall who knows how to use the train information system computer. Since 2005*, the monitors in the tunnels and on the various platforms have all been displaying different fragments of a 'new hardware installation' dialog - platform 3 got the bottom left hand corner, platform 4 got the bit in the middle, the station entrance got the title bar, and so on. Presumably they have been waiting for someone fit enough to sprint around the station reading all the bits and then piece them together into something coherent. Either that or they are just a bit rubbish at using computers. You decide. * Oh all right, only two working days ago, but still... |
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3.1.06 18:58 |
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Don't Mess with the TPS I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this little encounter: No sooner had I pressed 'submit' on my last entry than the phone rang. Disgruntled Commuter: Hello? Of course it would have been better if Kendra hadn't rung at all, but that way I would never have known how well it worked ... |
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4.1.06 18:53 |
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How to Wear a Scarf I was pleased to note this evening that with the return of the cold weather passengers had mostly reverted to wearing their scarves in the normal sensible way, i.e. wrapped around the neck one or two times, rather than the new poncey doubled-up way with the ends tucked through the loop. Up until now this strange continental variation on normal scarf-wearing practice had become so prevalent that I was beginning to wonder whether some sort of EU regulation had made it compulsory and I had unaccountably missed the memo. The purpose of a scarf, you see, is to keep the wearer's neck warm, not to make them look as though they were the victim of a failed knitwear-related hanging. Far be it from me to dispense fashion advice, but next time you are about to don your woolly muffler, before deciding how to wear it, you should look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself the following simple question: 'Am I, in any way, French?' If the answer is yes, feel free to do the slip-knot thing. You'll probably be doing it with a cashmere scarf teamed with an understated yet beautifully cut camel overcoat and the end result will be insouciant yet casually elegant. In all other cases, especially if the scarf in question was knitted for you by a relative who still remembers the Tom Baker Doctor Who years, stick with the usual way. You know it makes sense. (Next week on Disgruntled Commuter your fashion advice guru will be tackling the following thorny issues: Wearing a Hat - head or heels? Socks - one on each foot? and Donning Underwear - label at the back?) PS: sorry for the late posting. There was no internet at home all evening; we had to make our own entertainment (apparently there's this thing called television ...). I wrote this last night, honest, but I had to bring it into work on a memory stick. Technology, who needs it... |
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6.1.06 09:03 |
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Costa Pretty Penny I foolishly arranged this evening to meet someone at Waterloo at the height of the Friday rush hour. You'd think as a hardened city dweller and commuter I'd be immune to crowds of people but rush-hour Waterloo is something else. Kew Bridge station gets pretty full of an evening but everybody mostly just stands there hunched in misery and doesn't move about much. In Vauxhall they are a little livelier but in Vauxhall in the evening there's nothing to do but get off your train and get the hell out so the traffic mostly flows in one direction. In waterloo there are a plethora of shops, strange food outlets found nowhere but in train stations, cafes, bars, cashpoints and actual trains and everyone seems to be rushing from one to the other in different directions simultaneously. Having got off my train, it took me a few minutes just to sidle my way into the main slipstream of commuters (think Wildebeests migrating across the plains of the Serengeti, but with each one carrying an Evening Standard and a hot beverage) and then ease myself out again, washed up on the relatively calm shores of a coffee shop where I could wait for my friend and in the process be parted with an unreasonable amount of money for a hot chocolate and, get this, a chocolate stirrer. This was about as useful as its counterpart the teapot and the whole experience was made even more painful by the staff attempting to give me change for a fiver when I'd handed them a tenner. I think they were confused by the fact that nobody had ever managed to order something in their cafe before that actually resulted in change for a fiver. Never mind chocolate oranges, David Cameron, ask yourself why it costs more to buy a relatively healthful and non-alchoholic drink at a coffee shop than it does to buy a pint of beer at a London pub. Something wrong there, no? We rectified the situation by repairing to a local pub where we saved ourselves a bundle by getting hammered instead. |
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6.1.06 22:18 |
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Oh All Right Then Listen very carefully because I will do this only once (respond to a tag, I mean) seven things to do before I die 1. Go to Antarctica (watch this space) seven things I cannot do 1. Stop using ellipses at the end of every other sentence ... seven things that attract me to blogging 1. The discipline seven things I say most often 1. Nightmare seven books that I love 1. Miss Smilla's feeling for Snow seven movies that I watch over & over again 8. High Fidelity (or any Nick Hornby) seven people I want to join in Anyone who wants to - feel free. |
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7.1.06 16:43 |
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Dances with Penguins I am off here. I may be some time ... One down, six to go. I may be able to post, so watch this space, otherwise normal service resumes in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, whose stupid idea was it to have a tube strike on the day I have to get to Heathrow with an absolute mountain of kit? Answers on a postcard please. |
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9.1.06 10:59 |
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