Dear Southwest Trains

You have recently been the cause of some really amusing days for me, so I thought I would write to share with you my abject glee at the service which you have been providing.


About two weeks ago, on a lovely Monday evening, after working late and being rather tired I arrived back at Waterloo in order to catch my evening train home to the peace, quiet and relaxation of my sofa and/or bed. Imagine my disappointment to read on the departure boards that NOTHING was leaving Waterloo at all. This was replaced by a sense of utter relief when the board was amended to state a train was leaving in the next ten minutes that was stopping at my stop.

In order to avoid the stampede that followed this announcement on the main concourse I decided to be a little sneaky and enter the closest platform in order to go down into the passageways that I could use to shortcut to the relevant platform. Unfortunately, it would appears around a thousand people had exactly the same idea so I'm unsure as to whether this decision helped or hindered my attempt to scramble onto the waiting train.

Upon my arrival on the correct platform I instantly dismissed the train as a waste of time, you could not have fitted an additional hobbit on the train with the careful application of crowbars. In fact I'd go so far as to say it made sardine tins, those of the anecdotal variety, look positively roomy! All of this combined led me to walk rather morosely back from the platform and to return to the departure boards on the concourse to find that the situation had returned to normal and there was STILL nothing at all leaving Waterloo, I'm sure you can imagine my barely contained joy!

At this point I decided that, to be perfectly honest, I wanted a cigarette. You wouldn't have known this at the time, but I am actually trying to quit smoking. I do have the occasional smoke, however this is the first time in quite some months I have actually gone so far as to agree to pay the insane Waterloo price of eight pounds (seriously?!?!?!!!!) for a packet of smokes and of course the further outlay for a lighter, given that I can't really believe my sunny disposition at this time would have been improved by the possession of cigarettes but no means to light them. Upon settling myself outside I overheard another passenger asking a member of staff about trains back to the town in which I live and so I involved myself in this conversation. The staff member, although very polite and sympathetic, basically informed us that at the moment there was nothing doing due to signal failures at three points on the line, but he was unsure as to how long this disruption would last. As I had gotten talking to the other passenger stuck there as well we decided that instead of standing around bored and solo we would go to the basement pub and join each other in a glass of wine.

So, my dear train managers, so far in one evening you have driven a thirty year old woman to drinking and smoking, are you proud of yourselves yet? Don't worry if you're not, we're not quite done yet.

At half past ten that evening, so after I had been sat waiting for your train services for four and a half hours at that point, we asked for the final time as to whether or not we were going to be able to get a train. This time, and yes we had been asking quite regularly, the answer was amended from "Hopefully but we don't know when" to "You'll be lucky, I'd make other arrangements!". This made the lovely fact dawn on me that I was stuck in the middle of London, trying to get to Surrey and unable to get any closer than Vauxhall by the sound of things! Right well, did you have any suggestions?

A black cab you say? Well yes that would work, are you going to pay the ninety odd pounds it would cost? No? Okay, anything else?
A night bus. Great plan, if I lived in London! Are you actually listening to me?!
Could my husband come and pick me up? Funnily enough with a small child to consider, NO!
A hotel, oh yes of course, and again will you be paying? No? Well that's unlikely then isn't it?

Thankfully, for me, my brother and his wife live in London. So I phoned him and he very kindly agreed to put me up for the night on their living room floor. Whilst this was massively appreciated it wasn't exactly my ideal, and there is just something lovely about going to work the next day in the same clothes. I mean nothing else really can quite recreate that ick factor or make you feel quite so scuzzy for an entire day. Can I suggest that you try it sometime? I'm sure you'll just love it!

So after this stellar performance on the Monday I was sure you'd be doing everything in your power to ensure a calm and easy rest of the week. Hence my confusion when there followed massive delays on the Thursday night, which to be fair I was lucky enough to avoid but only just by the sounds of it! Now you see, I've also been told that the same thing happened on the Friday.
Could you please explain to me that out of five working days, you manage to completey screw up three? Have you heard of customer satisfaction? Really, because lately your company does not appear to provide any!

I did like the story in the paper about how Southwest Trains would be paying compensation to those stuck on the Thursday night trains for four hours. I'm curious though, how about those of us who couldn't get home AT ALL on the Monday? Or do we not count?

Just to round off the super crush I'm developing on you off the back of your just superb service in the last couple of weeks I managed to accidentally leave my annual travelcard at home one morning last week. I obviously went and purchased a one day card and made my way to work, after picking up a form to request a refund. When given said form I was very peevishly questioned as follows -

SWT Employee - Have you left your travelcard at home before?
Me - No, I'm usually pretty good at remembering it.
SWT Employee - What is going on this morning, you're like the fifth person in ten minutes who's said the same?!
Me - I don't know, and to be honest I really need to make the next train so I'm not that interested.
SWT Employee - Well if this is the first time you've done it fill this form in and you can get a refund, if it's the second time we'll charge a fee for the refund and after that you get nothing back.

Okaaaaaaay, can anyone else see something a bit odd here? I pay around two and a half thousand pounds a year for the travelcard that grants me the right to stand uncomfortably on a crowded train/tube/bus every day but if I forget my card more than twice then I have to pay again for a service I have already paid above and beyond the sane amount for?! Do you realise it's almost twenty quid for a one day travelcard from my stop? Do you not maybe think you're being a little unfair on that basis?!

Hey but don't worry, next time you cancel all the trains or fail to provide the service that I have paid in advance for, I won't be holding my breath for you to refund me for that day's travel. After all, it's not like we pay much or have like no other choice of transport method...

Find The Gap

It's a funny thing, walking through a crowded railway station at rush hour. If you've not done it before, or you're on the outside looking in it almost seems impossible to comprehend picking your way through the surging mass in front of you.

People stop with no warning, change course unpredictably, have those stupid little suitcases that we all know I love soooooooo much and we mustn't forget that annoying moment where both people heading towards each other dodge and you end up crashing into each other. For the first week or so I was doing my London commute I think I said sorry at least fifty times a day and arrived at work and home each way feeling like I'd just played a real live game of dodgems or a mass scale game of chicken and lost...

Finally, I worked it out. It's all about finding the gap. When someone looks at the rush hour in Waterloo they see the mass throng of people, I now see the spaces between them and almost forget the people themselves are there. It turns into a dance of sorts. You duck and dive, weave and dodge, you learn pretty fast to judge people's speed and work out whether you can get somewhere before they do.

Maybe it should be treated like driving, have training and a test at the end before you're allowed loose on the general population. You could have a theory test with questions like -

1. You're moving towards the stairs to the underground and your mobile rings. Do you (a) stop dead at the top of the stairs, (b) answer the phone on the move and then talk louder and louder about unexpectedly losing signal as you descend underground... or (c) get the hell out of everyone else's way and have your conversation?
2. For some reason your ticket is rejected by one of the ticket barriers. Do you (a) stand there repeatedly putting your ticket through while it repeatedly refuses you access, (b) start hollering for someone to let you through whilst remaining where you're standing blocking the barrier or (c) get out the way, find the barrier guard and ask them to let you through?
3. The signs as you come through the underground exits read "Keep Left". Do you (a) keep left, (b)ignore the signs and walk down the right hand side thereby getting in everyone's way or (c) walk wherever you feel like it but making sure it's really slowly so as to annoy and hold up as many people as possible?

In terms of the practical exam, it could involve measuring your speed as you make your way through a crowd to ensure it's over a certain number. Or test whether you can reach platform one at Waterloo in time to catch the train that's leaving in three minutes.

And finally, when you've passed all these tests you will be a certfied Crowd Weaver and be allowed to commute alone. There, one problem of the commuter fixed, now if I could only come up with a way to take care of the bloody tourists and holidaymakers....

Make Your Mind Up!!!

So the tube strike is off, and I can't decide if I'm happy about it or not!

On one hand the tube strikes were going to make next week a total nightmare of almost no tubes, ram packed buses that don't stop at half the stops because there's too many people already and the complete uncertainty of what time you'll get to work or home again. It's horrendous, wouldn't wish it on anyone!

On the other hand, I could've swung working from home for at least a day, which would've meant a lie in!!! So in that respect I'm kinda disappointed that I've actually got to do the full five day week...

I'm not sure why it's been called off. For some strange reason the London papers are full of stories about an impending strike but they seem to lose interest in the details about 0.002 seconds after one gets called off. I'm sure it's coincidence...

Still, whether called off or not I'm sure Bob Crow will find another reason soon to strike again, I mean we can't expect him to do more than two months work without having a random break now can we?! 

Cry Me a River

Is there anything more pitiful than a sick man? Well yes apparently, me with a hangover...!

This morning whilst my husband was coughing, sneezing and spluttering away with a genuine cold/flu I was the one lying there whimpering with an epic hangover demanding sympathy and trying to convince him that I'm actually ill! To be fair, I had a point... I had a headache and I felt sick which are symptoms of illness, albeit self inflicted illness! Of course these rules don't apply if he's got the hangover, that would just be ridiculous...!

I have however thankfully discovered the cure to that horrible taste you have in the back of your throat when hungover. Over the years I have brushed my teeth to within an inch of their life, gargled listerine and even once tried gargling with tcp and none of it worked. It still tasted like I'd eaten a half decomposed badger! But finally I accidentally found the answer, ice lollies! I know, it sounds stupid but if you think about it it's the perfect solution! They hydrate you, they are nice and cold and the acid in them strips aaaaall other tastes out of your mouth, they're just the thing to sort you out. Well sort your mouth out anyway...!

At that point there really is only one thing for it, nick the husband's prescription painkillers and curl up in a miserable ball on the sofa in my dressing gown and wait it out. And can you believe I've not had one ounce of sympathy yet?! I mean really!!!

A Little Bit of a Plea?

Hello lovely readers! I'm afraid I need to ask you for a favour, but I also have some news for you. Blogger.com has now added the ability to follow blogs by email, and I've added the button on the right of the screen for anyone who wants it!

Now the shameless request. I really love writing this, and I love knowing so many of my friends are finding the sharing my thoughts on the interwebz amusing. But I was wondering if you'd be so kind as to spare me a moment of your Facebooking, Twittering or whatevering time and post the link to this page?

No pressure, but it would be pretty cool, much love regardless, sarcasm to resume now! x

Techno Over Reliance

The technological era is an amazing thing, and the world is ever smaller given the means now at our disposal to contact each other right the way across the planet. Letter writing is a lost art form, having been usurped by email; and now no one needs to make a phone call either thanks to the invention of text.
For starters the grammatical ability of future generations is going to go right down the pan thanks to the invention of the ultimate communicative laziness which is "text speak". I regularly have to send texts back to people asking them to translate because I have absolutely no idea what they've just "said" to me, whilst I on the other hand have the gentle mocking from my friends because apparently I text exactly how I speak, plus I'm a freak for grammar and punctuation. Nothing wrong with that!

Anyway, I think we as a population have now reached the point in over reliance on the technology available to us. When was the last time you got up from your desk at work to walk over to another person's desk to have the necessary conversation. I myself manage to have long (and comical) exchanges with the person two desks away from me, all using the medium of instant messaging... The most actual personal contact involved is when one of us sends the word "coffee" to the other and at that point we might actually disengage from the flashing screen in front of us and interact with the real world.

Emails now rule the offices of the world, both internally and externally. It is rare now to phone someone to query a situation, when typing up a quick email and hitting the send button makes it so much easier. In some instances I think it's true that it's a better idea, for example I need to interact with people within my company but with a time difference that makes phone contact difficult if not impossible. The problem now is the technology of email removes us slightly from the situations we find ourselves in, to the point that some find the need to copy every single person under the sun onto each one of their emails and we can distance ourselves from the recipients enough that a "pass the buck" attitude is easily cultivated. After all, a complaining or whinging email is just that thing we typed, the receiver is just a name in an address book, they're not really real!

I wonder what would have happened if the predicted Y2K bug had really happened. If all the technological systems of the world had one hell of a hissy fit and died. Have we become so reliant on them that we would struggle to function or would we adapt? Going back to simpler times appeals to some, though I'm not too keen on returning to the caveman dating attitude as I've never really enjoyed being clubbed unconscious by some neanderthal after a bit of fun, and living just on the outskirts of London with or without the tech I've witnessed enough of that going on!

Imagine going without your computer for one day, just one, oh hold on a second without that computer how are you going to read my inspired words of wisdom...?! Hmmm, techno withdrawal fail...

The Expected Unexpected

Tube strike, the two most dreaded words to the London commuter. And it is expected but still manages to catch you out and be unexpected at the same time. And boy does it screw with your life! Starting from the 16th of May there will be TWO WEEKS of tube strikes over two dismissed drivers. Now, the reported reasons for these sackings were as follows.

- The first driver was sacked for overriding the safety protocols and driving with "disregard for established procedures"
- The second driver was apparently abusive towards his co-workers.

I have very little time for striking tube drivers at the best of time. They get paid very very well for what they do, they get free travel and apparently excellent additional benefits. So when they decide to get their collective panties in a wad over a sacking, that if true was gross misconduct, I really don't care much about their feelings. IF the sackings were unfair dismissal as is being claimed then how about you wait until the court proceedings are complete before throwing in towels and refusing to work. If I refused to turn up to work because a friend of mine was fired, I'd be reprimanded and then likely fired, so why is it different for them?!

The effect this is going to have on already provenly grumpy commuters is making us even worse to be around, so nobody benefits from that! I either have to cram onto a hideously overcrowded bus (not. frickin. happening!) to make my way round a convoluted route to my office, or give up and go home to sign in from there. And to be honest working from home sounds like a blast, but it's not, but that's for another post.

They're trying to hit the company in the pocket, I get that's the plan, but it's not working. The people they're hitting are the regular commuters, the ones of us who've paid out for weekly, monthly, or annual travelcards so if they still want to try and salvage ANY sort of sympathy they seriously need to rethink. Amateur Transplants hit the nail on the head when they sang about them, and as someone pointed out recently, if they want to hit profits whilst keeping people on side then just leave the barriers open so no one gets charged... It's a pretty good idea to be fair, and yeah then I would actually have no problem with them getting on with it.

Or, even better, the RMT can start refunding me for every day of travel I can't actually use the ticket I've paid for. I prefer that actually, show me the money...!!