Disgruntled Commuter

Top Tip for Pedestrians ...

... when you're waiting to cross the road and it's been raining for what feels like a fortnight but may just have been for most of the weekend: Keep your mouth shut.

That way, when the car steams through the puddle without slowing or steering to avoid it, you'll only get a face full of dirty oily puddle water. Instead of a mouthful.

 Gah.
1.10.06 14:57


Lost in the Post

I'd like to start by apologising to anyone who was trying to travel on the early Hounslow train this morning. I slept in, you see - not by a great deal, just fifteen minutes or so, but enough to make it a toss up between proceeding with my normal getting up routine and catching the later train, or hurrying to catch the early one. I had forgotten, as I dashed out of the house and cycled to the station at twice my normal speed, that the gods reserve a special fate for the rushed-for train. I was, I suppose, fortunate, that the train was only fifteen minutes late and not cancelled, blown up or abducted by aliens...

But that wasn't what I wanted to blog about today. I wanted to blog about our postman, who appears to have disappeared, if you see what I mean. His little post trolley is still here, chained to a lamp post on the corner of our street. I saw it there on Saturday morning and it remained there all through the weekend, was still there when I cycled off to the station this morning and is still there - intact but looking a little damp - when I returned just now. Presumably it still has our post in it - we've had none all weekend. It could be he just got lucky but that would have to be one hell of a bored housewife to keep him occupied for three days. Or maybe it's just another postie's valiant struggle against the tide of junk mail* ...

*speaking of which, I promised James from Catching the Rain I'd mention his one-man campaign to spam the post office into submission on the subject. Go on and do your worst. I bet they don't read those emails anyway. Always assuming they're ever delivered.
2.10.06 18:28


WTF

So there I was on a grey, dreich, drear, damp, Christ-is-it-only Tuesday evening, holding my breath in the Vauxhall underpass, trying to fit my lights to my bike for the first time since April.

Only to discover that some humourist has carefully removed both of the little light brackets - front and rear - at some time during the long, hot, lovely summer.

Bastards. Where am I supposed to buy just the brackets? I hate this time of the year.
3.10.06 18:20


The Difference a Second Makes

(with apologies to one C. Dickens)

Go out the front door, check you have your keys, close the door, go to unlock your bike - result happiness.

Go out the front door, close the door, go to unlock your bike and only then check you have your keys - result misery.

Fortunately for me, the other half was still in the house so I was able to rouse him from his bed (some people don't have to commute at all, the bastards) and retrieve my keys without too much delay. The last time this happened I had nothing with me - no keys, wallet, money, travelcard or phone - and I had to go round to a friendly neighbour (this was when we lived outside London, can you tell?) and she lent me twenty quid so I could at least get to work. That would not be an option round here. The last time someone came round claiming to be a neighbour in need of an emergency loan, I never saw her or my money again ...*

 * Yes all right, I'm a sucker. It was only a quid.
4.10.06 18:20


Music, Maestro, Please

I wasn't a fan of the classical music being played at Vauxhall underground station when the scheme first started, I have to admit. There's something very patronising about the assumption that the yob element will be so horrified by the sound of a few violins playing in harmony that they will go and do their violence elsewhere. And I resented the implication that we passengers who remained were such simple creatures that a little soothing music would be enough to calm us into acquiescence. None of that has changed. But recently I've noticed something strange: I'm starting to look forward to my weekly blast of music when I renew my ticket at the station.

But weekly blast of what, precisely?  I am, I have to admit, woefully ignorant about music - I could probably recognise the famous bits of no more than half-a-dozen pieces at a push and that's it - but now I'm curious. I want to know more, find out more, hear more than a few bars of the stuff. There's a wasted opportunity here. Why no playlist up on the service whiteboards, no announcements (Northern line trains are subject to delay due to a signalling fault in the Camden Town area. Meanwhile, here's the London Philharmonica with Beethoven's Ninth ...) no London Underground Classical music CD? When they started doing poems on the underground they didn't just whack the poems up with no titles and not tell us who wrote them. So come on, TfL, take this opportunity to do more than herd us like cattle - lead us into the light.

And yes, this post is just an excuse to finally use the classical music channel on 20six
5.10.06 18:18


Bang Bang you're not Dead*

So I'm walking over Kew Bridge this evening on my way to the station when I hear a bang. A really loud bang. Loud enough that everyone stops walking and looks around, and then walks on suddenly feeling a bit vulnerable out there in the open. I don't know what caused it - sorry, I had a train to catch - but I did think to myself, 'that doesn't sound like a car backfiring.' And then I thought. 'I don't think I've ever heard a car backfiring.' And then I thought 'What does a car backfiring sound like, anyway? And when did a car last backfire? And what the hell is backfiring, when it comes down to it?' And by then I had reached the station and if there was any explosions or gunshots going on I'd more or less forgotten about them. My colleague, who ought to be old enough to know better, reckoned it sounded like a firework going off in an enclosed space, which given the time of year makes some sense. Looks like it's going to be a long Guy Fawkes season again. 

It's definitely going to be a long dark winter. I've been cutting it fine all week, cycling home without my lights, but today it was beyond cutting it fine and venturing well into dicing with death instead. I managed to clip a light on the back of my bag so the cars coming up behind me had something to aim for but there's still no way of fixing my front light on to anything at all. I tried to improvise by holding it onto the handlebar with one hand and only realised the utter stupidity of this plan when I realised I couldn't reach the brakes as I was approaching the crossing. This may well be another reason why cyclists need three feet - extra emergency braking capability. After briefly contemplating other mad schemes (in my teeth? Dangling from my backpack straps?) I decided to concentrate on cycling home as fast as I could in the gathering gloom. Never mind gunshots. If anyone's going to kill me, it will probably be me...

* If any family members - particularly my mother - are reading this, none of the second paragraph is true. It's all made up. Total fiction. Honest. Er ...
6.10.06 19:24


Barnes-storming

I was wondering at work today why my arms and shoulders were aching so much, when I remembered what had caused it. We'd decided to take the bikes and train to Barnes to see the birdies and of course taking the bike on the train also involves dragging a reluctant bike up and down several flights of steps (this may also explain the black oilstains on my trousers) not to mention wrestling it out of the way of passengers wanting to get on and off the trains through the entrance areas which, on the older trains at least, seemed to have been carefully designed so that one bike can't help but block the entire area. If there's anything more awkward to manhandle than a bike, I've not encountered it. Mine seemed to grow at least seven extra pedals, decided to weigh several extra tons, and sprout handlebars in all directions. How people manage to squeeze their bikes on actual commuter services (and sleep at night), I have no idea.

But anyway, we got there, and it was jolly nice, and not only did they have bike racks for your bike but they also had what I can only describe as bike cupboards as well. You wheel your bike in, you put your helmet and anything else on the handy shelf, and lock the whole thing up with your own bike lock so there's no faffing around with padlocks and combinations and you're off. Not only is your bike secure but so are your wheels, your pedals, your saddle and more importantly your fiddly little (and rather expensive for a couple of small pieces of plastic) light brackets. One of those ideas which struck me at the time as both brilliant and blindingly obvious. So why can't we have them at Vauxhall?*

bike_cage

Anyway, we were looking for interesting rarities at the Wetland Centre, but the real rara avis that we spotted was actually at the station itself. I didn't dare take a picture for fear of arrest so you'll just have to believe me: there were bin bags. As in the things that used to serve as bins before they were removed from every other station in London for security reasons. What do the people of Barnes know that we don't? Have they signed a separate deal with Al Quaeda? Or have they just decided that the security risk of someone managing to hide a bomb in a see-through plastic bag is clearly ridiculously low? I think we should be told.

* Apart from the fact, which only occurred to me later, that the good people of Vauxhall might not stop at locking their bikes up in them. Unattended bags, annoying small children, overflow prisoners from the local jail ... the possibilities are endless
9.10.06 19:36


 [next page]