Dear Southwest Trains, Take Two

I think yesterday's epic display of ineptitude calls for another letter I'd love to send to these impressively talented cretins.

Dear Southwest Trains,

We seem to be speaking quite regularly these days don't we? For three years we've had this sort of love/hate relationship where you have disdain for me as your customer and I have apathy for you as my rail provider, but I do think your recent performance is worthy of a second critique.

I tend to catch a half five train, this means I have to leave work bang on five o'clock or I miss it. So it's safe to say I do rush on my way back to Waterloo as you only run two services an hour and the idea of standing around a train station for thirty minutes is, believe it or not, not particularly attractive a prospect. I have nights that I don't make it in time, often due to the tube but those are unavoidable so I don't see the point of being stressed about it.

Last night however I rushed back to Waterloo with a colleague of mine who takes the same train on occasion, she had dinner plans so we forewent our regular Monday walk which pushes our train time back by an hour. Upon arriving we boarded our usual train and after a little deliberation sat in two middle seats facing each other. We did consider standing instead, but thankfully we decided against it.

I say thankfully because not long after sitting down we heard an announcement telling us we would be delayed as there was a problem at Wimbledon. Oh well, we decided to stay put even when we were told this delay was indefinite based on a lack of information provided to the driver of the service. About ten minutes passed and suddenly a huge amount of people from the train on the next platform disembarked and hurriedly boarded the train we were on. I looked askance at one of these "new" passengers and she said they had been informed the train was being diverted and would no longer be stopping at Surbiton, which ours was. Fair enough, total pain for them but at least they had our train to swap to.
I jokingly said to my friend that next thing we'd be told that our train was probably only stopping at Guildford due to rerouting, I didn't realise you were listening for suggestions and putting them into action!

About twenty minutes after the train was due to leave the doors closed and we pulled out of the station, which to me seemed like we'd gotten off lightly, as we had now found out the issue was a fatality at Wimbledon and I'd thought the delay would be much longer. I was, at this point, actually almost impressed with the service you were providing! I really should have known better shouldn't I?

Within about thirty seconds of the train leaving the platform, as in on the move and no longer able to get off from, the driver came on the tanoy to very kindly inform us that this service's first stop would be Weybridge... Seeing as at least fifty percent of the train's occupants were planning on disembarking at Surbiton surely this piece of information would have been significantly more useful to them if you'd shared it prior to leave the station?! All I could hear around my was the sound of people complaining and my friend cancelling her dinner plans.

A few moments later the train pulled into Vauxhall and stopped at one of the platforms. You know even after all the ineptitude you'd shown up to this point I still had an optimistic attitude and assumed you'd open the doors so people who didn't want to go miles out of their way could get off! Yep, wrong again! We sat there for about ten or fifteen minutes while people stared hopefully at the doors willing them to open before getting moving once more. We were rerouted through Teddington, Staines and Egham and just as we were approaching Weybridge there was another announcement. The first stop will now be Byfleet and New Haw. You are joking right?! So you've already pushed people past their desired stop without the option to get off and find an alternative route and now you're taking them even further away?

When the train finally made it to Byfleet and New Haw, bearing in mind we'd been sat on the delightful contraption for around an hour and a half at this point, we had the fun and excitement of having several hundred people get off and need to make their way (in the rain) down an open platform incredibly slowly, under the track and then back up the other side to another open platform in the rain. Thankfully a train pulled in around the time we made it onto the opposite side of the station, but I'm sure you'll understand that this didn't exactly improve our mood towards your inept company by this point! Do you realise that some people were so turned around as to where they were and had been on the train for so long that I heard someone suggest that they thought we were somewhere near Winchester?! That is how little information was provided as to what was going on.
Oh and please let me share with you what the crawl through the underpass was like.

Does that look fun?! Oh and the correct answer is no, in case you're unsure...!

Cue several hundred people squeezing back onto an already busy train with soaking wet floors which were by this point incredibly slippery and made me very grateful for a pole to grab before I ended up on the floor just to polish off the oh so lovely commute I was experiencing. A couple of stops later I was at my actual desired destination just in time for a delightful walk home in the pouring rain and walking in the door three hours after I left my office.

I do understand that someone going under a train is not your fault, however the way you handled the entire incident was poorly thought out, incredibly inconvenient to a large number of your customers and just generally about the poor level of standard I am learning to expect from you.

Let me guess, no refund?

Tube Dodger

As part of my diet and exercise kick I've started walking the four miles back to Waterloo three times a week instead of taking the tube. Now this of course has it's positives and negatives as does anything.

The biggest positive, and the reason I'm doing it really, is the exercise side of it. It means that I'm now walking between three and seven miles a day, five days a week. Great exercise and hopefully good for losing weight, oh and toning up your legs!

Negative side, cyclists in Hyde Park are even worse than commuters on the tube! There's nothing much that ranks higher on the embarrassment scale in these circumstances than having to say you were "run over by a Boris bike"... Though I'm pretty sure the people who rent them actually think of them as dodgems. As in they cycle however and wherever they want and you have to dodge 'em..!

Then you have the serious cyclists who spend too much time looking condescendingly at the Boris bike riders and not enough looking where they're going. Seriously they're a bunch of menaces, especially the ones who seem to think nothing of cycling full tilt across a busy pedestrian crossing, because they being cyclists (in their minds) rule supreme and us lowly ambulating heathens should part like the Red Sea before Moses to grant them unimpeded passage. Across the PEDESTRIAN crossing.... from the Latin "pedester"... meaning ON FOOT!!

Then you also have the horses. Now the sheer amount of horseshit in Hyde Park is stunning in it's enormity, but then I see things like these and it just puts a smile on my face!

A high up crossing signal just for horses, genius!

I have to admit, now I'm getting into it I am really enjoying the walk. It's not just the exercise but it reminds me what a beautiful city this is. It's so easy to forget with the craziness and the rush, but it is an amazing place. The architecture alone is just stunning, not even considering the river and the suprisingly large amount of greenery there is.

Plus, I'd miss out on so much entertainment by not being here and doing this walk! As we approached Embankment last week we were confronted by a mini protest, nothing major and barely held us up as it was just the end.

But as we stood waiting to be able to cross Whitehall I heard someone say "Oh I hate it when they do this!!" and turned to find myself confronted by a tall, slim man with floral shorts, wearing an aliceband and a huge amount of blusher... I would love to be able to share a photo but I was so shocked by his appearance I just sort of forgot I have a camera phone and just stared as he stormed into the middle of the road, stuck two fingers up at a police van before stropping off down the street.

Now really, how many places can you watch a tranny having a hissy fit at a van full of coppers in makeup that bright...?!

I love this city!

The Dangers of Sleep Talking...

This one needs a little back story so here goes.

Recently in a slightly drunken state, read cattled, I decided it would be a fabulous idea to write an email to my father. He and I don't get on and suffice it to say said email was not of the nicest persuasion. I had enough sense however to decide against sending it regardless of alcohol consumption but as some of my phrasings in it had made me giggle to myself I decided to share the amusement with my husband. As I handed him my phone he seemed to forget that iPhone's are touchscreen (I know, I know) and picked it up by the screen, at which point the email vanished off the page. In a total panic over the possibility of this being sent, and with a very sensitive family occasion on the horizon, I switched my phone off, then back on in airplane mode before deleting the email account entirely from the phone. Up until today, I didn't know if it had sent but it had played on my mind to a very large degree.

When I logged on to googlemail this afternoon my laptop automatically decided to log me in to the account in question and I decided that enough was enough and I would bite the bullet and check my sent items. To my great relief there was no sign of the offending article, I breathed a sigh of relief and decided to tell my husband as well so he didn't have to worry about it.

Now, fast forward to tonight.

He's been out this evening watching the boxing at the pub and arrived home around half past one, and in a far more sober state than I had expected, I have to admit! Anyway with a rare show of common sense he decided that the best place for him was bed and duly retired there. About five minutes after he went I remembered about this email and quickly popped my head in to tell him. Our conversation went roughly like this.

Babe are you awake?
Yeah.
Okay, forgot earlier but I meant to tell you I found out that email to my dad never sent.
That's okay, we can always burn the spare shirt.
.... Um, what?
Well that's why we have it, so we can burn the spare shirt.
(laughing) Okay hun, you're asleep so I'll talk to you in the morning.
No, I'm fine. Like I said we'll mince the first half of the cow and the second half of the cow can go in the glove compartment.
(really laughing) Okay, whatever you say... Anyway, you're really asleep so goodnight.
No wait, come back. Why are you laughing?
Can you remember the conversation we just had?
No, not really, something to do with a cow?
Well that's where you went but I was trying to tell you about that email.
See, this is why you love me, and if you're bored later just come in and talk to me!

He has, on the odd occasion, come up with these lovely little moments at night, I think one of my personal favourites was "It doesn't count unless you're towing a dog" though granted I have absolutely no desire to know what he was dreaming about at that point!

So be warned people, if you sleep talk try and cover it up, or else your evil wife might laugh so hard she posts it on the internet...!