The Happy Commuter

Happy Commuter hits the road

2012-02-15T20:51:00.000Z

Well, that was a bit of a shock to the system. After ten years commuting by train, and four months on foot (downstairs to my office), I've got me an exciting new client, to whom I need to drive. For the next few months I will be up early once a week to motor down the A1 to North London. Vroom vroom!

Still, I'm lucky enough to have a fairly new Skoda Yeti to get me there - complete with fully-functioning (i.e. as yet untouched by four-year-old) car radio. The legendary "Today" programme on Radio 4 kept me company on the way there. Liza Tarbuck on Radio 2 entertained me on my journey home. I really am bang on my demographic aren't I?

The Power of Words

2012-01-04T21:59:00.002Z

It is a wry coincidence that the eventual conviction of two men in the Stephen Lawrence murder case rightly dominates the front pages whilst the Luis Suarez saga is splashed all over the back pages. Obviously the two incidents are nothing like comparable, but what their confluence does demonstrate is that, whatever the truth behind Suarez's motivation, his words are the thin end of a very nasty wedge.

Considering that footballers can get banned for three games for pretty much breaking an opponent's bones, an eight match suspension for alleged comments to a member of the other team might at first glance seem excessive. When the furore over the sexist comments of ex-Sky Sports duo Richard Keys and Andy Gray kicked off (pardon the pun) last year, the consensus amongst the people at Appetite, where I then worked, was "it's political correctness gone mad." Much of the office banter was essentially offensive, but was all light-heartedly meant, so no harm done eh? I did argue the thin-end-of-the-wedge case at the time, but it's hard to connect "locker room bravado" with domestic violence, prostitution or any of the darker shades of chauvinism from the comfort of a West End office.

More surprisingly, it was a similar story, at a different company, when the treatment of Shilpa Shetty on Celebrity Big Brother was in the news five years ago. Now apart from suggesting that the design industry isn't a particularly diverse one, what this does demonstrate is that many people are blissfully unaware of the tremendous power of words. Today's throwaway insult is tomorrow's newspaper headline. It's insidious. It isn't far from there to the playground, the workplace. And if a word is repeated often enough it acquires emotional resonance, and what began as a throwaway remark becomes something much more harmful.

The design business is understandably obsessed with the power of the image, but it's hardly unique, so whatever you do and wherever you work, it is worth being aware of the potency of language. As the race for the White House gets underway once more, who can forget the most powerful tools in the kit that swept Obama to power unforgettably in 2008? Those three little words - Yes. We. Can.

Words beget attitudes, and attitudes beget behaviour. That is why it is right to condemn and even punish those who use words to abuse.

Remembrance at the checkout

2011-11-11T16:42:00.002Z

Given the date, I thought I'd share with you all a tale of Remembrance Day past that, in my opinion, encapsulates the significance of the occasion (and is also, I think, in it's own way, darkly amusing).

Four or five years back, The Wife and I were doing our weekly supermarket shop on a Sunday which happened to be Remembrance Day. Come 11am, the announcement came over the PA that the store would fall silent for a couple of minutes as we paid our collective respects.

A hush descended, broken only by the odd cough and a few whimpering infants.

How did the retailer choose to mark the end of this period of reflection? The Last Post? The National Anthem? A round of applause? No, the most solemn two minutes of the year was instead brought to a close with a cheery "Thank you for shopping at Tesco."

The odd thing was, they had probably agonised over this, and somebody somwhere had concluded that it was the right thing to say.

On further reflection it seemed almost apt - a reminder of exactly what was won all those many years ago, in Flanders Fields and on the beaches of Normandy, and what Our Boys, as The Sun refers to them, are dying for today. The freedom to shop.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Premier Foods and the Premier League

2011-11-04T20:36:00.000Z

Since the phrase "credit crunch~" burst into our collective consciousness in 2008, high profile business stories have tended to be those in which the public has a genuine stake, such as state-owned banks, or outsourcing firms that are perceived to be making money off the taxpayer. Of course, an industry that has both suffered from, and seemed somehow immune to, the effectsd of the financial crisis has been football, especially in the surreal world of the Premier League.

One of the most interesting stories of the past five years, has actually been that of another Premier, Premier Foods. Up until the mid-noughties, the company was interesting enough, home to such brands as Ambrosia, Branston and Lloyd Grossman. They made headlines with bold moves such as launching Branston Beans, reckoned briefly by some commentators to pose a serious threat to Heinz in that category. They were interesting, sure, even exciting at times, but no cause to hold the front page.

But then a guy called Robert Schofield took over and went on an acquisition spree that would make even the big spenders of the Premier League dizzy.

Rival RHM was first - bringing well-known brands such as Bisto, Sharwoods, Robertsons and Hovis into the fold. It was a seismic step, operationally and brand-wise. It was a genuine case of eating the Big Fish. And no sooner had we rubbed our eyes and absorbed that, then Mr Schofield went out and bought another Big Fish in Campbell's, adding the likes of OXO, Fray Bentos and Batchelors to a bloated portfolio. One wondered how on Earth they were going to make a success of brands that seemed for the most part to be competing with each other. And where was the money coming from?

Well, now we know. The company is in trouble, its famous names not enough to protect it from its massive debts, and Robert Schofield is off, leaving an unwieldy mess behind him, having reached for the stars and come crashing back to Earth. Sound familiar? Well, it bears a striking resemblance to the fate of many of of our famous football clubs - Leeds United and Portsmouth spring to mind. But there are still plenty of others riding the crest of a debt-fuelled wave.

Obviously it's strange comparing Baked Beans and Bisto to Balotelli and Tevez - but perhaps this tale from a more prosaic world should give the Billionnaires of Man City pause for thought.

It's not what you say, it's the way that you tell 'em

2011-10-05T22:02:00.004+01:00

On Monday night I went to a stand-up comedy gig at The Hope & Anchor in Islington (Plug Alert - I'm due to perform there in two weeks). The line up contained no household names (outside of their own households, that is) but the gags were good, the crowd was lively if small, and nobody said anything too offensive. One act, though, made a profound impression on me - a stand-up comedian who told no jokes, yet got the biggest laughs of the night.

At the start of the second half, the compere, Rich (we're that close), called forth one Dr Brown. Suddenly, a hirsute apparition in bermuda shorts and chest wig bounded up on to the stage. "Yeah!" he cried, "is everyone having a good time?" We all hollered our assent, as one does, and when he repeated the question the response was the same, only perhaps a little louder. Again he inquired as to whether we were enjoying our evening, and again we replied, as one, with a loud chorus of whoops and hollers. And so it went on. And on. And on. And on.

"You want some more?" he eventually asked. Hell yeah. The cheering continued, and Dr Brown started singling out individual members of the congregation (and I use that term deliberately) to share in the approbation. "What about this guy?" he would say, and we would cheer even more. He then implored us to take our clothes off.

The guys he had picked out felt compelled to play along, but audience participation appeared to reach its limit when Dr Brown removed his shorts, serving chiefly to remind us that Autumn had arrived.

Then Dr he began chasing the two semi-naked guys around the room, trying to remove their undergarments. By this time, we were rolling in the aisles.

Eventually, he thanked us all, put his shorts on, and left. Apparently, he is a Children's TV presenter.

The next act came on, told some jokes. But the energy had gone from the room. We just couldn't get going again. What does this tell us about comedy? Nothing.

What does it tell us about communication? It's a two-way thing. Put your message out there in an engaging way, and let your audience join in.

The Tooth, The Whole Tooth

2011-08-04T22:40:00.003+01:00

It may just be that I have been watching more telly of late (The Wife has been feeding her Soap Opera habit) but I do seem to have come across more than the usual number of toothpaste commercials. One effort in particular caught my eye, with the remarkable claim that since, like an iceberg, only one third of a tooth is visible, twice-daily brushing only does a third of the job.

Even those of you who have not seen the advertisement in question will know exactly what is coming next. Use this toothpaste, it suggests, and by some magical power it will clean the root below the gum - that is, the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth. Now I'm sure there is science to support this (I'd never dream of accusing advertisers of being economical with the too-, sorry, truth). But it does strike me as odd that every time there's a new toothpaste ad the makers feel the need to create some sort of value added concept to augment the basic benefit that it will taste nice, leave your breath smelling okay, and stop your teeth from rotting from all that chocolate you eat.

A couple of years back there was a rash of ads promoting a toothbrush featuring a textured "tongue brush" on the reverse which could be used to clean the bacteria from one's tongue (where 75% of the wee bugs in your mouth can be found). Presumably this was based on the "insight" that many of us had been doing this for years anyway (I started after watching an episode of Muppet Babies in which Kermit brushes his), and as such there was an untapped need from which they could make some extra money. It may also have been related to the rise of the electric toothbrush, which of course does not offer the same facility, as if you try to brush your tongue with an electric toothbrush your taste buds will be shredded.

It's a stark contrast to the marketing of other "grooming" products such as deoderant, razors and shampoo, all of which focus on crafting a story around the brand rather than blinding the consumer with science. One thinks of the Lynx Effect or Dove's "Real Women."

My main problem with the toothpaste approach is not that it doesn't work (I'm sure it does), but that it seems to me a ridiculous stance. Because surely if we've all been doing it so wrong all these years, and cleaning only a small part of dental kit, why have they not all fallen out? Why am I not surrounded by people with mouths full of fillings and false teeth?

It can't all be down to the fact that my dentist takes NHS patients.

My letter to First Capital Connect Customer Services

2011-06-21T14:48:00.002+01:00

To whom it may concern

I have just submitted a Delay Repay compensation claim following the disruption to the 18:10 London Kings Cross - Peterborough service yesterday.

Details of the refund amount were not featured on the web site, but I received an email confirming that my "rail replacement vouchers" would shortly be dispatched - no mention of the amount. After a quick call to customer service, I have managed to establish that for delays under one hour (mine was approximately 45 minutes) I will receive a refund for half of the cost of that leg of the journey.

Given that an single Anytime fare for that journey is £13.50, I take it that I will be receiving a voucher worth the princely sum of £6.75.

Since I pay monthly (as of this year more than £300 per month) for the privilege of not getting a seat on your peak time services, this will be of little practical use to me, unless I start a collection of such vouchers and save up until such time as I have been accumulated enough hours' delay to fund a full return tip to work.

I am almost afraid to ask, but is there a deadline on the use of the voucher? Like, for example, the end of the week that it is issued? If you give me advance notice I shall be able to plan a trip to Letchworth, or perhaps Stevenage, in order to ensure that I extract full benefit from your generosity.

Please give my regards to the shareholders.

Yours faithfully.

Jeremy

Why this ice cream story's got me hot under the collar

2011-05-27T13:45:00.006+01:00

Sometimes, the day job throws up stories that are just too compelling to ignore. The coming together of Beechdean Farmhouse Dairy Ice Cream with that "iconic" (a phrase often ascribed to famous brands that no one buys anymore) Loseley is one such story, the more for me because it is tinged with a very personal poignancy.

My previous company had worked on a comprehensive redesign of the Loseley brand at the time it was purchased by Hill Station, one of the several proprietors to have tried, and failed, to restore the brand to its former glory. On joining, one of my first actions was to contact Beechdean, whose packaging - a mish-mash of badly-executed ideas - I had come across in the supermarket.

I went to meet Andrew, the owner, at a major industry event at London's Excel. One thing led to another and before long we were working on packaging design for the brand's newest product. We produced some good concepts, built up some momentum, and it looked like the start of a beautfful relationship, with much grand talk of turning Beechdean into a real challenger brand. The newly-designed product launched to great feedback from the trade and consumers.

And then everything just ground to a halt.

Beechdean's focus shifted to its motor racing business, culminating in a doomed joint venture with Nigel Mansell. The Beechdean ice cream brand remained exactly as it had been - fragmented, old-fashioned and lacking innovation. Several distribution partners - notably the Albert Hall - switched to other brands. Meanwhile the likes of Hagen-Dasz and Kelly's of Cornwall went on exploring new ground

Notwithstanding the myth that ice cream sales depend on hot weather, this acquisition could herald stormclouds over the company’s North Dean HQ. Owner Andrew Howard’s pledge to make new purchase Loseley “an uncompromising super-premium product” depends on sustained investment and a clear strategy. Otherwise, regardless of the weather, the deal could bring both brands to melting point.

What's that at the end of the garden?

2011-04-11T13:41:00.011+01:00

Every year, at about this time, The Wife looks to the skies in that endearingly decisive way of hers and declares "Isn't it lovely outside!" (note absence of question mark) "Let's have a barbecue!" To which my instinctive response is always "Don't be ridiculous! What do you think it is, Summer? We haven't even had Easter yet and you're suggesting we all get our shorts on and make like it's July! Come to your senses woman! What is it about people round here that at the first glimpse of Sunshine they feel compelled to throw off their garments and charge outside to cavort on still-dewy grass? Why don't we just go the whole hog and head down to the beach with a bucket and spade?"

I have never been barbecue's biggest fan. I admit that in certain social settings, large gatherings where good cheer and conversation flow like (and possibly because of) red wine, a barbecue can be a great addition to proceedings. But on a smaller, family scale, it seems to almost more effort than it is worth. I am, if not a lazy sod, certainly a person for whom convenience has considerable appeal. I realise that this is not very alpha-male of me, and that as a bloke I am meant to see the barbecue as some kind of primal link to our hunter-gatherer heritage and a chance to cast off the shackles of conventional domesticity and once again cook the spoils of bloody sport (or in this case, a trip to Sainsbury's which can be equally scary especially if The Wife is involved). Although (as those that know me will be aware) I make no claim to alpha-masculinity, this is a source of regret. I would love to be an outdoors person, I really would - indeed, I am a big fan of getting outside if I have somewhere to get to. But al fresco dining has never grabbed me. The food gets cold and there are wasps.

Now you don't get through nearly a decade of marital bliss without having some degree of control over your baser instincts, so obviously this is not the response I come out with. With feigned enthusiasm I nod my head and make my weary way to the garden shed, there to rummage and dig amongst a Winter's worth of bric-a-brac until I locate the barbecue gas cylinder and assorted bits and bobs we need for a really splendid feast.

Yes, you read that correctly - gas cylinder. I am ashamed to admit that we decided to purchase a gas barbecue after several years of frustration as the gale that habitually blew through the garden of our old house extinguished a succession of matches before eventually the charcoal furnace of our former barbie would catch alight. So instead of rushing down the the local petrol station to get a bag of charcoal, we have an alarming-looking green cannister of propane gas which has to be connected with a bit of rubber tubing that was surely stolen from a secondary school science lab. It does detract somewhat from the old-school elemental appeal.

Of course, I can never remember how it works. After poking and prodding various switches and knobs for a short while, I am forced to go in supplication to The Wife, who with much tutting and grumbling about my lack of technical know-how, gets it going with insulting ease. Various meaty foodstuffs are duly produced and cooked, and consumed, while the pieces de resistance, barbecued bananas, are slowly baked within their skins. Then, as the wasps descend, it is time to retreat, laden with dirty plates, to the kitchen, to try to hack bits of burnt-on food from the griddle, or lose finernails in the attempt.

It is a meal that takes twice as long to prepare as to eat, and three times as long to clear up. Can someone please explain to me why this is held to be a relaxing way to spend a Sunday?

A brief tale about customer service

2011-03-05T22:52:00.004Z

Last week I happened to pick up a Network Rail Customer Satisfaction survey that was being distributed, very unobtrusively, at Kings Cross, to Rush Hour commuters who had just got off their trains and were mostly in too much of a hurry to notice, let alone stop to fill in a form. Call me a cynic, but it was almost as if they didn't really want you to notice. As with any dealings I have had with NR, or indeed "my" train company First Capital Connect, it felt frustratingly remote. It is almost as if the guardians of the nation's vital arteries (if you'll pardon the analogy) will do everything in their power to avoid coming into real contact with the actual users of their services.

The trains have been pretty unreliable recently, and the experience awaiting the commuting hordes at Kings Cross even worse. The Powers That Be are continuing their campaign to prevent people from actually catching their trains, putting up barriers between platforms, and installing useless ticket barriers, only two of which are ever working, at the point of densest over-crowding. Meanwhile, the trains have been delayed, usually falling moments within the ten-minutes-late mark (which is the point at which you can ask for a refund - not that anyone would ever bother because the process of claiming one is so anachronistic and slow).

Trying to get any money out of the train companies (and I include Network Rail in this bracket), is like going back in time. No online facilities here - just loads of forms to fill in, forms which (wouldn't you just know it) can only be handed in at the station you travel from, necessitating a lengthy wait in a bad-tempered queue because the station is so short-staffed that only one window is open.

Should your train actually exceed that ten-minute lateness boundary, there is another obstacle course to negotiate. Obviously there is another form to fill in, but on top of that you have to write down exactly what time the train was scheduled, and exactly what time it actually arrived. Now, how likely is it that a commuter who is late already will have the time to stop, consult the timetable, compare it with the clock and then write the information down? Not very.

Paradoxically, when money is flowing in the opposite direction, they could not make it any easier, taking full advantage of every new technological development to make it easier for you to hand over your readies. Tickets can be purchased on your PC, your phone, possibly even by thought itself.

So, having picked up a questionnaire, I was looking forward to noting down a few choice observations about the service. Sadly, however, the document itself did not (and you may notice a theme emerging here) make it easy for me to do so. There were three sections. The first asked me about the specifics of my journey - was I arriving at Kings Cross, or departing; was I a regular commuter (to which one might respond - "Have you seen the state of the on-board toilets?" - but that's for another comedy routine); my age and gender. The next section asked me whether, if NR came up in conversation, would I commented very positively, slightly positively, etc. The third section allocated a very small space for "any other comments", and given that my handwriting is slightly bigger than Times New Roman font size 10, there wasn't room for many.

In my very first blog post - five years ago - I suggested that Kings Cross was turning into the Big Brother house, progressively harder to escape from. Now I'm beginning to think that it bears more resemblance to Catch 22.

Child's play?

2011-02-24T17:35:00.001Z

There is always hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing in equal measure whenever the government makes a pronouncement on some aspect of the private sector, especially when it raises the spectre of regulation, and such has been the case with the Bailey review into the sexualisation of childhood. Now I thought it was commercialisation of childhood that was keeping Cameron awake, but this is less headline-worthy and doesn’t feature the word “sex” so the tabloids won’t be interested in it. So we are introduced to the concept of sexualisation, which I initially took to mean something quite different, but in fact refers to the likes of the “paedo bikini” from Primark, or some generic pop star writhing and gesticulating on X-Factor before an audience of impressionable Tweens, who presumably went straight out into the street and started to mimic the movements.

I confess to being in a quandary. On the one hand, I do genuinely disapprove of rubbing inappropriate content in the faces of children, the more so since becoming a parent, and I do think childhood is far too precious a thing to be sacrificed on the altar of consumerisim. I also get wound up by admen (and women) who protest “Not our fault, gov, society’s to blame, we just reflect the culture of the time” pointing to Page 3 as evidence. This also happens when anyone suggests that drinks marketers are somehow partly responsible for alcohol abuse (as binge-drinking is now termed). “Alcohol abuse has nothing to do with low prices – its causes are cultural.” All well and good – I have read a theory that we in the UK have a “Northern European” approach to drinking which has more in common with the Scandinavians (from whom, of course, many of us are descended) than with the peoples of the Med. I don’t know if Norway and Sweden are full of pissheads, but as a theory it is intellectually appealing. But, surely, if booze were more expensive, people would drink less of it, because they would have less? We had the same arguments at the time of the tobacco ban. And they didn’t wash then.

But there’s a bigger question here – should we in the creative industries have a sense of moral responsibility? Can we change society for the better? I don’t think anyone actually disagrees with the assertion that kids and sex don’t mix, so how have we come to this repair? Well, it ain’t the advertising, because I’ve not seen any ads promoting inappropriate content or behaviour to kids. But there is a wider marketing malaise. It’s the ease with which they can access content aimed at other people. It’s generic pop stars writhing on X-Factor, it’s naked cover stars on lads’ mags on the bottom shelves in newsagents. It’s pop songs with suggestive (or just plain lewd) lyrics. And of course it’s the papers with their kiss ‘n’ tell cover stories and reality TV bollocks.
So what action could we take to address this? It’s not content that’s the problem, but accessibility. So how do you stop people from accessing content they shouldn’t? Not, I would assert, by removing it from them. People respond to incentives - carrot and stick, and all that. You need to change behaviour over time. Don’t knock kidulthood – promote childhood. And who is best-placed to achieve real behavioural change? That’s right – the marketing industry.

The way the debate is going, or rather being conducted by the government, it looks like further regulation might be on the cards. Even stricter guidelines on marketing to kids, perhaps a blanket ban on advertising on kids’s TV? Gesture politics. The Kid’s TV sector is in enough trouble already, after the junk food ad ban. Like it or not, TV production companies depend on advertisers for funding. We are not going to stop kids watching TV – and why should we? It’s educational, a source of entertainment and one of the few things that commands their attention for more than ten minutes (sometimes even as much as twelve). As a parent of two little boys, I will defend kids’ TV, particularly the BBC output (much of which comes from independent ProdCos), to the hilt. Given that we are in danger, as the Evening Standard put it, of becoming entirely reliant on “guns, booze and betting” for our economic prosperity, it would be sad indeed if such a vibrant sector was sacrificed on the alter of cheap political point-scoring.

So, pre-emptive action, anyone - not just another code of conduct, but real engagement with the issue and the audience? A May Day Alliance for childhood?

Confessions of a Marketing man

2011-01-18T23:00:00.001Z

I watched Sliding Doors over Christmas. I saw it when it first came out at the cinema back in, ooh, 1998 or whatever it was, wowed by the kooky alternative-history concept and expecting an equally kooky film. At the time I recall emerging disappointed that the film had turned out to be quite heavy viewing, leaden in some parts as it strove for profundity, and certainly not the comic caper I had been expecting. On second viewing, with the benefit of more than a decade’s hindsight and experience, not to mention commuting experience, I was able to relate to the characters much more. But the thing that most struck me, the result of spending much of that decade working in marketing, was the absence of mobile phones.

Any self-respecting PR (if that is not an oxymoron) would these days be gadgeted up to the eyeballs. The sight of Gwyneth Paltrow’s character setting up her new firm from a boring old office with an old fashioned landline seemed far more of an anachronism for being set in the recent past than the secretaries tapping away at their keyboards in Mad Men. Not only would she be co-ordinating her friend’s restaurant launch from her Blackberry – she would doubtless be Tweeting about her cheating louse of a boyfriend, sharing her sadness at her redundancy on Facebook, and possibly moaning about missing that Tube on a blog. And as for the louse himself, conducting his affair via a payphone – it all just seemed hopelessly dated.

But that’s the thing about doing what I do. It is all pervasive. Not that other jobs aren’t, of course – people of all professions take their work home with them. But because consumer culture touches on every aspect of modern lifestyles – from the food we eat to the cars we drive and the way we acquire information – almost any situation can be analysed in marketing terms, and the individuals or groups concerned categorised into some segment or other.

I find myself trying to categorise and define myself as a consumer, to work out how I could be most effectively marketed to. I’m certainly not an “early adopter”, to use textbook terminology. I was disdainful of mobiles for years, only joined Facebook when I began to feel left out of office banter, and have only recently sent my first Tweet. Needless to say, I do not own an IPhone or anything similar.

Even during my brief dalliance with the glamorous world of TV, I found myself far more interested in the marketing of programmes than their production – partly because it is so much more innovative a process. Marketing tells us about people, their lifestyles and their habits – and that is the stuff of which stories are made.

Commuters of the World Unite!

2010-12-14T10:36:00.003Z

The student protests against Tuition Fee rises have thrown the, somewhat anodynne, response of commuters to equally avaricious pricing by the train operators, into stark relief. Again and again we have seen inflation-busting price rises, all in the name of "investment" in our railways, and year after year the cynical, world-weary commuter just accepts it with a shrug of the shoulders and a roll of the eyes.

Throwing fire extinguishers, trashing shops or, God forbid, threatening a sixty-something adultress in a posh car with a stick, isn't really something one envisages the bankers and accountants of the 0711 from Cambridge partaking in. But given how (in)effective the standard commuter tactics of joining online gropus, leaving snide comments on Facebook and, occasionally, writing to The Guardian, have shown themselves to be, perhaps it is time to take to the streets for a proper demo.

If you think about it, we would be ideal demonstrators. Commuters have shown themselves to be single-minded ("Double-seat, double-seat", to quote Ben Elton), polite in an icy, skin-deep kind of way, and hardy. The contmptuous hard stare we have perfected for deployment against the passenger who plays his Ipod too loud would surely reduce any politician to tears. And as for the dreaded "kettling" - well, being trapped for hours in a confined space lacking sanitation or personal space . . . you can see where I'm going with this, right?

Of course, it will never happen. The chances of getting hundreds of commuters in the same place at the same time would be a logistical challenge to give Napolean a headache. And of course half the trains would be delayed. Right, I'm off to leave a snide comment on Facebook. That will show the buggers.

How to turn a niche into a goldmine

2010-11-28T20:57:00.010Z

Reports today that the weekend's traffic-free shopping in London's West End yielded a whopping £250M for the nation's biggest retailers (excluding the soopermarkets) confirms that austerity is no match for consumerism. Indeed, is it not a heart-warming fact that, even in these apparently vein and selfish times, Christmas, the season of giving, is by far the most valuable period of the year for our humble shopkeepers? No, thought not. In reality, it is proof positive of the enduring ability of the big brands to enthral the masses. And where's the harm in that? No humbugs round this commuter's house. But the relentless jingling of the tills in chain stores throughout the nation is bad news for the dwindling band of independents still holding out against the creeping homogenization of our high streets.

In the Beautiful Market Town where I live, it has been a bruising couple of years. The recession has not been kind to a place where once independence thrived. The chains that bind us are tightening - Primark is rumoured to be arriving soon. Waterstone's, Next and WH Smith are the busiest shops, while Sainsbury, M&S and Waitrose mop up the foodies who might otherwise give their custom to the butcher, the baker and the greengrocer. A variety of quirky, specialist shops have gone under - a unisex hair salon, a shoe shop, a furniture store. Many soldier on - perhaps with some kind of deal to supply local businesses: it remains the type of place where neighbours try to look after one another. It's not just the independents, of course - Thresher and Wine Rack have gone, and Woolworths has stood empty for two years.

But in the midst of all this, there are two striking success stories, two that I would have expected to be weighed down by the chains, but have thrown them off and soared to the stars. The first, Halsey's, is a quality delicatessen that just does what it does superbly, and has been further strengthened by the opening of a tea room (not for them the coffee shop vogue) that does brilliant, fresh food. Nothing particularly inventive or different - just a really high-quality offering and relentless quality. But the second is an altogether different kettle of fish - oddball, eccentric, left field, the kind of thing that just shouldn't work, but is one of the top tickets in town.

When one of our favourite restaurants closed its doors in 2008, The Wife and I were distraught. Not only had it been the very first place we went to when we visited the town to see how we liked it, but it also did the best roast dinner in town. And I'm a sucker for a Sunday lunch. It wasn't in a particularly good spot, being away from the main market square, but it was one of the first things drivers saw when they drove into the town, so could be guaranteed a decent awareness. One big problem was its layout - the main dining area was at the rear, which meant that, from the front, it always appeared empty. Just over the road, meanwhile, there was another local eaterie, bearing the name of the street and boasting a huge bay window through which the diners could be seen enjoying their repast. It was sad, therefore, but not wholly surprising when the axe fell.

When, a couple of months later, it reopened with the striking name, and proposition, Just Desserts, we were sceptical, if not downright hostile. What a half-baked concept, we thought (pardon the pun) - it will never work. The biggest difficulty facing independent shops, cafes or restaurants in our town is location - the prime real estate is concentrated around the main market square, and is accordingly bought up by the biggest chains with the deepest pockets. We have a Full House of Italian chains and a Royal Flush of coffee shops. So independents are often shunted out to the outskirts, those parts of town that don't see much passing trade. But they manage to survive for the simple reason that people in our town, and the area surrounding it, like to eat out. And therein lay the rub - how can you expect to attract diners if you don't give them a main course? And if they were going after the "elevensees" market - well, Starbucks had that all sewn up, didn't they?

Two years down the line and it appears to be thriving. The Wife goes sometimes for a night out with the other Mums, chowing down on handmade cakes while supping vintage wine. Yesterday we were there for a Sunday afternoon treat, and the place was packed - we couldn't even get a seat at the back, but had to perch by the front door. The thing is, it offers a totally different experience from the coffee chains, where you can get a rubbery muffin of a slice of cake, but it's really all about the drinks. At Just Desserts, you can get tea or coffee, but the cups are tiny - it's really an afterthought. The cakes, though - they're the real deal. And they do hot puds as well - I've not tried them, but there's a blackboard advertising waffles, sticky stuff with custard, the kind of thing that gives Delia hot flushes. And they've made a virtue out of the visibility problems too - gaze in at the window and you might not see any people, but you'll sure get an eyeful of cake.

It shouldn't work, it really shouldn't. But work it does, and well. It's one of those places that made the great leap from knowing a market to being brave enough to be different.

So what lesson can be drawn from this heart-warming tale? What of the failing chains, the Threshers of this world?

Let them eat cake.

Lies, Damn Lies, and The Truth

2010-10-20T13:25:00.004+01:00

Today is World Statistics Day, which I think is an absolutely brilliant idea. Is there a word more maligned and misunderstood than "statistic"? It's connotations often seem entirely negative - "there are damn lies and statistics", "he became a statistic", "you can prove anything with statistics", but statistics are facts. Now there's a difference between "facts" and "the truth" - statistics don't tell the truth, but they don't lie either. The truth is what lies behind the stats.

I wanted to mark this occasion by posting up a few choice stats about transport and commuting, but the latest I could find on the Office for National Statistics web site were 10 years old. So here are a few choice numbers, as published by the ONS, that piqued my interest.

A population of two halves:

The average British woman is 40 years old and has 42 years left to live. If she works full-time she earns £22.151 per year, works 34 hours per week and is educated up to GCSE A*-C grade. She will have 1.96 children in her lifetime.

The average British man is 38, and has 41 years left to live. If he works full-time, he works 39 hours per week and earns £28,270 per year. He is educated up to A-level standard.

Okay, so despite the fact that girls do better at school, the average bloke will progress further with his education. What's this all about? How much is down to peer pressure, expectation, or ethnicity? What about social factors such as teenage pregnancy, or having to look after dependents?

Consuming ourselves:

When a British family goes shopping, the 5 items they are most likely to buy (note the phraseology - is this different from "most commonly bought"?) are: a 2-pint carton of semi-skimmed milk; pre-packed sliced ham; unsweetened breakfast cereal; bacon; a bar of milk chocolate,

Boys aged 7-9 spent £2.40 per week on "games, toys and hobbies" in 2004. Boys aged 13-15 spent £2.60.
Girls aged 7-9 spent £1.20 per week on "games toys and hobbies" in 2004. Girls aged 13-15 spent 50p

Boys aged 13-15 spent £2.50 per week on "clothing and footwear."
Girls aged 13-15 spent £5.30.

Well, this was pre-Facebook and the rise of social networking, so the definition of "toys, games and hobbies" may well have shifted a bit since then. But it does suggest that boys don't grow up. And on the face of it supports the argument that teenage girls are under too much pressure to look good.

Demgraphics:

The number of single-person households in the UK rose by 2% between 1991 and 2001, and has remained stable since.

That took me by surprise.

Tick tick tick:

In 2008, 24.5% of adults aged 16 or over had a BMI classed as obese.

I've often thought the "obesity timebomb" was an exaggeration but that's nearly a quarter!

With the amount of ideological claptrap that has been spouted by everyone from politicians to trade unions in the past few days since the spending review commenced, there has been a marked absence of any cold, hard facts. Quite uncharacteristically, I have found myself yearning for brutal certainty of a few numbers.

There are certainly a few in there to make you think.

Buried Treasure

2010-10-15T13:24:00.003+01:00

The headline news this week has been pretty exciting, from the heart-warming tale of the Chilean miners to the bone-chilling dismantling of the higher education system. But if your understandable fascination with the front page news prevented you from noticing two of the more wonderful tidbits of the week tucked away, metaphorically speaking, in a wee column on page eight, then allow me to enlighten you.

The "Bonfire of the Quangoes" might, depending on your perspective, be a crucial staging post in the government's war on public sector waste, or a cynical attempt to appear decisive and bold whilst essentially rebranding the bureaucracy. But read through the list published yesterday and you will find, amongst the grand-sounding bodies engaged in such weighty functions as saving the environment, safeguarding national security, and watching over the NHS, a little-known, but undoubtedly crucial, organisation known as the Government Hospitality Advisory Committee on the Purchase of Wines. I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth even as I type this. Surely, even in such straitened times, they cannot seriously be contemplating doing away with such a vital body of public servants? But panic ye not - look again and it turns out that, while such minor bodies such as the Film Council and the Health Protection Agency are to be abolished, the role of the people paid to decide what colour plonk to serve the French ambassador is merely "under departmental review." What a relief.

Tucked away towards the back of Private Eye this week is the funniest branding story of the year. Thames Valley University is due to be rebranded - this month actually - to meet the challenges of the brave new higher education world as The University of West London. Trouble is, neither they nor, presumably, the marketing agency that worked on this, appears to have checked that the name was available. It turns out that Brunel have it trademarked. Whoops. Interestingly, TVU was identified last month by the FT as one of the five UK universities running the biggest funding deficits , something that cannot have been helped by spending fifty grand on a rebrand they can't use.

My Google Complex

2010-10-07T21:14:00.004+01:00

I don’t use Google. Okay, that’s a pretty contentious statement – yes I am aware that Google owns Blogger and therefore I am “using” Google even as I type this. But I try to avoid using Google for search. My default option these days is Bing, although it used to be Ask. This came up in conversation one night at the pub recently (I know, I know - but I’ve reached the age where an evening spent propping up the bar while putting the world to rights represents a wild night out), and someone asked me if I really felt that supporting Microsoft instead of Google was striking a blow for the little guy. But that’s not really the point. My stance on Google isn’t supposed to be a statement on corporate ethics – I’m sure Google is no worse than any other denizen of Silicon Valley (as opposed to its rival Silicon-enhanced Valley, where the software may not be as good but executive stress levels are much lower) - even if “Don’t Be Evil” should really be amended to “Don’t Be Evil, But If Other People Want To Be then, Hey, We’ll Take Their Money.”

Google gives the best results, has the best features, continually innovates, and has an elegant visual simplicity that its rivals cannot hope to emulate. But for one business or brand to be so dominant in any market is inevitably detrimental to the development of healthy competition, which we are forever told is both the lifeblood and the moral compass of capitalism. It may be hard to feel much sympathy for the type of ruthless digital entrepreneurs that might be squeezed out of business – they’ll just go make their money elsewhere, you may say, and do we, as "consumers", really need another search engine when we’ve already got one that fulfils all our needs? But this is not just about one fat cat hogging all the cat food. Power corrupts, and monopoly does too (as anyone who has ever put up hotels on Mayfair and Park Lane will testify). And despite the best intentions, Google undoubtedly has the power to put people out of business. Only one result can be top of the listings, and for a small firm, without the budget or the expertise to optimise their ranking, exile to Page 2 could be commercially fatal.

And what happens if Google starts acting like a bully? Would never happen, the Generation E might protest. But then I’m sure Tesco don’t see themselves as corporate bullies, and Starbucks didn’t set out to drive the independent coffee shop to extinction. When companies get too big, it’s not good for competition, it’s not good for the supply chain and, ultimately, it’s not good for consumers either.
Bear that in mind the next time you go searching.

Story Time

2010-09-12T23:42:00.007+01:00

With the blurring of the boundaries between art and commerce, youth and maturity, even fantasy and reality, telling stories has become an accepted part of the business lexicon. Hence the Chairman of the British Horseracing Board, for example, can attribute disappointing attendance at racecourses to the "need to tell racing's story better" and no one bats an eyelid. Meanwhile organisations from bakeries to binmen rush to share their stories with the wider public through the numerous TV shows cashing in on viewers' willingness to seek the profound in the mundane.

Various business and marketing notables have attempted to strategise the art of storytelling in this context. All you need, they reason, is a central character/hero (that great intangible the brand), supporting characters (customers, competitors, influencers) and the classic story structure - a beginning, a middle and an end. But there is one key ingredient missing from the recipe - plot.

Plot is not the same as storyline, and independent from characters, albeit that it may be shaped by them or, more likely, shape them itself. Lose the plot, and there is no story, just a random sequence of events, and a cast of characters who may be memorable but are fundamentally lacking in direction.

In storytelling lore, there are seven basic plots, and the most successful storytellers in the business world are those that have, consciously or not, embraced one of these. Overcoming the Monster, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, Rags to Riches, The Quest, and Rebirth: these are the phenomena that lie behind the stories we tell, giving structure and momentum, ingrained in our consciousness by millenia of repetition.

Many brands, by placing themselves in direct opposition to a well-known competitor, have successfully conformed to the Overcoming the Monster tradition: Virgin, Apple, The Body Shop, Spar and Gu are several that spring instantly to mind. Beyond that, it gets trickier. Rags to Riches? Well, the Lottery, Mecca Bingo and such games of chance that offer extravagant rewards, but that's not storytelling so much as just stating the facts. Numerous cosmetics products - Clearasil, Just For Men - tell stories rooted in the Rebirth plot. But it would be stretching the point to claim that travel agents are credible examples of Voyage and Return plotlines.

Are brands and businesses missing a trick here?

Little Richard

2010-08-07T21:39:00.005+01:00

When I was in the embryonic stages of my career, my boss used to get a copy of The Sun delivered to the office everyday so that we could keep a finger on (or hold two fingers up to) popular culture and whatever else it represents. I used to read Richard Littlejohn's Monday morning ramblings just to make myself angry enough to shake off any lingering weekend lethargy. It never failed.

Then the hypocrite jumped ship to the Mail, who clearly felt they just weren't offensive enough at the time and needed that little extra edge of repulsiveness to truly cement their following. Actually I think it was about the time the Independent went tabloid and started eating into their circulation - The Indepedent, that is, edited by ex-Mail man Simon Kelner. Who says the leopard can't change his spots, or in this case his political leanings?

So last week the great oaf finally put an expectant nation out of its misery but revealing his opnion of the BBC 6Music saga - "an obscure radio station beloved by a vociferous minority" as he put it. "Why" he continued "should the common people be forced to pay for alluent pop stars like Pulp's Jarvis Cocker" to play their favourite records on the radio. Aside from the artfully-done (in that there are no inverted commas or clumsy "gag alert" signposting) play on the title of Pulp's famous anthem, this sentence had me seething. That's the whole point of the BBC - it exists to cater for all, including niche interests that don't get served by purely commercial operations. And the funny thing about musicians is, they tend to know quite a lot about music. So it's actually quite nice to be able to sample their muscial preferences in the reasonable hope that we might learn something to further our own appreciation of the art form.

His name might be Littlejohn, but it's hard to envisage him robbing the rich to give to the poor.

Figuring out Five

2010-07-27T21:47:00.003+01:00

The anticipation, hype and subsequent disenchantment the accompanied the launch of launch of Channel 5 in 1997 is comparable to that surrounding the England team at the 2010 World Cup. In fact, it is an analogy with considerable elasticity - just as England appeared a relic of a bygone age as younger, more nimble opponents buzzed around them, so Channel Five was the last hurrah of the analogue era. England had 4-4-2, a formation that apparently stifles innovation and freedom of expression. Channel Five, of course, had the three Fs - Football, Films and Fucking. Oh, and Family Affairs, of course.

It would be nice to think that the channel has moved on since then, but really and truly it remains impossible to love. In the multi-channel world, where there are four ITVs, more 4s than you can shake a remote control at, and the three Fs are on every other station on the EPG, Five just feels like an anomaly. These days, of course, they've got Neighbours and Home And Away, and occasionally they even show some weighty documentaries in between the US imports that dominate Primetime. But just as Woolworths could never pull off being highbrow too, it's hard to see Channel Five becoming the thinking person's TV channel.

So does Richard Desmond have planned for it? Well, "highbrow" is not a word that immediately springs to mind when considering the proprietor of the Daily Express. And as Private Eye never tires of pointing out, he's got plent of TV channles that doe the third of the three Fs already. Films? Not a chance. What about football? Well, you can't build a broadcasting empire on showing the Europa League.

Unlike the channel itself, whatever happens should be very interesting to watch.

Fuelling Controversy

2010-07-09T13:25:00.004+01:00

Consumer boycotts are all the rage - whether it's Nestle, Israeli goods, the British Heart Foundation (seriously - PETA don't like them) or, of course, BP. I've been pondering their efficacy for a while - Nestle is still by some margin the world's largest fmcg business, according to research published in The Grocer magazine - but in particular the viability of a consumer boycott of oil companies like BP and ExxonMobil, with which most of us only come into contact at the petrol pump.

On our way to Knebworth on Sunday, we stopped for petrol at the BP station that sits atop the hill down from the Beautiful Market Town where we live. It was gridlocked - we had to wait the best part of ten minutes for a pump. It was only on pulling out of the garage that it struck me that I had just transacted with the company currently starring in the role of pantomime villain du jour. Whatever your views on the situation (and let me nail my colours to the mast here - if they have to pay for the clean up, then bankrupting them isn't going to help anyone, right?), the fact is that the decision to fill up is invariably such an unplanned one that brand choice is one of the least likely considerations for a motorist. It is a nuisance purchase - I don't know anyone who assiduously tracks their fuel gauge and makes plans for refueling. It is not until the warning light comes on that the driver suddenly remembers that the car does not run on willpower. Confronted by this sudden, and insistent, warning sign, the driver selects the first petrol station available, does the necessary and loads up with a few over-priced stimulants on the way to the till, before departing and trying to shake off the feeling of having been party to a dirty deal.

Picking a petrol brand is not like selecting a brand of sweetie off the shelf. Even in instances where two rival petrol stations are juxtaposed, the driver will surely choose the one with the shortest queue, rather than the one that plants the most trees.

You could argue that motoring is inherently not a "green" past-time, so choosing between brands on the basis of their environmental credentials is a bit like picking England footballers on the basis of value for money. But you could say the same of retail, construction or even agriculture.

How can consumers make their feelings known to energy companies? Other than on blogs, of course.

The Italian Job

2010-06-01T22:33:00.003+01:00

Rome - the Eternal City, one-time centre of the ancient world. Home to some of the greatest architectural treasures in the Western world, the Forum, the Collisseum, and a transport system that seems equally historic.

A friend got married beneath Tuskan skies at the weekend, giving The Wife and I occasion to travel to his Nuptuals via air, rail and in a twist of romance, cable car. In my capacity as self-appointed celebrant of the much-maligned pass-time that is commuting, it was of course that part of the journey involving the train that most excited me.

Arrival in Rome was a surreal experience, as our flight landed before its scheduled time, which is a tricky concept for a rail commuter to get his head around (“Early? There must be some mistake”). This raised the exciting possibility that we could make it to the main Termini station in time to get the earlier train to Orvieto, thus avoiding a two hour wait for the next one, and affording us the luxury of a couple of hours at our hotel before the wedding ,rather than the frantic half-hour turnaround time provided by our original itenerary. Alas, there were queues at the ticket office, and before we had reached the window we had had to watch our connection pulling slowly away from the platform – so near and yet so far.

When we eventually made our way on to the platform to pick up the next train, the principle thing that struck us was the distinctive aroma of urine. As the train rumbled into the platform and we angled our shoulders and elbows to fend off the party of American tourists who were trying to jump the queue, I wondered whether it was the heat, the sewers, cats, rats or possibly footballers who were behind this, idle speculation which was rapidly dismissed when the train doors opened and we were confronted with the challenge of getting into the carriage. “Mind the gap” does not do it justice. Not only was there a gaping gap between the train and the platform edge, but there were also steps into the carriage, and so steep that we thought we might need to borrow some mountaineering gear from that girl who has just climbed Everest to surmount them. There were handrails but how anyone with only two arms was meant to cling on to them at the same time as hauling their bags on to the train is anyone’s guess.

Having watched a couple of natives struggling on to the train, just to gain an appreciation of how it should be done, we embarked ourselves. I have to record that The Wife displayed extraordinary swan-like grace and balletic flair in smoothly surmounting the challenge, whilst I piled on behind her with all the finesse of an ugly duckling, swinging my case ahead of me and tumbling, if such a thing is possibler, up the steps after it. In another throwback to a bygone era of transport, the carriages were nit made up of the rows of seats common to English commuter routes, but divided into compartments, the like of which feature in the wartime railway stories occasionally featured on TV.

We found ourselves`sharing a compartment with an elderly American couple who were touring the Eurozone (well, Italy and Germany), but were only too happy to reminisce about their experiences in Britain, and to rant about Obama and his healthcare reforms. And I thought it was just Fox News! When at length the train rumbled into the Termini station and we bade our fellow travellers farewell, dismounting from the train proved easier, if more frightening, thanks to the immutable laws of gravity. A two-hour wait followed, during which we sampled the delights of the station’s catering offer, and feasted on pasta carbornara prepared right before our eyes (which makes the likes of The Upper Crust seem somewhat stale). We then boarded a train to Orvieto, on which the seating arrangements were disappointingly conventional, before completing our journey by cable car, and arriving in Orvieto from above.

Beats pulling in to Kings Cross on the slightly-delayed 7:50.

The Joy of Walking

2010-04-27T14:40:00.002+01:00

One of the pleasures of The Happy Commuter's new professional assignment is that it has reduced the distance I need to travel from Kings Cross in the morning by approximately half. What this means is that I can once more put away the Oyster Card and use my legs. My previous post was roughly a thirty-five minute walk, just a little bit too long to be doing twice a day, particularly since the arrival of The Little Commuter made getting home in the evening a far more urgent matter. My new base takes between fifteen and twenty minutes at a brisk stroll - barely slower than public transport! Yesterday, for example, I left the office five minutes before my similarly-domiciled colleague, who took the Underground, and walked into the station at the same time (well, about a hundred yards ahead)!

I was reminded of the benefits of this change of pace this morning when reading a poem about last week's flight disruption and its welcome side effect - the sudden return of the sound of birdsong. Walking the streets of the capital may not be quite so close to nature, but in comparison with the sweaty, seething mass of rush hour tube commuters, stretching one legs to the sounds of Pelican crossings, sirens and the constant rumble of London traffic. not to mention the stirring sights and vibrant colours of the urban jungle, lifts the spirit above the humdrum of the everyday grind, as well as providing a precious opportunity to collect one's thoughts.

We can't all be cyclists, joggers or members of the local gym. Take my advice - go for a walk. You'd be amazed how pleasant the world looks.

Is there anybody there?

2010-04-05T10:20:00.005+01:00

It was a normal Wednesday morning. All around me keyboards were tapped, music was played, the tension level rose and fell according to the proximity of our employer. The phones, normally so insistent, were the only thing to be less than usually busy, but otherwise there was hint of portentousness, no clouds to indicate an approaching storm. At around 11:00, however, I called home, to be met with an engaged tone. Odd, I thought, for my wife to be on the phone to anyone at that time. Then one by one we noticed that the indicator lights on all our phones had gone red for every outgoing line. I checked my mobile and found no signal. Then access to the Internet went down, along with email. We were in a complete communication blackout.

Like my colleagues, my first reaction was - are we under attack? Most of us had been in London on 7th July 2005, and remembered how the mobile networks crashed under sheer volume of traffic. Some kept the thought to themselves; others preferred to share it. Our studio manager was dispatched to find out if our neighbours were having similar problems, and soon reported back that they were. It is hard to express how unsettling this all was - not frightening, exactly, because to our knowledge there was nothing to fear. When you are accustomed to being at the hub of global communication, no more than the touch of a button away from the latest news from anywhere in the world, let alone the end of the road, to suddenly be cut off from all that is profoundly disconcerting. Anything could be happening out there.

As it happened, it soon became clear that only O2 mobiles were affected, and putting two and two together, it seemed likely that the answer to the riddle lay with BT. Phones on other networks were working fine, and we soon learned from a Vodafone-toting colleague that there had been a fire, or perhaps a flood (it turned out to be both) at the BT exchange in Paddington, taking out telecommunication across a swathe of the capital, and even as far away as Milton Keynes. I later discovered that cashpoints had stopped working, restaurants were unable to accept cards payments, and even that police radioes had ceased to function. Scary stuff, and bound to bea blow to local businesses still presumably reeling from the recession.

I walked to Kings Cross that evening and by the time I reach Great Portland Street) barely a tend-minute walk away) my mobile was working fine, so it really is a very localised problem. Nothing more than a bothersome inconvience this time, but it is not hard to imagine something going wrong and causing a real disaster. Time for some contingency planning, methinks.

The word is it should be back up and running after Easter. I will let you know.

Spend a penny, spend a lot

2010-03-06T13:23:00.008Z

There was a problem with the toilets at work recently (without overdoing the detail, there was a blockage). It took the best part of a week to clear, so for four days, every time we needed to relieve ourselves, we had to tramp down to Marylebone Station (fortunately less than a minute's walk) to use the facilities there. Leaving aside the fact that this apparently contravenes our Human Rights (I base this solely on hearsay), it also brought about the fairly ludicrous spectacle of a long line of desperate workers queueing to get thirty pence from the petty cash tin - rather like those old images from the USSR when people queued for bread. Except in our case, rather than standing glumly, hopelessly, staring vacantly into an uncertain future, the stance was more jumping from foot to foot, restlessly contemplating a future the outcome of which we were entirely sure of.

The point of this post is not to decry the condition of the station toilets. After all, public loos are rarely the most salubrious of places. Nor is it to wonder at the fact that the cubicles are always engaged, even in the gents' where no one ever sits down unless they absolutely have to (and I'm not talking in a "I really do quite need to go" sense but when things have reached "it's this or shitting myself" levels of desperation), so you always end up standing by the warm air hand dryers trying not to give the impression that you are the kind of person that hangs around in public toilets.

The purpose of sharing this recollection is to plead for some type of justification for putting the fee for using the toilets at stations up from twenty pence to thirty. It is one of the few aspects of the whole commuting thing that makes me genuinely angry (although I have to say I have not considered marching on Parliament or taking to the streets - mine is a gentler, more anodyne sort of rage, which might perhaps manifest itself in the signing of an internet petition, or mentioning it on a blog). Really, though, what is the point? Ever since I first came across a thirty pence toilet (at Hammersmith, to be prcise) about four years ago I have been quietly fuming about it. For one thing, there is no thirty pence coin. This means that that bit at the start when you fumble around in your pocket for change is made even slower and more awkward, hardly ideal when you are desperately trying to restrain your bladder or, worse still your bowels.

For another thing, why on Earth should we have to pay to use the toilet on a station anyway? Surely it's an amenity like any other public space - a library, for example, where to my knowledge you can go for a slash absolutely free, as long as you don't take any of the books in with you. It's not as if they don't make money out of us in other ways, and, let's face it, if you are on a station it is more than likely that you are getting on or off a train, so they needn't worry too much about freeloaders taking advantage of their facilities when no actual rail travel is intended. Maybe stations see themselves more like pubs than libraries. Rumour has it that if you want to use the loo in a pub you have to buy a drink first - could statioons adopt a similar system, whereby a valid ticket for travel is required for use of the toilets? It might enable them to stop charging this ridiculous entre fee.

But it would have made life very uncomfortable for the employees of a certain London-based design agency.

The spritual side of Oyster

2010-02-14T15:34:00.006Z

I am not an overtly spiritual individual. Despite an education that took in both C of E and Catholicism, I couldn't claim to practise any religion, and nor will you find me dancing round the Maypole, worshipping big stones, or getting blind drunk and running naked oe'r the hilltops in veneration of Mother Nature. So when I enter into a transaction with a train company, it is not often that I do so with the fate of my immortal soul upprmost in my mind. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I presented my Oyster Card to the gentleman behind the window at Kings Cross the other morning, attempting to diagnose the cause of its refusal to allow me though the Tube barrier, to be informed that I had an "unresolved journey."

An unresolved journey? What could this mean, I wondered, as the cold tendrils of panic began to envelop my heart with their chill carress. And how had this unassuming piece of plastic managed to penetrate my deceptively cheery exterior to analyse the darker layers within my subconscious? The cashier was regarding me with an air of mystery, as he left the statement hanging ominously in the air. In the silence that followed, it was as though my very soul was exposed to all the world, or at least that part of it currently queueing for tickets at Kings Cross St Pancras Underground station.

“You’re so right!” I blurted out, “I’m not completely happy with my career, I think I made a few bad choices when I finished University, and I’m not sure if I’m in the right path for me. I just don’t think I’ve really found my niche. And I’m struggling to reconcile the need to provide for my wife and young son with the desire to fulfil my potential as a writer and philospher. What should I do?”

The cashier gave me a long, meaningful look, and with a weary shake of his head, he uttered his momentous response:

“It says here you touched in at Baker Street the other day and didn’t touch out properly.”

Now that definitely wasn’t in my horoscope.

The Noughtie side of Commuting - Part 2

2010-01-28T22:54:00.004Z

Communication, communication, communication. That's the biggest change to the commuting experience in the last ten years. Yes there have been other, cosmetic, enhancements - cappuccino makers, toilets with electric doors that generally shut while you're in there, free newspapers of course. But were you to consider a carriage full of commuters during rush hour at the beginning of the Noughties with an equivalent group ten years on, the most striking difference would surely be the plethora of wireless devices into which they were yapping, tapping or cra- No, sorry, that one hasn't been invented yet. Good rhyme though (sorry, it's late and I'm tired).

In the 1980s, of course, there was the Walkman. In the 1980s, the mobile phone began to proliferate. But it was in the Noughties that being communicative on a locomotive became mainstream. In the late '90s, in the fabulous Notes From a Small Island, the sight of a man talking on a mobile phone retained enough novelty value to prompt Bill Bryson into the proclamation that "these people really are becoming tiresome." These days, it wouldn't even be worthy of comment. But, as Bryson observed, in those salad years of mobile telephony, the level of conversation rarely got much beyond "I'm going to be late but really I'm just calling you to emphasise to everyone else no this train that I have a mobile phone, and am therefore intimidatingly cool and with it." It was still the newspaper that remained the distraction of choice for most commuters.

In the mid-Noughties, the Ipod arrived, and suddenly the trains were colonised by the Apple tribe with their little white headphones. Nobody spoke in the carriages, passengers seemed barely aware of their whereabouts, as their personal soundtracks took them far away from the physical realm.

Then the newspapers launched the fightback, led, improbably, by The Independent, which seems to have been dying a slow death for longer than it took The Soviet Union to collapse, but enjoyed a brief reversal of fortunes (the Gorbechev years) after it relaunched it tabloid format. It was the first of the "quality" titles to do so. Groundbreaking it certainly was, and a cause for celebration as loads of people who had previously purchased The Daily Mail because it was the only white top that didn't require a contortionist's powers of elasticity to read on a crowded train, switched their allegiances. Then The Times and The Guardian followed suit (yes, I know The Guardian opted for the JFK approach ("Ich Bein ein Berliner") rather than than the tabloid, but the principle is the same. And The Independent entered its Yeltsin period, proving that style really does matter as much as substance.

Next were the freesheets. Metro, the early morning one, was first, and managed to carve out quite a little niche among consumers who preferred their news bite-sized in the morning. Sometime around 2008, everyone got pant-wettingly excited about everything being free, and two of the newspaper trades biggest and oldest bullies waded in to try to take advantage, and kill off the London Evening Standard, with the truly appalling London Lite and TheLondonPaper. It seems like a bad dream now, but for a couple of years freesheet hawkers stalked the streets of the Capital. Eventually they both ran out of steam - the Standard survived and, in one of those ironic little twists, has now gone free itself.

As 2010 dawns we now have smartphones, Blackberries, tiny little laptops that fit in the palm of your hand. The little white earphones have largely gone, to be replaced by old-fashioned headphones so big that Pat Butcher could wear them as earrings, which somehow fail to do half as good a job as their tiny predecessors at actually keeping in the noise. So now most carriages have a soundtrack, possibly two, always too quiet to be properly heard, but too loud to ignore.

And free Wi-fi. That's another thing, notable chiefly because it is so pushy. No sooner have I turned my laptop on in the morning then it is asking me if I want to join the local network. I never do, because rather like the frustrated mobile phone customer who just wants to talk, I only really want to write on the train. That's where I actually wrote the bulk of this post.

Ah, there's nothing like progress.

Confrontation!

2010-01-08T20:25:00.005Z

More on my Noughties commuting retrospective next time, but today I just have to record my experience aboard an over-crowded, sluggish rush-hour train this morning. It's day three of the big freeze, of course (no, seriously - day three - it only started on Wednesday: we are not living in some kind of Narnian state of perpetual Winter as the media would have you believe). I have been lucky. My train route has been relatively robust. We haven't been that badly hit by the snow (yet) - only three or four inches I would say. It may be a factor that the route to the Beautiful Market Town where I live happens to share a track with the main line up to Scotland, via Peterborough and Leeds, so perchance we get more TLC than some of the other suburban commuter routes. Whatever the reason, the service has not been severely disrupted so far, beyond a few delays and a bit of congestion. Today there was an emergency timetable in operation, and when I reached the platform it was already fairly full. When our service pulled in, we duly piled forth, and I was lucky enough to cadge a spot by the partition in the vestibule, on which I could lean to my heart's content. Not so fortunate was a chap who jumped on just as the doors were closing, a familiar face whom I have observed before as one of those commuters that always jumps the queue in order to find a seat. On this occasion he had no chance, and to be fair to him he took it very well. His only reaction was to put his cycling helmet back on - I wondered whether he knew something we didn't.

It got exciting when we got to Stevenage. A couple more people got on - a lady and a gentleman of mature years. Apparently they were unacquainted, but the gentleman took it upon himself to be the knight in shining armour, announcing to the first class section "I'm sure one of these kind gentlemen will be good enough to give the lady a seat." Fair comment, even if it was delivered in a rather pompous manner. Sure enough, one of the kind gentlemen did give up his seat, protesting loudly, and quite aggressively (one might even say defensively) that he hadn't seen her. This may have been because he had suddenly, on pulling into the station, developed an intense interest in his naval, such that he was unable to wrest his attention from it to peruse the new arrivals lest any of them should be a damsel in need of a seat. Still, I wasn't going to pursue the point, lest verbal aggression spill over into physical violence. The gentleman of mature years contented himself with a knowing, weary shake of the head - a gesture I find irritating in the extreme - and proceeded to thrust his backpack directly into the face of the hitherto uninvolved commuter standing behind him.

The guy was now talking up the space of two people, in a carriage with no spare elbow room. "Ho hum," thought I to myself, "that's just a little bit hypocritical. If I was that guy standing behind him, I'd jolly well tell him to put that bag down and stop throwing rocks from his glass house. Or something like that." Of course, I didn't say anything, being something a hypocrite myself. But then the gentleman of mature years decided to shift position, so that the ruck sack was shoved in my face instead, leaving me with no option but to speak up. "Excuse me," quoth I , very polite like, "would you mind putting your bag down. I'll hold your coffee." Nice touch that, I thought - taking the heat out of the situation by being conciliatory, rather than saying what I really meant, which was "Put the bag down and show some consideration for other people, you pompous old prick."

Now it was his turn to get defensive. "No thanks" was his terse response to my offer, although he did, with great ceremony, shrug the rucks sack from his shoulders and on to the floor, before giving me the cold shoulder. We were all of us making lots of friends today - fortunately the train didn't get stuck anywhere, or a fight might have broken out.

The Noughtie side of Commuting

2010-01-04T13:55:00.004Z

With all of these "that was the decade that was" lists that have flooded the the news-stands, the airwaves and just about every other medium (and I'm not expecting it to finish just because the decade has), it occurred to me that there is one glaring omission. No one has yet turned the lense on one of the most basic British activities, and its "progress" (or lack thereof) in the last ten years. And so it falls to the Happiest man on the rails to fulfill this important role which the mainstream media, with its unfathomable fixation with celebrities, hairstyles and fashion, has passe over.

The decade began with fatal train crashes at Hatfield and Potters Bar. Not the most auspicious of starts for a purportedly light-hearted blog, but not something that can be ignored. Then we had the Railtrack fiasco, widespread (and inevitable) media coverage of the state of the nation's railways and the supposed fact that we were placing our lives at risk every time we stepped on a train. There was also the Tube derailment at Chancery Lane, the subsequent closure of the Central Line, and a Virgin Trains rail crash in Scotland. And of course, we had the events of 7th July 2005. Hum hum, I'm definitely not in joke territory here. Seems a bit crass to start cracking gags about the food/toilets/fares/etc. Still, a comedy blog's gotta do what a comedy blog's gotta do.

On the plus side, we had the launch of Virgin Trains (I think that was 2000), which provided plenty of laughs (laugh a minute, actually, which was faster than most of the trains). There was the launch of the Oyster Card, the grand opening of St Pancras, the collapse of GNER (privatisation's Emperor's new clothes moment), and of course numerous sterling contributions to the annals of tragicomedy from Eurostar.

Gosh what a busy decade. This is going to need more than one post. Anyone else got anything?

The Importance of Rules

2009-11-23T13:51:00.004Z

As I stood on over-crowded platform this morning waiting for the late-running train, my attention was wrenched away from my Monday morning newspaper by the sight of a chap marching along the very edge of the platform, ignoring the Yellow Line we are implored not to cross, in order to get himself in front of all those other poor sods who had prudently turned up early to get a prime spot. Rude? Definitely? But that is hardly the point - after all, as had been observed many times before, commuters were not put on this Earth to be nice to each other. But surely we should respect and abide by the rules - it's not like we're French footballers.

On getting on the train, I discovered a full size bicycle taking up most of the vestibule, despite clear signage forbidding the carrying of non-folding bikes. Then when I arrived at the opposite extremity of my journey, dismounting the Tube at the designated station, I found myself buffeted by people pushing past me to head up the wrong side of the staircase (it quite clearly says "Right Side Up"). "Can't you read?" I felt like shouting. But I didn't, obviously. Instead, I made my way through the melee, pondering the importance of rules, and why we should follow them.

Bill Bryson once wrote that Americans treat rules with the kind of reverence British people reserve for queues. Now as anyone who has waited in line at a cash point recently will attest, this statement may not mean as much as it used to. But the point he was making was that his fellow Americans, when they see a sign like "This side up", would dutifully comply in using that particular side exclusively to travel in an upward direction, even though they may do so with much shouting, swearing and maybe even a bit of shoving. Whether this holds true for American commuters I could not say, but it definitely is not the case for their British counterparts. On encountering any sort of regulation with regard to where they can sit, stand, queue or jostle, the instinctive reaction of the British commuter is one of suspicion - born of the unshakable conviction that everybody else, and especially those in authority, is out to get them. "What" we wonder "is in it for the train company here? What are they really trying to pull on me? What lies behind this rule?"

And of course we know that what lies behind it is the conspiracy, in which all are complicit - men, women, children, animals, even ticket collectors - to ensure that everyone else gets a better seat, gets off the train and eventually gets to work, more quickly and comfortably than us.

A Sure Thing? I don't think so.

2009-11-10T13:12:00.002Z

An early start for me this morning, as I had a "breakfast meeting" (more meeting than breakfast, sadly). I might have expected my early bird efforts to be rewarded with a quieter train but no, it turns out I have been a comparatively late bird for all these months - the train was packed with the kind of hardy commuters I had all but forgotten since the arrival of The Litle Commuter - the type that in days past would get up before dawn's first light and battle through sleet and snow in order to get to school ahead of anyone else.

The truth is I do now leave the house half an hour later than I used to - it's not because I'm staying in bed, but because I like to see my boy in the morning, and it is not in his interests to get me out of the house promptly (he hasn't quite cottoned on to the whole "major breadwinner" thing yet).

So, as I was stood shoulder to shoulder with my fellow sardines (there's an analogy that doesn't work) my attention was drawn to a poster advertising a certain brand of deoderant. Now, I have been quite impressed with the quality of cleverness of on-board ads recently, so I can only assume that this was some clever self-parody. Honestly - it was like I has suddenly been transported back to the 1950s, when ads for washing powder used slogans like "For the wife who loves her husband."

What we had was this - a smart-looking guy in a shirt and tie standing on a train with his hand up in the air (it was head and shoulders only so you couldn't actually see the hand, but I assume he was holding on to something to steady himself). His armpit was utterly dry, and the copy said something about how the product kept you dryer than any other. This has been a popular theme over the last couple of years amongst manufacturers of personal care products like this (originality? No thanks). But for one thing, the guy was, to use football parlance, in acres of space, rather than being hemmed in by hordes of bad-tempered commuters. As any experienced commuter knows, the issue of sweaty armpits only becomes a problem, nay a social stigma, when you have somebody's face shoved up against it. I thought gritty realism was the thing these days?

The other thing that got was the guy's expression. He had a kind of lop-sided smile, suggesting that either he'd had a stroke or he was feeling incredibly pleased with himself because he had bought a deoderant that would stop his armpits from sweating and therefore cause hundreds of women to throw themselves at his feet. Assuming that it was not the former, the art director (or whoever it is who makes these sorts of decisions) must actually have chosen this expression from a selection of others). What is going on here? Even Lynx aren't being that unsubtle any more.

Delayed Reaction

2009-10-15T21:17:00.006+01:00

I was going to write about my trip to Paris and the relative merits of the Eurostar and Paris Metro commuting, but something terribly exciting happened this morning which demands due attention. My train, having hitherto swept gracefully through the tranquil Hertfordshire countryside, ground to a halt somewhere in the vicinity of Haringey. What, we wondered, could be amiss? Had a tree up ahead shed its leaves on the line in honour of this week's launch of the "leaf fall" timetable? Could Sharon Shoesmith have decided to hijack the train in revenge for Haringey Council's treatment of her? No, announced the driver, with scant respect for narrative drama, it was that old chestnut "overhead line problems."

So far, so uninteresting, you might think. And you would be right, except that the driver then decided that he really needed someone to talk to and spent the ensuing forty-five minutes using his passengers as a kind of sounding board, giving us a rambling commentary on the progress of the delay (if you'll pardon the contradiction), and even at one stage treating us to a snippet of his radio communications with HQ ("Romeo 1, can you hear me, over?" - that sort of thing).

We were all listening with some amusement to his ongoing explications of nothing very much ("Just to keep you updated, I've not had an update" - Sky News would have been proud). But then things got really trippy, when he gloomily informed us that he had been instructed to get out and "check our pantographs." Say what? No one knew what he was on about, obviously, but it sounded jolly exciting, like something out of the Da Vinci code, maybe. Naturally I've done my research, and can reveal that according to the totally-reliable Wikipedia, the aforementioned pantograph is "the device that collects electric current from overhead lines for electric trains or trams." Had we but known that it was just a grand way of saying "overhead line problems" we would none of us have been so impressed, but as it was, my fellow passengers and I passed the rest of the journey in a ferment of excitement over what on Earth the driver could be about.

Things got weirder still. The brakes started to groan - not just that momentary groan you get when the train stops but a long, whining, pained groan that seemed portentous, like the Hades chorus in one of the classical Greek tragedies. Then the excitingly-named Hustle Alarm (that beeping you get when the doors close) started to sound intermittently, despite the fact that the doors remained motionless throughout. Was the train possessed? Were the Gremlins attacking (I realised, guiltily, that I had eaten after midnight)?

After three quarters of an hour, the train lurched back into life and our new best friend, the driver, whom we all felt we had got to know on a deep and meaningful level, apologised profusely for the delay. Suddenly we were pulling into Kings Cross and free to get on with the day, as if the whole surreal incident had been but a figment of the imagination, a dream. We looked and one another and found reassurance that it had all been real.

Adonis feature

2009-09-28T22:20:00.007+01:00

I've just been watching Lord Adonis (whose name must surely be some sort of joke, right?) telling the Labour Party Conference about his vision for high-speed rail links between London, Birmingham, Leeds and Kircaldy (or something). He got quite worked up about the fact that we're so far behind every other country in Europe (well, France) when it comes to high-speed rail. Strangely enough, he blamed the Tories, despite the fact that it's been, ooh, eleven years since they were last in government, which is just about long enough to get a high-speed rail project off the ground, you'd think. Still, the important thing is, that now there's an election looming, the government have decided that enough is enough. No more excuses, this time it's really happening. High speed rail is roaring up the tracks, and it's going to put all those nasty low-cost airlines (particularly Ryanair) out of business. So yah boo sucks!

Zooming from one end of the country to the other in less time than it takes a Ryanair flight to get on to the runway is all very well, but if when we get to the other end we can't actually move because of gridlock it does rather defeat the point. I took a bus with some colleagues from one end of Baker Street to the other for to get some ice cream (I kid you not - give them a treadmill and they'll run all day long, but actually ask them to walk somewhere and they're struck by an aversion to using their legs). Wouldn't you know it, there were roadworks, and we got stuck at some traffic lights, and then some more roadworks. There was still some ice cream left when we got there, but it was a close run thing.

Driving me crazy (again)

2009-09-02T20:37:00.006+01:00

News over the weekend that the government is to impose a price hike of two pence on a litre of fuel has caused outrage amongst the motoring community. Some outraged individual (actually I think he was something to do with the RAC Club) went on the radio to grumble about further persecution of the motorist, as seems to happen every time there's a rise in prices at the pump, pedestrianisation of a major town centre, roadworks, or bad weather.

The gist of what the guy said was that motoring is the dominant form of travel in the country (he actually said "not many people use the train" which I thought frankly laughable), and therefore drivers should be a protected species, coddled and cossetted and generally afforded preferential treatment whilst the rest of us pay the price.

It's hard not to feel a touch of schaudenfreude here, what with the announcement that, for the first time in many years, rail fares are not going to go up next year. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that the price of petrol has come down significantly over the last twelve months. The idea that the poor hard-up motorist doesn't get looked after the the government is ludicrous - the sheer amount of roadworks is testament to that. Have you see the M25 recently?

Now I'm hardly an eco-warrior - I drive a car (at weekends), own a big flatscreen telly and sometimes overfill the kettle. But surely there is an environmental argument here - viz cars cause more pollutions than trains or buses (on a strictly per-head basis) so motoring shouldn't be the cheapest option. Surely we should be encouraging more people to use public transport, or some other alternative form of transportation, and we all know that the way to a motorist's brain is through his/her pocket.

There was an outcry a couple of years back about a proposed "pay-as-you-throw" tax to try to tackle the volume of waste (specifically foodwaste) that people were producing. I thought it was a nifty idea - it would really have forced people to reappraise their behaviour and values. But it got canned because it would cause a storm of protest.

It just goes to show that people are very willing to jump on a bandwagon as long as they aren't the ones paying to keep it rolling.

The face of the free press

2009-08-24T21:38:00.005+01:00

So Mr Murdoch has sounded the first bugle in what looks set to be the mass retreat from the sordid and frankly degrading mire of London's freesheet wars. Okay so I am getting a bit ahead of myself here: after all it's only theLondonpaper that's actually being canned, with the equally-derisory London Lite(weight) showing no sign of running out of steam just yet. But it's surely just a matter of time before that too is consigned to the fish and chip shop of history. After all, they were only ever vanity projects, two playground bullies trying to outdo each other in plumbing new journalistic depths, while proving that no matter what the more optimistic politicians may say, celebrity still matters. So the media landscape shifts once more. But just as significant for London's commuters could be the disappearance of the freesheet hawker, a hardy breed of pest that has gamely stalked the streets of the capital since the appallingly trashy comic books entered circulation around the time I started this blog.

I am prepared to admit that I may be being a little blinkered here, but it seems to me as if the freesheet hawkers do get an easier ride of it than their counterparts the chuggers. But I certainly always make the effort to make eye contact, and respond to having one of the ghastly things shoved in my face with a polite "No thank you." Is everyone so nice to them? Perhaps not, but there's none of that forced cheerfulness which the chuggers feel they have to display. Not for the freesheet hawker the extravagant gesture or the waving arms. No, the freesheet hawker mantains a sullen disposition, hugging his (or her) arms to his chest and firing a curt imprecation at each would-be customer as he juts a folder paper towards the hurrying figure. You get the feeling that the freesheet hawker really doesn't care whether the figure takes the paper or not - accept his offering and he will have one less to dispose of, but reject him and it is of no matter, there will soon be others to take your place. The freesheet hawkers are indifferent to you. To them, you are just a face in a crowd.

I for one intend to admire them while I still can.

Underground in Barcelona

2009-08-03T22:52:00.003+01:00

I was on holiday last week, spending a few days in the wonderful city of Barcelona with The Family (that's The Wife, The Little Commuter and my parents-in-law, on this occasion). It was great and all that, but the most exciting aspect of the trip, at least from this blog's perpective, was getting up close and personal with Barcelona's very own version of the Tube.

If I was a bit underwhelmed at the prospect of travelling beneath Barcelona's narrow streets and spacious squares, relative veteran as I am of London's Tube system (not to mention a New York subway afficionado), I realised early on that I was in for a treat. My introduction to this mysterious netherworld came when we suddenly found ourselves confronted by an elevator which appeared as if by magic in the midst of a busy road intersection. It was a bit like that bit in Harry Potter when they go into a phone booth and - oh I can't remember, but you get the idea). Anyway, down we went in this lift, and found ourselves in a brightly-lit antechamber, before us a set of mechanical doors, sliding noiselessly back and forth like some portal to another world. Or something like that. I have to say that at this point my memory becomes somewhar blurred, not because of any myterious or nefarious goings on, but because I was trying in vain to fold up The Little Commuter's vehicle.

These things always cause me trouble, not having a natural affinity with mechanical devices. The Wife, with barely a hint of exasperation, had taken me through how it should be done a couple of times, but for some reason when I tried to duplicate her method, the vital clip just didn't seem to want to click into place, which meant that no sooner had I managed to fold the legs in towards the seat then the whole lot popped apart again, like a set of magnets which suddenly find their polarity reversed. Eventually, and with no help at all from The Wife, I'm pleased to say, I managed to subdue the thing, and proceeded through the mysterious portal, The Little Commuter perched on my arm.

We made our way on to the platform, without having to trek halfway across the city, as sometimes seems to be the case in London, and boarded the first train to find all manner of people practically begging me to take their seats, because I was holding a toddler. Again, this seemed strange to someone who travels regularly in our capital, where even heavily pregnant women are left standing because nobody looks up from their freesheets for long enough to notice them.

Oh, and when we got to our stop, we didn't have to go through that tiresome process of fumbling around for tickets to put through the barriers on the way out, the authorities having cunningly grasped the idea, which seems to elude their English counterparts, that we couldn't have got in without tickets, so there is no need to ask for them on the way out.

National Embarressment

2009-07-09T20:07:00.004+01:00

After all I've written about privatisation over the years, I couldn't let this latest fiasco on the London-Edinburgh line pass without comment. In case you haven't picked up on the story, it would seem that National Express, having taken over the franchise from GNER a bit more than a year ago amid much triumphal hoo-ha, have now decided that they don't want to play anymore. So rather than offloading the franchise to another private-sector business, as any grown-up corporate entity would do, they've dumped the whole ot on the government, and walked away with impunity to go back to what they do best, clogging up the nation's motorways.

Cleverly enough, the government themselves inserted so many get-out clauses and provisoes in to the deal when they struck it, so desperate were they to keep the privatisation bandwagon rolling, that they are seemingly powerless to impose any kind of sanction on the company. Now, I don't actually blame National Express for taking the public for a ride (or not, as the case may be). Like the MPs expenses row (currently broadening in scope to include certain publically-funded media organisations and soon, no doubt, the entire world except the Daily Telegraph), they seem to have merely played the system. Who can honestly say that they wouldn't do the same? They are, after all, in the business of turning a profit. But, again like our Right Honorable chums, the system was clearly rotten to begin with.

What bugs me is not that they drove a hard bargain, but that the people on the other side of the table felt they needed to make these kinds of concessions to push the deal through. If the franchise was really so unattractive that businesses wouldn't touch it without a Get Out Of Jail Free card, then surely it shouldn't have been on the market. Were the government really so desperate to get transport costs off the public balance sheet that they had to offer a ludicrous and frankly uncompetitive deal to ensure they got shot of it? It's like putting a bit of sticking plaster over a festering wound - a quick fix but never a lasting one.

So does this herald the beginning of the end for privatised railways and perhaps even the return of British Rail? Unlikely - I don't see where the'd get the money what with propping up the banks, and I'm sure someone will come along with a suitable bid soon enough. But it will be interesting to see if this temporary nationalisation resluts in a better service. I'm off to Leeds neext week so I'll have the chance to find out first hand. Suffice it to say, I'll be taking a packed lunch.

Sizzling

2009-07-03T21:56:00.002+01:00

Perhaps the biggest surprise of London's week in the Sun - bigger than Andy Murray losing at Wimbledon, bigger than the girls at work getting sunburned at lunchtime and then expressing surprise themselves because "we're not on holiday or anything", bigger even than Tim Henman's reasoned analysis of Michael Jackson's "status in pop history" - is that the trains didn't have the central heating on. As I have observed before, the heating on the trains seems to follow a calender all of its own, not bothering much in the colder months of Winter, puffing away enthusiastically in Spring and generally achieving peak performance sometime in May. With such an idiosyncratic sense of timing, I went into this week half expecting the trains to be full of hot air during my commute. But happily common sense seems to have prevailed - or perhaps the heating just broek down. Not that it hasn't been hot on the train. It most certainly has. Due to a couple of important business engagements, I've actually had to wear suits a couple of times this week, and let me tell you it was not pleasant.

Actually I avoided day one of the big scorcher, by going to Wigan on Monday. I hadn't ever been before, so that's one to cross off the list. I was half-tempted to follow the road to Wigan Pier, but there was traffic queueing to get on to the roudabout so I went to Skelmerdale instead. On Wednesday I had arrnged to go to Olympia for a trade show, so I had to put the suit on again along with the shoes that make a funny noise when I walk. It was uneventful, as these things go. Why are all these big conference venues so hard to get to? You could travel to the Midlands in not much longer than it takes to get from Marylebone to Kensington. And for Kensington High Street, one of the most fashionable and, let's face it, pricey, retail areas of London solely dependent on the District Line is surely someone's idea of a bad joke.

I decided on the way back across town to avoid the Tube, mindful of media speculation about the brain-meltingly high temperatures it might reach. I got on a bus, and what an interesting journey it proved. I went and sat up top, and settled down for an hour-long journey across London, passing Harrods, Harvey Nicks, the Albert Hall, Hyde Park, Marble Arch and Oxford Street, with the result that I now know WHY it takes so long to get to Kensington - it's really quite a long way. I had always put it down to the inefficiency of the transport network. I did manage to pick the only seat on the top level on to which the Sun shone directly, which was a shame and didn't do much for my perspiration levels. But at least that meant that, when I did get on the train home, people seemed not to want to crowd me.

It's been so hot this week that I even resorted to wearing a pair of shorts on Thursday. I'm not really one for hot weather, although after last Summer's gloom it has been a nice change. But can we got back to dull and overcast with occasional Sunny spells now, please?

An unplanned evening in Hertford

2009-06-18T19:47:00.006+01:00

Having publically hailed the new train timetable as "genuinely innovative", it was only a matter of time before it caught me out. And as it turned out it wasn't very long at all. As I mentioned when last we spoke, you see, those scamps at First Capital Connect's Operational Headquarters, hidden away in some secret location in the Hert of Heartfordshire (see what I did there? Ho ho) have been adding extra stops, apparently at random, to individual services. It really does appear to be somewhat arbitrary, almost as if they've dropped the names into a hat and picked them out one at a time, rather like the old-fashioned FA Cup draws back in the early-90s before they went all Blankety-Blank, when Bert Milliichip and Graham Kelly would sit there self-consciously in front of an oak-pannelled wall and awkwardly rummage around in the velvet bags without so much as a smart one-liner. The thing is, what I hadn't noticed was that on some services they've really gone to town (so to speak) by sending them to totally new places that aren't even on the same route. I discovered this last week, on the way home from a pleasant evening in a pub near Kings Cross, when I found myself quite unexpectedly, pulling in to Hertford North at 10:20pm. And, equally unexpectedly, getting off there.

I had, as I mention, been to a pub, and had enjoyed a couple of drinks - nothing excessive and certainly nowhere near enough to render me less than compos mentis. I did get a dirty look from some guy in the seat in front of me on the train, which I thought at the time was down to me shouting into my mobile phone. When I got home, however, The Wife sweetly informed me that I smelt "like a brewery" which though most unfair, because firstly as I say I hadn't had much to drink, and secondly because breweries actually smell quite nice. I know - I've visited a couple. But I digress. When the train pulled in to its first stop, I was just coming off the phone and as I hung up I glanced out of the window and was rather surprised to find that we had stopped at Hertford North. Hertford North, you see, is (or was) on a different branch of the line from the beautiful market town where I reside, involving (or so I thought) a substantial cross-country detour. So I quite reasonably assumed that I must be on the wrong train (I hadn't checked the electronic boards before getting on, as I was running a bit late). I hastened to my feet, somewhat unsteadily (much to the amusement of the chap who had given me the dirty look, who clearly seemed to think I was under the influence), grabbed my bag and bounded for the door, leaping from the train just as the excitingly-named Hustle Alarm started to sound.

Glancing up at the electronic board (a quick learner, you see) I was dismayed to discover that I had falllen victim to the train company's ruse, and that the train I had got off, which was even now chugging out of the platform, was in fact headed for my home town. And as it turned out, there were no trains, either going back into London or headed to my destination, for almost an hour.

The only good thing to come out of it all is that I can now state definitively that Hertford is not a twenty-four hour town. That hour passed very slowly. And the toilets were locked.

Hooray for Common Sense

2009-05-23T00:05:00.005+01:00

Summer is truly upon us. There are signs all around that barbecue season is about to take hold, but the most compelling of these has nothing to do with the weather. To a commuter, the surest sign of the changing of the seasons is surely the coming of a new train timetable. I don't actually know what fancy name they have dreamed up for the Summertine schedule. The timetable that comes into operation in the Autumn is known, charmingly, as the "Leaffall" timetable. But for its counterpart which hails the arrival of the Hayfever eeason there is no such moniker, nor does it get the big build up as happens at the end of September, when posters start appearing in odd places on the station concourse (just far enough away from the stairs that you don't actually notice them) fortelling the great and seismic change that will shortly be upon us, throwing all journey plans to the winds and causing a total of five commuters to be late for work.

The thing is, the reason nobody bothers to read the posters and signs is that, invariably, the new timetable is no different from the old one. Possibly a few trains may be several carriages shorter, or just that little bit slower, but in practice, as long as you are not one of those reckless types who times his arrival to the nanosecond that the train appears around the corner and chugs into the station (but nonetheless always manages to get a seat, natch, often due to a scant regard for the rules - the yellow line is there for a reason, you know), in which case, frankly, you deserve all you get, the new timetable makes not a jot of difference.

You know what's coming next, don't you?

Yes! You've guessed it. The new train timetable on the GN route is genuinely innovatively different. The thing is, whereas previosuly all trains stopped at exactly the same stations, so that the fast ones went straight from Stevenage into London and any poor bugger who happned to live at one of the calling points in between had to get on one of the appallingly overcrowded stoppers, the new timetable allocates one intermediate station per fast train, so that anyone living in Knebworth or Welwyn North gets the chance to actually get a seat. Brilliant. It will make me feel so much better on those occasions when I miss my own train and have to catch a slow one, where previously I have always been racked with guilt about taking up space.

A break from the norm

2009-05-03T12:06:00.008+01:00

This isn't really on-brief for a commuting blog, but commuting has been uneventful recently so I'm going to take the opportunity to get something off my chest that's bothered me for a few years. That something is Shakespeare, or to be more precise, one of his lesser-known plays, Hamlet.

(Incidentally, it might be speculated that Hamlet was in fact a commuter, travelling regularly between Elsinore and his hairy-arsed student digs in Wittenberg, where he and his mate Horatio smoked dope and compared the size of each other's philosophy. His favoured mode of transport for these trips is not made clear, although the train hadn't been invented).

Coming through a conventional education for priveleged young boys, I had the (mis)fotune to study Hamlet at various different stages. What this of course meant is that any pleasure I might otherwise have taken in it was suffocated by hours of tedious analysis, picking over every single detail and every line,and then repeating as if by rote every stock cliche the teachers could come up with in answer to the heavily-trailed exam questions. One of those questions concerned the character of Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, and the object of lust and jealousy for (arguably) three of the main characters. The question was, was Getrude a scheming, power-crazed, two-timing hussy, or simply a weak-willed, rather pathetic little woman at the mercy of outrageous fortune?

The answer, so we were told, was that she was definitely the former, as revealed in a scene midway through the play when the mask slips a little bit as she gets frustrated with the pompous old fool Polonius and tells him to come to the point with her sharp rebuke "More matter with less art." The way she then goes on the grass on her son for killing the self-same pompous old fool (or "Good old man" as she refers to him), having just before been expressing he devotion to him, is further evidence, supposedly, of this Machiavellian, look-after-number-one approach.

Now aged seventeen I didn't know much of life beyond the confines of my sheltered, mollycoddled existence, and I certainly didn't understand people. As I have got older and progressed through a career which so far has been largely unspectacular with occasional peaks and troughs, I have come to appreciate the truth of one of Shakespeare's other observations, about men and women being merely players. So surely Gertrude doesn't have to be either a rat or a mouse. Is it not plausible to suggest that she may in fact have been just human, subject to the visscitudes of life and buffeted by fotune to the point where the difference between right and wong became blurred. To be fair, her husband, the King, had just died, and quite apart from the grief, she was in danger of being out of a job. Let's assume that the after-dinner speaking circuit in Denmark was not well-developed, and it becomes clear that the opportunities for an ex-Queen to forge a new career look somewhat bleak. Faced with the prospect of losing her home, her job and her status, and presumably feeling somewhat vulnerable anyway as a result of being newly-widowed, jumping into bed with the new King must have seemed a sensible thing to do. That he just happened to be her brother-in-law was neither here nor there, because no matter what Hamlet might think, it isn't incest.

There is of course still the problem of whether she knew the identiy of the murderer or not, and indeed whether she and Claudius were up to anything they shouldn't have been before the King died. Were she to be revealed as not only an adulterer but also an accomplice to a murder, that would paint a very different picture. But I would argue that her conduct throughout is not suggestive of a woman whose calculating, cold nature enabled her to be so in control of events. Getting her son's hairy-arsed student mates to spy on him seems unneccessarily complicated for someone so ambitious. And frankly if she wanted to cling on to power and start a new dynasty with the new king, why keep Hamlet around anyway? Surely he was just an inconvenience? Given the level of antipathy between Claudius and Hamlet it seems unlikely that the king would be keen fo his stepson/son-in-law to succeed to the throne anyway,so it would make sense to just get Hamlet out of the way.

That bedroom scene, where Queen and Prince get intimate enough to have academics eveywhere rubbing themselves with undisguised relish, doesn't exactly portray Gertrude as the cold, calculating type. She's forgotten that her son is going into exile, for one thing, which isn't what you would expect of someone manipulating events to her advantage. And dobbing Hamlet in for killing Polonius, well, after everything else that had happened she was probably just a bit fed up of unstable men in her life, not to mention a bit upset at having witnessed a stabbing in her bedroom (well, who wouldn't be?), so it probably seemed like the right thing to do.

My point is that there are few people, even in Shakespeare, who don't change direction according to the prevailing wind. When emotions run high, rational behaviour is hard, so I have made my peace with Gertrude, and refuse to condemn her either way for being carried along by the force of momentous events.

Top five commuting characters

2009-04-09T23:13:00.004+01:00

1. Mobile phone woman:

A peripatetic agony aunt, this benevolent repository of relationship advice can often be found on early-eveing trains, tuttting sympathetically at intervals of five seconds or so, as her correspondent (so we assume) pours out her troubles on the other end of the line. Occasionaly interjects something more substantial along the lines of "Well he doesn't desrve you." or "Yeah but no but" etc

2. Ipod man:

I'm making a bit of a sweeping generalisation here - I'm sure many of them are bog-standard MP3 players and not over-priced gadgets from a certain computer company. Ipod man, though, is above generalisations. In fact, nothing makes much of an impression on him, because his senses have long since been dulled by the sheer thumping volume of the music on his headphones. Takes great pleasure in catching the eye of a fellow passenger and pretending not to be aware that his personal choice of tunes cn be heard three carriages away.

3. Crisp-eating person:

Crisp-eating person is, as the name suggests, not an individual of fixed gender. Rather, he/she is an archetype, whose role can be easily filled, and with a delicious sense of inevitability is usually filled, as soon as the person in the row in front opens a book and starts to read it. A distant relative of Popcorn man, that well-known denizen of the cinema.

4. Freesheet reader:

Freesheet reader is the fastest reader anywhere in the wolrd, who has taken skim-reading to another level. Freesheet reader doesn't so much skim as pass over, bouncing very occasionally on the surface like a seaplane about to land. Possesses an unhealthy interest in inane thirty-second interviews and star signs.

5. Bike man

One cannot forget or, alas, ignore Bike man, for the simple resaon that his bike manages to get in the way of every single passenger in the carriage. Bike man's bike never folds, as according to compsny policy on bicycles, and is therefore wheeled into the vestibule so that other people's legs and ankles can be assaulted.

Look, it's a lift okay?

2009-04-06T22:34:00.003+01:00

I've signed up to a kind of self-help for bloggers course, and the first task I've been set is to come up with an Elevator Pitch (so-called because it should be concise yet persuasive enough for you to convince a buyer in the time it takes to share a lift with him) for my blog. So, here goes:

The Happy Commuter takes a sideways glance at the daily commute on an average suburban mainline railway, celebrating its customs, its unwritten rules and rituals, and most of all the cast of characters with whom I share my journey. My aim is to provide commuters themselves with a brief respite from their unremitting gloom by gently reminding them of the absurdity of fighting over an uncomfortable seat on a crowded train.

Hmm. Needs a bit of work. I'll come back to this. It's late. You see, in a twist both ironic and strangely fitting, I was delayed on my journey home tonight. There was a fatality at Finsbury Park, and everything was backed up coming out of Kings Cross.

"Valued customer"

2009-03-27T22:01:00.003Z

Excitingly, I received my first proper grown up piece of direct mail from my rail company this week. It's a significant moment. It feels like our relationship has finally moved on to the next stage, after a courtship of seven years (I never was one to rush into relationships). We have both, it seems, accepted the inevitable, and recognised the symbiotic bond that links us, I the passenger, they the transport providers. After all, what is a transport provider without passengers to transport? If a tree falls in a deserted forest and all that. The point I'm somewhat clumsily making though (and this in fact follows directly from my last post about privatisation, which is not deliberate) is that I am no longer a faceless commuter. I am now a Valued Customer. I know, because it says so on the letter.

It is of course nice to be valued. However, I have to say I am not made to feel absolutely and completely valued by the rest of the text. "According to our records," it says, "you are a FCC Monthly Season Ticket holder or have been very recently." Now, most of that sentence I'm fine with. Indeed I applaud them for the perspicacity of their record-keeping (although as I say I have been a monthly season ticket holder for seven years, with the odd break for holidays, so its not as sharp as all that).

But "or have been very recently"? No, I'm sorry but I'm not having that. I am a FCC Monthly Season Ticket holder right now, FCC, and you should know that. How is this relationship going to work if you don't keep up to date with what's going on in my life. You expect me to stay abreast of what you're doing, developments in your world, and I do, but it can't all be one way. Is this not an equal relationship?

The letter then goes on to tell me about the Seats For You programme, which is apparently going to add 4000 more seats at peak times "from May" - I'm sure that deadline has moved. Which is all well and good, except that the train I regularly get in the mornings (again, see my previous post), which was a very handy time that allowed me to have breakfast with The Little Commuter and still get to work on time, has recently without warning been cut in half, reduced form eight coaches to four. It's not too hard to figure out why, because clearly having a train running at peak times that doesn't get completely full is clearly a waste of capacity that would be welcome elsewhere on one of the exceptionally crowded services. But it's the way they've just gone ahead and done it on the sly, without so much a tannoy announcement, as if this was always part of the plan, that gets me. They make a big song and dance about how well they're doing and how great we should all be feeling ("You've never had it so good" to quote that politician bloke) and then try to sneak little things through on the sly. I feel slighted.

Private Parts

2009-03-01T13:35:00.005Z

With all the coverage of the the proposed part-privatisation of the Royal Mail (a potentially prickly purpose) I find myself reflecting on the state of the railways a few years after that particular controversy. Now whilst I am certainly not in favour of large-scale privatisation of public services (the most profitable does not always equate to the best service) it is only fair to observe that privatisation has not meant the end of rail transport as we know it, led to less reliable services or stranded passengers. In fact, if anything things have got better. Punctuality has improved, rolling stock has been updated, and on intercity routes the food has undeniably got better.

I don't know whether or not the derailments and crashes of recent years were down to the greedy fat cat businessmen putting profit before passengers and not maintaining the lines properly (as the media liked to portray it at the time) or to long-standing neglect and systemic failure by successive governments (as slightly more grown-up commentators put it at the same time). I suspect it's a bit like the current furore over Sir Fred's pension, being whipped up by vote-hungry politicians and sales-hungry journos, whilst RBS's big-money sponsorship of the Six Nations goes unmentioned, presumably because the rugby draws large crowds and sells plenty of papers.

I do, however, know that the trains on my line are hardly ever more than five minutes late, that over-crowding has eased (at least a little) in the past year (for which I personally am happy to pay a bit extra on my fare) and that whenever there are changes to the timetable, the services or anything else that I need to know about, it is publicised via the web site, SMS, leaflets - genuine multimedia stuff. I can't see that happening under British Rail.

I know I sound like an unalloyed capitalist, but I go back to something Charles Handy once said (and if you don't know who he is, look it up) - the strength of public sector organisations is policy-making, the strength of private-sector companies is implementation. So surely there must be a case for some kind of partnership?

My, my. What a serious post. I think I need to finish on some kind of joke.

What did the signal say to the train?

"Don't look now, I'm changing."

The Happy Commuter Rides Again

2009-02-10T21:42:00.006Z

Yes it's true. After my career break, the Happy Commuter is back on the railways, travelling daily into the very heart of the great metropolis in pursuit of my dreams. And what a way to start. My first week in the new job just happened to coincide with the worst snowfall we've had for three thousand years (or whatever), meaning that I only actually made it in for three days out of five. Now I'm a big fan of working from home as a rule, but in the first week?

Still, the bad weather, and accompanying transport difficulties, have at least prompted me to once again ponder the paradox that these situations bring out the best (or worst, depending on your standpoint) in commuters - in that they start acting quite out of character and being thoroughly nice to each other.

On Thursday I was heading home after work on a rather crowded train which had been rerouted to stop at all stations along the line. Halfway through our very slow journey, we stopped in some out-of-the-way place and a single passenger got off, thus freeing up a single seat. Now normally this would cause a sudden outbreak of what I call "Feed The Ducks Syndrome" amongst the standing commuters. You know when you chuck a bit of bread inot a pond or lake or whatever (if it's not prohibited for Health and Safety reasons) and all the ducks go for it at once. The one that gets there first gobbles it up, of course, and all the others immediately go back to what they were doing, pretending that they were never interested in the first place? That's what happens when commuters are competing for a lone seat. The victor contrives to look smug and apathetic at the same time, and the vanquished, however many there are of them, feign indifference.

On Thursday evening, however, we were more like shrinking violets and hungry ducks. "Would you like a seat?" "Oh, I couldn't possibly" etc etc. There were three of us clustered around this seat and we were all determined not to sit in it. Eventually it became clear that someone was going to have to sit down (you can't leave a seat empty, you know), so we had to resort to gesturing to people at the other end of the carriage that there was a free seat and would they be so kind as to come and sit in it. We were halfway to the next stop before we finally managed to coax a young lady out of the vestibule to take the seat, and evenb then she did so with the most profound reluctance. Fortunately the snow has thawed somewhat (having said that, it's snowing now) and normal service has been resumed, both in the case of the trains and the hordes who travel on them.

Off-peak - the Wilderness

2009-01-15T18:25:00.008Z

For reasons too boring to go into (watch the news) the Happy Commuter hasn't been doing much commuting recently. When I have taken to the rails, nothing much of interest has happened. This is because I have been tending to travel off-peak. My Goodness what a strange experience. As someone who has become accustomed to the bustle, noise and general commotion of Rush Hour commuting, the off-peak rail travel experience is a surreal and somewhat disturbing one.

Firstly, you arrive at the station and there's only one window open at the ticket office. Now this is understandable, because there are fewer passengers needing tickets, so there should be no need for multiple staff members to serve the few customers there are. The problem with this theory is that those people that do venture to the ticket office during the off-peak hours are invariably "forward-planners" - and they invariably want to have some in-depth discussion with the ticket operative concerning the feasability of getting to Reading via Blackpool and whether it would be cheaper/faster to get a Super-dooper Smashing Bullseye Advance ticket to Aberdeen and then pick up a connection from there. This discussion lasts about a week, at the end of which they decide not to buy any tickets at all.

By the time the lone off-peak traveller does make it to the front of the queue, at least three trains will have come and gone, and generally there will be a twenty-minute wait for the next one, which just happens to be a stopper.

After this intensely frustrating interlude, the off-peak commuter staggers on to the platform and takes a seat on one of the freezing and uncomfortable metal benches and shivers, no matter what the ambient temperature. There is a rule in the UK, you see, that all station platforms must be kept just above freezing. Just when the total silence becomes utterly unbearable (there are no announcements during off-peak periods - the tannoy guys are away practising their one-liners and perfecting their sneers for the Rush Hour performance), a train rumbles into the platform, and the off-peak commuter gets on and takes a seat amongst the crisp packets and chocolate wrappers. The train chugs out of the station in a lacklustre, can't-really-be-bothered kind of way, and the driver makes his usual series of announcements in a manner which suggests that he, too, is saving his best for later.

It's more like After the Lord Mayor's Show than Before The Storm, and enough to make one pine for the cut-and-thrust of peak-time.

Pale Shadows

2008-12-21T21:55:00.004Z

It's always profoundly unsettling running into fellow commuters out of context. A few years ago when I lived in Welwyn Garden City I remember coming face to face with two fellow denizens of the front carriage (this was before I made the momentous decision to switch to the rear) with whom I regularly failed to swap pleasantries on the 7:50 (or whatever) into Kings Cross. They were both middle aged, smartly turned out, Daily Mail readers (so of course we could never be friends), and I used to suspect that they were in in adulterous relationship. Imagine my disappointment, therefore, at encountering them in civvies (jeans, I believe) in WH Smith at the weekend, quite clearly a couple as legitimate as it is possible to be. I flashed a winning smile, as I always do in these situations, and received the cold shoulder in return, which I suppose serves me right for being a hypocrite.

Last weekend it happened again. This time I was in Woolworths in Hitchin, joining the flock of vultures who have descended upon the decaying carcass of the store in the hope of finding some juicy piece of merchandise before it is forever consigned to history, along with the likes of C&A and Allders. I was just walking through the door when a guy who often gets the same train as me, a thirty-something (at a guess) who always managed to look uncomfortable and even somewhat scruffy in a suit and wears a permanent half-smile, passed me going in the opposite direction with his kids! I was momentarily dumbstruck - I never had him down as a having-kids sort of person. Just goes to show, books and covers and all that. Anyway, having recovered my composure in a split second, I raised my eyebrows to him in a non-committal gesture of acknowledgement, fully expecting to be shunned once more. A brief look of blind panic crossed his face as he looked almost, but not quite, straight at me, and then he averted his gaze and was gone. Nice to know it's not just me that finds these encounters discomfiting. But the real highlight was yet to come.

There's a guy who sits in the rear carriage most days, who possesses a remarkable knack of getting to the front of the queue/scrum/mob as the train pulls in, even if he has arrived after everybody else. He's a wee bit older than the besuited guy, and not a suit-wearer (suggested he works in "meeja"), but the intensity that comes into his eyes every morning when the train arrives marks him out as a force to be reckoned with. I had him down as a bit of a loner, someone for whom other people represent a kind of hell. Once again, how wrong I was. He was in the sweetie aisle with positiveily angelic little girl, showing all the signs (which I am by now trained to recognise) of being a doting father. Remarkable.

I've come over quite emotional actually. Maybe I'll try to organise some drinks, next time I see them both. Then we could all be friends. Love-er-ly.

The Little Commuter and Rush Hour

2008-12-05T21:46:00.003Z

This week saw one of the Little Commuter's rare trips to London, for an appointment with a very nice Consultant who gave him a lovely clean bill of health. The same trip also brought his first experience of Rush Hour (the inaccurately-monikered three-hour period when London's commuters head for home, not the film with Jackie Chan, which he has yet to experience). He handled it very well.

In spite of the many innovations to have graced our local station in recent times - ticket barriers, a newsagent, ticket machines that actually work, and even monitors that don't flicker every three minutes - one thing they have yet to tackle is access. The Wife and I had timed our arrival to perfection, and would have been in plenty of time to catch the fast train if we hadn't had to negotiate the two sets of stairs that connect the London-bound platform 1 with the rest of the station. So we ended up getting the next train which turned out to be stopper, and our nice, leisurely lunch in the city turned into a madcap dash across the West End to get to our chosen eaterie in time to wolf down a paratha. Still, we made our appointment in plenty of time and the Little Commuter was full of smiles as the nurses poked and prodded him, only getting slightly annoyed when told he had to produce a urine sample (you can't just do these things to order, you know).

The news was good, and all was well as we made our merry way back to Kings Cross. One concern nagged at the back of our minds, however. The Little Commuter had not had his nap. When he should have been asleep, he was being poked and prodded by nurses. What this meant was that we faced the very real prospect of a tired baby on an over-crowded train. Oh well - at least it should drown out the Ipods.

He actually fell asleep in his pram on the way to the station, and great care was taken to give him a smooth ride so as not to wake him (not as easy as it sounds - our pram has a mind of its own). I stood with him and between us we took up most of the vestibule, so that when we got to Finsbury Park people had to squeeze around us like they were playing that Hole In the Wall game from off the telly. Glancing lovingly down at him for the umpteenth time, I was taken aback to see a pair of deep blue eyes gazing back at me. He was awake and not very happy about it.

It started with a whimper or two, but he was rapidly into his stride, giving his lungs a good workout as around us the commuters studiously ignored him. Then he spotted something out the window and chuckled fondly - it was his reflection, or it may have been mine. Either way, it seemed to please him. But he soon remembered how tired he was, and resumed his protestations. I picked him up, and attempted to calm him by holding him to my chest. Alas, the train was moving at a fair pace, and as I danced from foot to foot in an effort to keep my balance it must have been more like being on a rollercoaster for him.

At Stevenage as people shuffled past us in single file, I tried to put him back into his buggy so we were ready to disembark rapidly at Hitchin, and that was the clincher for him. Perhaps he couldn't see his reflection from his chair. Whatever the reason he decided to give full voice to his feelings, and for the next few minutes the passengers on the twenty past four from Kings Cross were treated to a most unusual soundtrack as they sped thorugh the Hertfordshire countryside. Everyone was very nice about it, and that brought home to me once more the essential paradox of the behaviour of the commuting herd. When everything is going fine they grumble and snipe. As soon as something goes awry, however, everyone starts being nice. It's probably something to do with the Blitz.

"The only war to be caused by railway timetables"

2008-11-11T21:58:00.005Z

At about this time of year, when we remember, with due solemnity, the events of 1914-18, it is interesting to note the role of the railways not just during the war, but at the very start of it. And it falls within the scope of this blog to note that the German army, that terrifyingly effective fighting force, were, in fact, commuters. They ended up in the middle of a field in Flanders because they couldn't get to France on their chosen service. Indeed, AJP Taylor has said that the First World War was the only war in history to be caused by railway timetables. Essentially, the Germans hatched a grand scheme to negate the possibility of a war on two fronts by sending troops into Belgium on the train to the West and Russia to the East, but due to overhead line problems (or something) they missed their connection and got stuck in No Man's land (something that will strike a chord with many a hardy commuter who's been sat impotently outside a station for half an hour on a Friday night with no information).

You can imagine the conversation:

Kaiser Wilhelm: "So, if ve get ze 7:15 to Passchendale ve can get ze boys to ze Marne in time to feed ze ducks."

General HindeNberg: "Und maybe ve can get some sort of group discount - an Army Travelcard. Zat vould mean more money for spending on ze guns and ze Horseradish gas."

Kaiser Wilhelm: "It's mustard gas you idiot. Now have you looked at ze timetable for trains to Russia. Ve have to get to Moscow before it gets too cold. Look vot happened to zat midget French bloke."

General Hindenberg: "Kaiser Wilhelm, ve have a problem. Zere are overhead line problems in ze Flanders areas. Ve apoligise for any inconvenience caused but ve vill have to start the greatest conflict mankind has ever known."

Kaiser Wilhelm: "Oh vell, I've lost my photcard anyvay."

It's official - Commuting is shit

2008-10-26T21:48:00.007Z

It's not that often that commuting stories hit the headlines (with the thankfully-rare exceptions of fare hikes and train crashes) which made an article on the BBC web site entitled "Faecal Bacteria Join the Commute" even more intriguing than it already appeared.

It seems that all those horror stories about what you get if you touch the rail or even the upholstry on yer average public transport vehicle are true. Something like 50% of commuters tested (30% in London, 70% in Newcastle - proof that, in georgraphical terms, shit doesn't slide down) had poo on their hands and were busily smearing it all over the interior for the next passenger. Who says commuters don't believe in sharing?

I had a colleague in my previous job who said he never touched anything on public transport, propmting one to speculate as to how he kept his feet during spells of turbulence (he was an ex-dancer, so maybe he just had really good balance). Another colleague, on the other hand, always disagreed with him, on the basis that it's good for us to be exposed to germs because that's how we build up immunity. There was actually a similar fuss about licking stamps and envelopes a few years back, and I remember thinking then that the lack of statistics on envelope-related deaths and diseaeses did rather leave the argument lacking a little something - rigour, I suppose. All I can say for certain is that, after a lifetime of commuting during which time I have doubtless been exposed to all kinds of shit (literally) I remain a model of good health.

The 12:05 from Paddington . . . won't be going to Devizes

2008-10-07T22:21:00.004+01:00

The other night I saw a bit of Ian Hislop's documentary on the Beeching reforms which closed down something like two thirds of the nation's rail network in the 60s. I didn't know it was on or I would obviously have watched the whole thing. Fascinating stuff. I've always lived in or around cities, or at least large towns - I grew up in commuter-belt Surrey, and then lived in Leicester for six years before moving to commuter-belt Herts - so I've never been far from a railway station, and I suppose I have always taken them for granted. I remember being profoundly shocked when planning a trip to Devizes in Wiltshire that the town didn't have a station - what a backward place, I thought - but it seems that I was the one with my head in the sand! It turns out that there are vast tracts of this land not served by the railways, where "public transport" means getting off your backside and walking.

I remember reading Thomas The Tank Engine stories in my youth (back in the days before he had a plastic face and a Scouse accent (he's from Leicester, you know), and being mildly bemused by references to "branch lines". Thinking about it, every station I can think of is connected to a major city. Even when I've been up in Yorkshire, marvelling at the fact that places like Guiseley and Yeadon are actually connected to civilisation, I've always been heading either into or out of central Leeds. It's always irritated me that to get from Hitchin to St Albans, two towns in the same county, you have to go all the way into London and back out again via a change of station. Now I know why that is.

It's all left me feeling rather glum, to be honest. After all, a town, village or even a hamlet without a railway station is like, oh I don't know, the human body with no arteries. If you see what I mean. I'm not sure I do myself, actually, but surely everyone should have access to the railways. That's the whole point.

A naughty weekend in Bournemouth

2008-09-13T21:54:00.010+01:00

I have to say I'm getting a bit fed up with the relentless media coverage of the US Presidential race (even though we're getting towards the home strait). I haven't got a vote, so the endless speculation about whether Sarah Palin wears liptick or not (I may be a little fuzzy on the details there) leaves me somewhat cold and left-out. It is not something I can influence - as my dear old Guardian reluctantly proved last time around with a rather ill-advised campaign to get every reader to write to a voter in the USA urging them to vote Kerry.

However, it is hard not to get swept up in it all, partly because of the blanket media coverage - everyone on the train is reading about it - but also because, as a student of politics, it gives me pleasure to see a contest that has actually got people interested. It's exciting, it's glamorous, it's got the voters cheering, singing, stamping their feet about Big Ideas such as Democracy, Freedom and The Right to Put Lipstick on a Pig (I know sponsorship and product placement laws are somewhat different in the US to here, so surely there's got to be a marketing angle here for one of the big cosmetics brands?). It's hard to imagine that portion of the electorate over here which actually bothers to vote getting so animated by the forthcoming general election, even though we do actually have some fairly thrilling stuff going on in British politics at present. Ministers are queueing up to put the boot into the PM, real cloak-and-dagger stuff. Meanwhile the Opposition have taken over London and David Cameron would surely be speeding inexorably towards Number 10 if somebody hadn't stolen his bicycle.

But thre is a third main political party in the UK, and I must confess to having spent much of the weekend absolutely riveted by the Liberal Democrats' Party Conference in Bournemouth. It couldn't have been further removed from the foot-stamping, rabble-rousing excitement of the US Presidential race if they'd held it in Russia. The auditorium was never more than half-full in any of the debates that I watched, the speakers themselves seemed to have mastered the art of flat monotone, those that did occasionally try to introduce a bit of fire and brimstone (maybe even the odd joke) were greeted by such stony silence that all too soon they gave up. The language was grand and formal, but the setting was absolutely incongruous. The delegates were at least divserse in age and appearance, and it was all very earnest and worthy, with real policy and issues up for debate. There was no tub-thumping, no triumphalism, no "this is our place in history" type rhetoric, nothing to make the casual viewer think that here was party preparing for government. It was like a parody of itself. I was absolutely hooked. If I hadn't had to come to work today, I'd still be watching now.

And they talked about commuting too.

Crazy world

2008-08-28T22:32:00.004+01:00

The other night I was travelling post-watershed through the bowels of the city on the Northern Line, doing my best to ignore the two Footballers' Wives escapees seated across from me. I found my attention drawn to the advertisements posted above the map. I do think these have got better in recent years. I put it down to enlightened media strategy, whereby these posters are recognised and treated a distinct channel, rather than simply an extension of the the latest TV campaign (I don't actually work in marketing anymore, you know). There are some clever ones that play on the idea of being a commuter, as if they're sharing a joke with you - things like "Don't you wish the person next to you was wearing X deoderant" or "Nothing in the paper? Now here's something you will want to read on the train."

On this occasion, it wasn't a self-consciously ironic piece of banter that caught my eye, but a strikingly attractive image of a lush green rural landscape, rolling meadows and tranquil steams, all kinds of wondrous vegetation, peopled by slim, good-looking types with Hollywood smiles and great hair. Clearly, this was depicting some far-off and exotic playground of the rich and famous. Where could this Utopia be, I wondered, as I contemplated the prospect of escaping to such a haven from the crowded platforms and heaving trains of commuterland. Califorina, perhaps? Provence? Maybe even Jersey? I read the copy, and I kid you not, it said:

"Essex - it's closer than you think."

The last refuge of the rebel

2008-07-26T11:52:00.006+01:00

There is a lot of talk of talk of political renewal in the air - Obamania, Scottish nationalists, Crewe and Nantwitch (what happened to Alexandria, by the way?), with everyone wetting themselves over how a 48% turnout is something to get excited about. It occurs to me that political theorists really should look more closely at the behaviour of commuters, because it is surely the only working model of anarchy in the UK (see what I did there?).

I've been thinking about this and it seems to me that the only way to explain how perfectly respectable, law-abiding people can descend to such debased levels of behaviour, is that it is a desperate attempt by disenfranchised citizens to assert some kind of independence from the law-givers of the state. We may be one nation under CCTV, meaning that we all have to mind our Ps and Qs out and about in towns and cities, but on the train, no one can hear you scream (with frustration, obviously) as some fellow commuter plants an elbow in your face as you both rush for the same seat, or cranks the Ipod up to maximum and forces the whole train to share the joy of rocking along to Aerosmith's latest release.

It isn't just a lack of courtesy, however. It is something much deeper than that, some subconscious yearning (that lurks in us all, no doubt) to break the rules, to scorn the iron fist of authority. Consider this - an (over)crowded platform shudders under the weight of the morning rush hour as a train approaches. A disembodied voice from the ether reminds everyone to stand behind the yellow line "for your own safety". Before the voice has finished speaking, half of the front rank have purposefully stepped forward, over said line. Minutes later, as the packed locomotive pulls away from the station, the driver implores all passengers to familiarise themsleves with the safety instructions. No one even glances at them, pointedly devouring every detail of the poster alongside advertising a download service for the the latest funky ringtone instead. And so it proceeds until the train reaches its final destination, when everyobdy ignores the pleas to "have your tickets ready for inspection, and heads the wrong way down a one-way staircase, or crosses the road a hundred yards from the nearest crossing, just to show that they don't always have to do what they're told.

It just goes to show that there the flame of activism still burns.

The Definitive Lists

2008-07-12T20:56:00.004+01:00

For no other reason than that I've always fancied doing this, even before High Fidelity, and it came up in another book I was reading recently as a popular male pass-time, here's a couple of personal top 5 lists.

Top 5 Nottingham Forest players (not neccessarily the best, just my personal faves):

1. Stuart Pearce - nuff said.
2. Bryan Roy - I saw him play twice, both against Tottenham, and both times he scored two goals
3. Scott Gemmill - fantastic in the 93/94 promotion year, extensively disappointing thereafter. But I'll never forget that goal against Leicester.
4. Ian Woan - scored a few fantastic goals, and did little else.
5. Andy Reid - for about twenty minutes, I really thought he'd got Forest back in the premiership. Subsequently got over-hyped by the press.
6. Lars Bohinen - I know I said 5, but I couldn't leave him out, not after he chipped Ian Walker from 25 yards.

Top 5 Star Wars characters:

1. Yoda - small, wise, and mighty - reminds me of someone . . .
2. R2D2 - small, inventive, feisty - hmm, now who does that remind me of?
3 Wicket W. Warwick - okay, you can probably see where I'm going with this now. Just kidding around, I don't just like the small characters because I project something of myself on to them. That would be a bit pathetic.
4. Boba Fett - his fame is completely disproportionate to his screentime in any of the films. I mean, what does he actually do? Sees his Dad get killed in one film, and then flies into the Sarlaac to his apparent death (and I know that according tp the books he actually survives) because he's got a dodgy rocket pack. And yet we're supposed to believe he's the greatest bounty hunter ever.
5. Aunt Beru - no, seriously. That blender thing she uses in the first film is one of the most underrated props ever.

Right. Actually, doing top 5 lists isn't such a diverting pass-time after all. Maybe I'm just too old.

Hunting in packs

2008-06-27T22:40:00.004+01:00

Is ther rhyme or reason, I wonder, behind the delpoyment of ticket inspectors by train companies and stations? It would be nice to think that there was some kind of strategy, some guiding hand that brings groups of ticket collectors together at a certain station to do their ticket-collecting thing. The fact that you never see just the one ticket collector anymore suggests that there must be a plan behind it all. But it's hard to credit that any coherent plan could be so seemingly random in they way it manages deployment. You can go for months (honestly) without seeing hide nor hair of a ticket inspector on any train. But then, all of a sudden, a group of them (And what is the collective terms? Gaggle? School? Herd? Who knows?) turn up out of nowhere and start "giving it the big I Am", demanding to see tickets which they never look at properly, giving out erroneous platform information and generally making nuisances of themselves.

This happened the other morning. I bounded joyously off the train at Finsbury Park (new job, you see) and charged down the steps to descend to the Underground station, only to encounter a Group (or perhaps a Gaggle) of burley TCs waiting at the top of the staircase. Why it needed five of them I don't know, because they seemed to function according to the well-known "coffee shop law" whereby the greater the number of staff, the longer it takes to perform the task. But it meant we all had to stop in our tracks and fumble around in our pockets for tickets we didn't normally need to show at this point in our journey, causing a bottleneck at the foot of the steps down from the platform and clogging everything up just in time for the next train to arrive and dispatch it's cargo of rush-hour traffic.

The following day, they were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they've been deployed to another station. Maybe, in fact, they are the only ticket inspectors on the whole network, and they get shunted around en masse every day, just to remind commuters that the Authorities are keeping an eye on them. No wonder you never see them in the same place twice - that's a lot of stations to get round.

200 years of progress

2008-06-15T20:24:00.002+01:00

PROLOGUE - INT. RUSH HOUR TRAIN, LONDON – MORNING
ALFIE AND BERT, TICKET COLLECTORS, ADDRESS THE
CAMERA.

ALFIE:
Rail travel was one of the greatest
inventions of the Nineteenth Century. It
transformed British society from a
reactionary, class-ridden corner of the
Old World into the leader of the
industrial revolution, socially mobile and
ruler of half the globe. Rail travellers
were sophisticated, intellectually-elite,
and always got where they wanted to
go.

BERT:
Where did it all go wrong?

CAMERA PANS OUT AND WE SEE A PACKED COMMUTER TRAIN,
WITH ROWS OF NEWSPAPERS HELD ALOFT LIKE SHEILDS.
MOVES ALONG THE CARRIAGE ALIGHTING ON
THOMAS, 29, A WORLD-WEARY WELSH CONSERVATIVE,
WHO IS TRYING TO SIP COFFEE FROM A STYROFOAM CUP
WHILST STILL HOLDING UP HIS NEWSPAPER. IT SLOPS
OUT OF THE CAP AND HE NARROWLY AVOIDS GETTING IT
ON HIS TROUSERS, SHOWERING HIS BRIEFCASE INSTEAD.
HE MOPS IT WITH A SECTION FROM THE ‘PAPER.

CREDITS

New beginnings?

2008-06-10T21:44:00.003+01:00

I've always maintained that my next job would be outside London. I maintained throughout my first proper job, and I've maintained it ever since, even to the extent of never buying an annual train pass just in case I found myself in some new, extra-capitular (new word that I've just made up and am quite proud of) job that would require me to cancel it and go through torture by red tape. I maintained it throughout the job I've happily held for the past four and a half years, telling anyone who cared to listen that once I was a family man I didn't want to be spending three hours a day on a train full of strangers.

Yesterday I started a new job. It will, I suspect, surprise no one to know that it is just over the road from my previous one. It isn't even a different bus stop. It's actually quite comforting - no matter what else changes, the commute remains constant. The Happy Commuter Rides Again. Or something.

Whistlestop

2008-05-22T22:08:00.003+01:00

I've barely been in London this week, having been back and forth to Leeds a couple of times. I spent yesterday night in Ripon, which was different, to say the least. Getting dragged by my boss to a night club in Yorkshire on a Wednesday night was a surreal experience - to say nothing of the club itself, which took me back to my unlamented teenage years. I didn't even have any fake ID.

I had an uneventful journey back this afternoon, notable only for my stoicism in the face of the tempting (and expensive) treats on offer on the station concourse, spurning the delights of muffins, cakes and pastries in favour of the two-day old banana I had brough with me in my overnight bag. What a joyless individual I am. Thanks goodness I'm married - I'd be a crap date, probably the type to split the bill.

One thing I did notice in Leeds which I cannot possibly let pass without comment is that they were charging 30p to use the toilets on the main concourse. 30p? That's not even a coin! I have no problem with the principle of charging for the use of the toilets at stations (particularly when one knows that there's a free one on Platform 8) but who on Earth came up with the notion of asking people to fumble in their pockets for two seperate coins? I am willing to bet at least, ooh, 30p, let's say, that the average person does not keep coins of those denominations handy these days. I know I don't. They tried this in London a few years back and it wound me up then. Grrr.

Commuting - A political hot potato

2008-05-04T18:25:00.006+01:00

So, Boris won then. Personally I still can't quite believe it. Notwithstanding the polls (or indeed the Poles, who have apparently all gone home, or at least as far as Cambridge) I never really thought that anyone would actually vote for someone who has appeared on national television in a smoking jacket enjoying a cigar with Paul Merton. Apparently it was all to do with crime, the causes of which Boris has pledged to be tough on. But don't believe what you read. Dig a little deeper and you'll see that what has actually happened here is the re-emergence of commuting as a live political issue. It's all about those bendy buses, you know.

Who would have thought that buses would turn out to be such a divisive, not to mention decisive, issue in the London mayoral elections? I don't know much about Boris's policies, if indeed he has any, but I do know that someone told me that he had a mate who'd heard from someone down the pub (I think that was the sequence) that he intends to do away with the bendy buses. London's commuters (the ones that are actually allowed to vote - see last post) have spoken! If only Ken had pinned his hopes on a pledge to sort out the District Line, instead of ploughing ahead with the Labour Party's nihilistic slag-'em-off tactics. If only the stolid, stoical Brian Paddick had come out in favour of shooting cyclists for jumping red lights - that would have split the biker vote in two, quite apart from securing him the support of pedestrians across the city. But, no, only the upper-class buffoon who can't be taken seriously realised the potential political capital to be gained by staking a claim to the commuting high ground.

So, the bendy buses. What's the fuss all about? Well, they're slow, graceless and utterly lacking in charm. One feels like on is taking one's own life in one hands whenever one gets on one, and I promise there are few scarier experiences in contemporary London than standing in the joiny bit in the middle. Civilisations have risen and fallen in the time it takes for them to turn through ninety degrees, and of course they pose a real threat to those intrepid cyclists - and despite my rhetoric, I have no wish to see cyclists wiped out indiscriminately. We all need someone to resent, after all.

Apparently Boris wants to bring back the old Routemaster (those old red buses with the steps at the back and a god-natured conductor bouncing up and down the aisles at traffic lights checking everyone's tickets, or Oyster Cards as it would be these days). Watch out also for the returns of bright red phone boxes, and maybe even the Black Death, as London heads off on a full-blown nostalgia trip. Yikes!

Commuters - the voiceless minority

2008-04-21T19:41:00.006+01:00

Being a white, middle class professional commuter living in the South East, it's not that often that I can claim membership of an oppressed minority (although I am half-Welsh). But all the excitement (and I write that with an entirely straight face) generated by the impending London Mayoral election has left me feeling a bit left out. In spite of the fact that I spend the majority of the working week in central London, I subsidise the transport system, occasionally spend a bit of money and generally contribute fully to the economic powerhouse that is our capital city, I don't get a say in the decision over who should run it. I think it's a little unfair.

It's not because I feel disenfranchised. I can, of course, vote in my local elections in Hertfordshire. I've just opened an envelope containing my postal vote, which I will definitely action (democratic duty, and all that, even it feels a bit unsatisfying. Personally I always enjoyed the process of going down to the polling station in some infant's school hall, feeling properly validated as an active participant in the government of the nation, as well as glorying in the inherent silliness of asserting my inviolable right to self-determination in a room where just a few short hours later some poor six year old would most wet himself because he couldn't wait til the end of assembly (I speak from experience). Postal voting feels all wrong to me - it's just too easy for something so important, and removes my one physical interaction with the political machine. Perhaps I'll write to my local MP to try to get in reinstated. Mind you, that's Peter Lilley, and there's always the faint chance he might decide to pop round for tea, as politicians do from time to time, so maybe it's too risky.

The real reason I am a bit miffed not to able to have a say in who runs London is that it means I can't tell any of the bastards how utterly distasteful I find their campaigns. With the honourable exception of Brian Paddick, who by all accounts has about as much chance of getting elected as I have of writing The Great British Novel. (See what I did there? Cunningly juxtaposing two predictions which I fervently hope will be proven wrong), the campaigns have been waged not with messages of hope and the promise of a fully functioning transport system, but with cheap jibes at the other candidates ("He's gay! He's racist! He's a toff! nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah nyah!").

I have a degree in Politics, and although my course mainly focused on International Relations and the history of various extreme political movements like Apartheid and Nazism, I did a few modules about political ideas and the importance in democratic societies of a robust discourse driven by the main issues of the day. I did not, however, come across any lectures or books on the importance in progressive or reactionary politics of slagging off your opponent in the hope that The Voters really are thick enough to be taken in by it. It's not a new thing, of course - witness the Major's governments hopeless "New Labour, New Danger" campaign, Blair's own (successful in spite of itself) "Get out and vote or They get in", or the might-be-clever-if-it-wasn't-so-smug "Britain is Working, Don't Let the Tories Wreck it Again" campaign from the last election which, let's not forget, saw a massive swing away from Labour that nearly resulted in a hung parliament (nice job, Trev. See that one on a fax machine did you?).

So now we're in a fully-fledged muck-raking contest, and the race is on to see who can come up with the most infantile smears. If it isn't Ken comparing anyone who looks at him funny to a Nazi, it's Boris or his media cronies claiming that Ken's campaign team is pro-suicide bombers. The other day I came out of the Underground station at Kings Cross to be confronted by a guy giving out Ken leaflets and imploring people to "Stop Boris Johnson." I mean, what about some positive messages? Ken's been Mayor for eight years! Surely there must be something he's done in that period worth boasting about? In fact, there is, but it was left to Brian Paddick to mention it in a radio interview the other day. When asked what the best thing to have happened under Ken was, he didn't duck the question, or try to be clever. He replied, straight away, "Oyster Cards". Wow. A real innovation that has actually made residents' lives easier. Amazing. Isn't that, in part, what politics is all about?

Kings Cross revisited

2008-04-06T10:35:00.003+01:00

In the wake of the much-publicised problems at Heathrow ("No one does cock-ups quite like the British", as Denis Norden once remarked), I have been given cause to reflect once more on the changes wrought by three long years of construction, tons of heavy machinery, legions of hard-working builders in bright orange puffer jackets, and doubtless large sums of investment, on Europe's newest and most exciting travel hub, Kings Cross St Pancras. Not to the well-documented Eurostar terminal, which is of course fabulous to behold, whatever one thinks of the big statue, but the concurrent reconstruction of the Tube station. I know I've mentioned this before, but now the dust has settled on the new access arrangements, you do have to wonder whether they've actually achieved anything.

When the rickety old staircase that led down into the subway and under Euston Road was initaially widened, it was a revelation (I even posted my admiration on here). Where before Rush Hour at Kings Cross had been something like the attack on Helm's Deep, with two opposing hordes of commuters trying to trample over each other to get up or down (unlike Helm's Deep, there was never a clear winner - but then Gandalf never showed up), for a brief period after the new, improved portal was unveiled it was wonderfully spacious, and suddenly those same hordes were happily trotting back and forth in harmonious, mechanical efficiency, with nary a delay or traffic problem in sight. Now though, the old kitchen bin theory has once again been borne out (ie. just as if you had another bin in your kitchen it would be full too, so if you add a lane to the M25 it will get gridlocked the same as the other twenty-seven).

The Powers That Be have now decided to reinstate the rule that people can't go down the stairs during peak periods, just as they can't descend the steps within the station itself. I'm a bit confused as to where you can go, to be honest - it seems to change on a daily basis. Certainly if one wants to cross Euston Road to get a bus, one had to walk halfway across London to find a safe pedestrian crossing, then double back on oneself to get to the bus stop just in time to see one disappearing into the distance.

It would be interesting to know what metrics could be used to judge the success (assuming that failure is not an option) or the project. If one thinks in terms of number of commuters getting to the platform per hour, then there has probably been a very slight increase - something like ten more per hour. That's a pretty shoddy return on investment. But at least they don't have to worry about baggage transfers. Then we really would be in trouble.

How my train company made me feel special

2008-03-14T23:44:00.005Z

A couple of weeks ago, for reasons too complex/embaressing to go into, I temporarily mislaid my train pass, and had to buy a couple of day returns to London while my application for a duplicate was being processed (or rather, while I was filling in the form, which was long and obscure and took two days). The form stated that any tickets I purchased whilst without my train pass would be reimbursed by my local station on collection of the new pass. All that was neccessary was to present the used ticket - and only the original ticket would do, not a receipt - at the window. What a commendable system, I thought - proper joined-up thinking.

My local station has actually been going through quite a lot of positive changes recently. They've moved the chap selling newspapers and chewing gum from his kiosk by the entrance to a proper shop on platform 2, there are new ticket machines which even work, and also new ticket barriers - proper ones like you get on the Tube in London. The idea of these, in addition to keeping fare-dodgers from escaping (and what a terrible fate for such a petty criminal- to suddenly find that you are trapped on the railway network, never to escape, unable to pass through the portals at stations to the outside world and doomed to wander aimlessly up and down the railways for the rest of eternity), is to ease the traffic problems caused by crowds of people pouring off the trains at peak times and all trying to fit through the one exit at once. Whether this objective has been fulfilled or not is a moot point (like Ben Elton said when the M25 was widened, if you got a new kitchen bin, you'd soon just have two full bins and not two less full ones) but they look good and make us feel all smug and with it compared to people in Letchworth. But there is one fundamental disadvantage if you want to claim back the cost of your ticket.

The machines are designed/programmed so that they know when a ticket has reached the end of its useful life and swallow it. So if, for example, you have bought a return ticket which has completed its Odyssey, it takes it in and does not give it back.

You see my problem?

When I went to the window to hand in my duplicate claim form and reclaim the money for my tickets, I found that I had no ticket to claim with. And of course my receipt could not be accepted as "proof of purchase" (what better prooof could there be?) so I found myself upwards of forty quid out of pocket when I should only have been under half that.The poor kid behind the desk was utterly bemused by the time we had finished sorting out my photocard, and actually put his head in his hands when I explained that I didn't have the originals because the machine at his own station had swalllowed it. In the end, he rallied impressively, advising me to write to customer services, and kindly to get out of his hair (words to that effect). I went home and wrote a rather sheepish letter to the company explaining the situation, confessing that I am a bit of an idiot for losing the thing in the first place, but felt the state of affairs with the machines was a bit ridiculous, am a good customer, etc etc.

There is a happy ending too. After three weeks with no word, I had more or less given up, when a shiny new envelope emblazoned with a First Capital Connect logo landed on my doormat. Cracking it open without much expectation, I was surprised to find a "travel voucher" for the equivalent amount to my two tickets, entitling me to money off my next purchase. The tone of the accompanying letter was rather sanctimonious, which grated a bit, but nonetheless I felt it was a triumph for the little guy against the faceless corporate bureaucrats. Fight the power, etc etc.

Next week, JD takes on Transport for London over the appalling congestion problems in the bus lanes at Euston. Stay tuned.

If anybody is reading this . . .

2008-03-06T22:08:00.003Z

It's Thursday night at ten past ten. I've had two glasses of wine - something of a rarity for me - and The Wife had just retired to bed, to join The Little Commuter in what my primary school teacher would call the Land of Nod (and I hope Nod doesn't mind them trespassing). I am sitting at my computer and have just noticed that the picture of my baby boy that is currently lying on the desk waiting for someone to give it a proper home has a moustache of cat hairs, giving the impression that my son is, in fact, one of the three Musketeers (Aramis, I'd guess).

Anyway, I have had absolutely no time to update the blog recently. Fatherhood has taken over my life, as it surely had to, and when I've not been with The Little Commuter I have been attempting to lavish some attention on his mother and the cat, who has adapted with great fortitude to slipping down the pecking order. She is not deprived or negelected, just a bit less pampered. But she seems to appreciate us that much more as a result, so perhaps there's a moral in there somewhere.

The trains have been extremely busy, even with me going in earlier. Sitting down on board is something I contemplate with a certain sense of cynicism, as opposed to my previous misty-eyed optimism. I did have an amusing experience recently when I tried to claim a refund of some tickets I had bought whilst my Season Ticket was missing, only to find that they would not refund receipts, only the originals, which had been swallowed by the swanky new ticket machines. It was all very funny. I shall have to write about it at some point when I'm more coherent.

In the meantime, thansk for reading my inane ramblings. I hope to update the blog properly soon.

What the Archbishop didn't say

2008-02-17T12:03:00.004Z

Yet another Daily Mail front page (well, Mail on Sunday, actually, but they're the same bastards) alluding to the Archishop of Canterbury's "advocacy" of Sharia Law. It's truly astonishing the depths to which the media, and the newspapers especially, will stoop. Who cares about the truth, eh? We've got targets to hit.

I am not a churchgoer. I was baptised into the Church of England at the age of 13 because I wanted to go to a Catholic school (work that one out). Not, as has been the subject of various newspaper reports bemoaning the standard of modern-day parenting, because it was a good school and my parents wanted me to go there (in fact they were deeply reluctant), but because it was where my best friend was going and I was so desperately insecure that I felt I had to follow him. I am one of those dreadfully cowardly people who label themselves "agnostic", partly, I suspect, because I went to said Catholic school and had the gospel of John Mark drilled into me for three years. I am now trying to learn about different religions when I get the chance - Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism among them - not because I intend to folow any of them, but purely because I believe it is important to understand different cultures to better interact with them. So my willingness to stand up for the Archbishop is not born of any religious deference. It is born out of despair at the manipulative expediency of the media.

Dr Rowan Williams never said anything about the adoption of Sharia Law in certain parts of the counntry being "inevitable". I know, because I've read the transcript of the lecture, rathr than relying on what the papers say, much of which is bollocks. He gave a wide-ranging lecture on the concept of allowing community jurisdiction to act alongside the rule of law in certain cases in certain areas. He touched on Jewish customs, Catholic customs, Christian customs and, yes, Islamic customs. His point was that in certain cases, on certain issues - including, for example, abortion, divorce, marriage, family-planning - certain communities recognise a code of conduct and customs which is particular to membership of that community and this should be understood in the context of UK law which prizes the rights of the individual above all else. With the legal ystem apparently creaking under the weight of litigious traffic in our blame-obsessed, fear-driven society, is it really beyond the pale to even consider such a thing?

No, but it doesn't sell papers, does it? What's next, the special commemorative Enoch Powell DVD, complete with quiz and "Rivers of Blood" rafting game for the kids?

By the way, this issue does fall within the remit of this blog because lots of people on the train read the Daily Mail. Oh, and I'm not just being what Richard Littledick would call a "bleeding heart liberal" - The Guardian is just as bad.

The birthday experiment

2008-02-08T23:30:00.000Z

Yesterday was my 31st birthday. After last year's extensive celebrations to mark the beginning of my third decade (or, more accurately, the end of my second), it was a fairly low-key affair. What with the arrival of The Little Commuter, marking the passing of another year seems a fairly pointless thing to do with any great gusto, since it rather pales into insignifiance compared to other recent developments. I did get a nice surprise at work, howver, when a half-bottle of champagne arrived at my desk, courtesy of my sister, along with a helium baloon bearing the traditonal birthday legend. My sister jokingly remarked that she'd pay money to see me try to get the balloon home on the train, and, never one to turn down the chance of a quick buck, I decided to conduct an experiment. Leaving the office early (one birthday privelege I was not going to pass up) I set out to walk to Kings Cross, with the champers clutched under my arms and the balloon fluttering above my head. I was intrigued to see whether I would attract attention, and moreover whether anyone would wish me happy birthday. I figured that, since Oxford Street and Soho are crawling with people desperate for trade - chuggers, vendors, the guys that hand out London Liteweight and The London LooPaper, recruitment-literature-hawkers and the people that try to sign you up for language school no matter your nationality, my chances were fairly good.

I was wrong. Nobody so much as batted an eyelid. Well, I thought, either Londoners really are a bunch of mean-spirited curmudgeons, or this city is just so full of crazy loons that the sight of a grown man parading along the street in rush hour with a helium balloon fluttering above his head just doesn't cut the mustard in terms of spectacle. No matter, I thought, as I headed into the Kings Cross underpass: I'm bound to attract at least a couple of good wishes from my fellow commuters on the train, at least some of whom must see me everyday.

You know what's coming next, don't you?

Nobody on the train paid me the slightest attention, even though I was standing by the door the whole journey, so that everyone who got on or off filed straight past me. I even pulled the balloon into my chest at one point, to clear a path for somebody to get off, and then I even pressed the button to open the doors. No one thanked me, much less wished me happy birthday.

Now I'm not by nature an attention seeker (despite the evidence). I'm not making out that for some reason I am especially deserving of people's good wishes. I just think that simple things like wishing someone a happy birthday, pardoning them when they sneeze, or thanking them whne they open the door or even move to accomodate you, promotes a sense of bonhomie and should be encouraged. Little gestures can often mean more than big ones. The mayor of London obviously agrees with me, as he is starting an advertising campaign promoting just such a thing. Ken, I salute you.

So this is how sardines feel . . .

2008-01-28T20:04:00.002Z

Where did all these people come from? I'm certain London has got busier whilst I've been away. Maybe a lot more people have moved to the Beautiful Market Town where I live in the past month, and they are commuting into London at the same time as me. More likely, though, it's just that I've adjusted my travel times slightly with the arrival of The Little Commuter, and as a consequence am coming home just when the rush hour hits its peak.

I've started travelling earlier, you see. Not just coming home earlier, but going in earlier too. He's been waking us up between five and six, so it makes sense to bring everything forward in proportion. Now, this actually means that I spend longer in the office, because London gets so congested after about quarter past eight in the morning that everything takes twice as long. By arriving in town before eight, even though it is still busy, the buses run fast, trhe pavements are less densely packed and everything moves twice as quickly, effectively meaning that for every minutes you save at one end of the journey, you save two at the other. So I've been getting into work well before anyone else, allowing me time to get settled and have a nice cup of tea before the hordes arrive.

This also means I leave on time every day. Not early, but less late than I have been doing for the last year or so. All very nice because I get more of an evening with the family, but sadly it does mean hitting the absolute peak of the evening rush hour. Getting a seat on the train has become nothing more than an abstract concept, or at least, something that happens to other people.

This evening was especially extreme. It was full when I got on, but then people just kept on getting on behind me. Of course they were all abnormally tall, so I got the full in-yer-face armpit treatment, as well as getting breathed and sneezed on. It was crammed at Kings Cross, but it just got silly at Finsbury Park. I had managed to get the tabloid section of my newspaper into a usable shape (revealing a hitherto unsuspected gift for origami) but then two more Goliath-figures got on at Finsbury and we all shuffled closer together to make an inch or two of room for them. The two of them hemmed me in, one to my left, the other in front. One of them shoved his arm past my head to lean against the partition, meaning that I had to bend my back at a funny angle because I couldn't move my feet. Then the other one pulled out a newspaper and casually started to read it! I had long since given up on reading my own, but this touched a nerve - hemmed into a space not big enough to stand up straight in with one big guy's arm shoved in my face and the other one casually perusing a newspaper above my head. Defiantly, I hefted my own paper once more, found I was completely unable to fold it, and re-read an article I'd already looked at. I felt I had made a point.

Things I've noticed

2008-01-18T20:19:00.000Z

More accurately, this should be headed "things that have made me sit up and take notice). I've not been commuting recently, as "regular" readers of my blog will know (God, that sounds pretentious). My Paternity Leave, however, comes to end next Wednesday, and I'll be back on the rails come ten to eight on Wednesday morning. I'm not too upset by that fact (although I may feel differently come Tuesday evening) because I've had an incredibly precious month or so with my wife and newborn son. We had a bit of a scare when they both had to be admitted to hospital for a week, but that is now, thankfully, behind us and everything seems to be developing nicely. I have even done a bit of work from home in the last couple of weeks, helping out with a couple of tenders, which has helped me stay in touch.

A couple of things have happened in the last few weeks which have tickled me enough to want to record them, just in case they ever come in handy in future conversation or, dare I say it, writing. Firstly, I watched Question Time last night and there was some childish (as she had the good grace to confess) Tory woman called Louise Bigend, or something like that, going on about how this government is responsible for the collapse of civic society, yob culture, the sinking of the Titanic and generally everything. Nothing remarkable there, but what did tickle me was the way that Liam Fox (Dr Fox? Surely not! Somebody must ask him about his taste in music at some point) totally undermined her over the issue of 24-hour licensing laws. She was banging on about how Labour brought in the 24-hour laws and now they've got to admit they were wrong because lots of teenagers are carrying knives in Coventry (I think). He immediately shot her down in flames, saying that he thought it was much deeper than that, and blaming 24-hour lisences completely missed the point. Smashing!

Now, as far as I recall, one of the justifications for bringing in 24-hour lisences was that it would put an end to the spectacle of hordes of drunken pub-goers spilling out on to the streets en masse come closing time, thereby creating an inevitable flashpoint. Still, whoever heard of the Tories passing up an opportunity for cheap political point scoring? Later on in the pregramme, on the subject of the US presidential election, she announced grandly that her husband ("who is an American") will be voting for John MCain ("a real war hero) to which my immediate response was "If that's the criterion then presumably he also backed John Kerry?" Consistency? Pah! This is politics, after all.

The other thing that really made me laugh yesterday, believe it or not ,was a trip to the dentist. Actually, I have to admit that I'm terrified or my current dentist, but that's an issue for another day. Yesterday, I was having a couple of fillings put in, and she had just finished sticking needles into my gums, wrenched my jaw open as wide as it could possibly get, shaerpened her utentils, cracked her knuckles (I may have imagined that bit) and was just about ot get down to business when what should come on the radio but REM's "Everybody Hurts". Laugh? I very nearly did, with potentially serious consequences.

The Little Commuter

2007-12-28T13:13:00.000Z

I hope everyone who reads this (and - heck, why not? - everyone else too) had a great Christmas and is looking forward to a Happy New Year). For myself and The Wife it has been a unique experience, what with the arrival shortly before the end of term of our very own Little Commuter. I won't go into too much detail, lest I start to babble uncontrollably in joy unconfined. Suffice it to say that all of my hopes and fears of the last nine and a half months have been distilled into one tiny being that I both love unconditionally and fear with a kind of awe I have never felt before. He is impossibly perfect.

I saved up my leave so am taking an extended break to take care of my family. I shall be back on the rails at the end of January. In the meantime, no doubt this blog will act as a repository for those moments of epipany that will continue to strike us every time we ponder our creation.

The secret of Happy Commuting

2007-12-01T08:05:00.000Z

It is a great shame that Wifi internet access has yet to become available on the suburban train network, as I suspect that by the time I actually manage to put this up online I will be sitting at home in front of my computer with a hot drink and maybe even a flapjack, and the raw emotions I am currently feeling with be considerably dulled by time and distance. Nevertheless, I am going to attempt to distil exactly what the secret of Happy Commuting is in a few short paragraphs, for the benefit of all those of you who may one day soon find yourselves in the same position I find myself tonight – wet, hungry, tired, aching, wet (again) and uncomfortsbly aware of the bloke sitting next to me with his bag of crisps and their deafeningly loud crunch.

I left the office ten minutes early yet still late, this evening. I had meant, you see, to catch the half past six train back to the Beautiful Market Town where I live with my gorgeous wife and our soon-to-be offspring. Sadly, complications involving a urinal, a pdf and a recycling bin (and I mean multiple complications, not just one big complication involving all three) had conspired to make me miss that one. I did manage to leave the office at about twenty past, and ventured out into the rain, clutching my rucksack under my arm, the better to keep it dry. On reaching the bus stop I found it crowded, but a long bendy 73 bus approaching which, I felt confident, would afford plenty of room. Sadly, it was packed, so I bolted across to Tottenham Court Road station to try to get on a Tube, and was acquainted with the reason why the bus was so full – one of the busiest Underground stations in London was closed on a Friday night in rush hour.

I headed off down Tottenham Court Road itself intending to get to Warren Street and get a Tube there, but amazingly was able to pick up another 73 (this one only slightly less full) halfway there. Running my fingers through my dripping locks (umbrellas are a hindrance when moving at speed down a London street), I insinuated myself squelchingly into a space that my fellow passengers had not realised was there, glanced at my watch, and steeled myself for a nail-biting ride to Kings Cross where I might yet have a chance of catching my train. We flew down the usually-slow-moving Tottenham Court Road and before I knew it we were at Euston, mere minutes away from Kings Cross and the sanctity of the 18:53, traffic conditions willing.

Now of course you can guess what happened next, can’t you?

We hit traffic just outside Euston, then got caught up in a bus bottleneck trying to get out of the station. Then we hit another bottleneck at the next set of lights, another one halfway up Euston Road, and I eventually reached the platform to see the 18:53 pulling away in front of me (oddly enough this always happens, no matter how late I am – something to do with narrative imperative. Perhaps).

So, I am now on the 19:23, setting in my damp clothes typing while my tummy rumbles and the guy next to me munches away on his aromatic and noisy crisps. And yet, despite all this, I am strangely cheerful. A sort of beatific calm has come over me and I find myself pondering fondly this strange and addictive habit. Resignation, I think I would call it. There’s nothing I can do about it, no point getting wound up, it’s nobody’s fault (it’s the system, you see). So I may as well try to use the time productively. I’ve already made four calls on my mobile phone, availed myself of some cash for a taxi at the other end (I’m treating myself), and now written a new blog entry, something I’ve been meaning to do all week.

What a useful little interlude. Time wasted on a train reframed as Time I Didn’t Know I Had, Put To Good Use. And that, my friends, is the secret of Happy Commuting.

The other side of the road

2007-11-19T20:49:00.000Z

Last Friday night afforded me the opportunity to consider two very different slices of history, seperated by twenty years and a few metres. I was ten years old when the Kings Cross Underground fire was started by a lit cigarette on an escalator, and developed into a blaze that not only claimed the lives of thirty-one unlucky commuters, but fundamentally changed the maintenance and running of the London transport system. Now, at thirty, I was able to wander across the road from Kings Cross and climb the steps to the grand entrance to the new St Pancras Eurostar terminal, joining the crowd of curious spectators making getting a first look at London's answer to New York's famous Grand Central Station. It was a genuinely poignant contrast.

In 1987 my whole world extended not much beyond the Surrey/Berkshire border, but my mother worked at Elephant & Castle, and commuted to London daily, passing through Waterloo and taking the Bakerloo Line to get to her office. I can remember few occasions when I was genuinely worried about her and even tried to persuade her not to go to work. There were a couple of IRA bombings, and there was the Kings Cross fire.

Looking back, it was only about three years since the Valley Parade disaster at Bradford, also caused by a discarded cigarette, which killed an even greater number of people. It's hard to believe now that smoking was ever regarded so casually. With smoking now banned from all such venues as a matter of course, such an anniversary as this weekend's gives cause to reflect on the dramatic shift in attitudes wrought by the last two decades, and the reasons for them. Passing through the Kings Cross underpass today, I caught a glimpse as I hurried past of a fresh wreath of flowers laid at the foot of the staircase, and immediately recalled the last time people had cause to lay flowers at Kings Cross, in July 2005. It seems crass to have hurried past so swiftly in my haste to get to work. I must linger a while longer tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the new St Pancras is a genuinely impressive sight. I used to commute from Leicester every day, and as the Midland Mainline trains rumbled into the old St Pancras, I used to wonder at how so grand a facade could be attached to such a dull terminus. There was a pub, a plastic-laden coffee bar, and a compact WH Smith. During my two years passing through it daily, the station was clearly in the early stages of some fundamental reconstruction, and I counted myself lucky to have escaped the worst of the inconveniences by moving when I did. Wandering through the arch on Friday evening and gazing up at the vast expanse of the glass roof far above me, the gothic grandeur of the sculptures around the forecourt and the gleaming escalators transporting starstuck commuters down to the shopping arcade, I found myself silently thanking the vision of those behind it. I have heard rumours of the enforced removal of the homeless dwelling in the the area and generally draconian measures imposed upon local residents whose faces don't "fit", but the whole area is undoubtedly in need of a bit of a lift, and hopefully this can be the start of something genuinely transformative that can benefit everyone.

Now I just need to find a reason to go to Paris.

Waiting for the coffee to brew

2007-11-18T09:54:00.000Z

The Wife and I strolled into the centre of the Beautiful Market Town where we live yesterday for a bit of shopping. With two weeks to go until the baby is due to make his (hopefully undramatic) entrance, we are working our way steadily through the last few items on the "Must Have" list, as well as trying to give a modicum of thought to Christmas presents for the nearest and dearest. We were a bit later than we had originally planned to be, so that by the time we staggered wearily through the door of our favourite coffee shop for a well-earned cup of java, the lunchtime rush was well underway.

Now I have a pet theory about coffee shops, and the national chains in particular, and what sets them apart from pubs, bars, fast food outlets, chippies and other such establishments where the customer orders his provisions before taking his seat. My theory is this: the number of people serving behind the bar is inversely proportional to the amount of time it takes to get served. I first formed this theory a couple of years back when I was still dwelling in the paradox that is Welwyn Garden City (honestly - if Groundhog Day was a place, it would be WGC). The Wife and I used to go to the local branch of a well-known coffee chain once a week, and it soon became clear that if there was just one Barista behind the counter, he or she would fly through the orders with barely a thought, simply because the alternative was to have a queue snaking out of the door and all the way round the town. If there were two, it was much the same, except that one of them would work the coffee machine and one would be responsible for cakes and pastries. Add in a third, however, and it got complicated - it seems that in this case, three really is a crowd. Because as soon as the third person turned up, for some unfathomable reason, they would run out of clean cups. Perhaps it is something to do with the immutable laws of coffee shop space - there is only so much of it, after all, and perhaps the amount of space taken up by something as relatively huge as a human being has to be offset by removing the equivalent weight of crockery. Whatever the reason, the end results always saw one person alternately working the coffee machine and dashing in and out of the kitchen area to get more cups, one hysterically repeating every order, and one standing over the cakes and pastries brandishing a pair of tongs and shouitng encouragement to the other two.

Yesterday was a classic example. We did arrive slap bang in the middle of the lunchtime rush, but when we walked in there was only a short queue and plenty of seating. What with The Wife being 37 weeks pregnant she went to sit down whilst I ordered. I think I was third in line, but it turned out that everyone else in the queue was ordering paninis, so it was taking a while to serve them. There were three people behind the counter, which should have set alarm bells ringing, and one dashing around the place with a tray, and a cloth which she was busily applying to every table, regardless of whether it was occupied or not, and even some of the customers. Still, I'm an optimistic soul, so I just took out my loyalty card and began counting my change. Now for some unaccountable reason, the Barista who appeared to be in charge had decided to try to serve three customers at once, while handling food, coffee and order-taking, despite the fact that delegating to her two colleagues would have been far more efficient. So I placed my rather puny order for two regular decaff cappucinos sandwihced (for want of a better word) between two chaps each ordering enough food for an army. Now here's the funny thing. She put my cups under the esporesso machine, and promptly forgot about them as she went to prepare the food.

The guy in front of me got his meal first, along with his freshly made coffee, which was only fair, but then she presented the guy behind me with his paninis as well, and then realised he didn't have any drinks so decided to go ahead and whip up his lattes while my cups still sat forlornly on the side. Eventually, when her colleagues had attended to every other person in the queue and I was alone at the counter, she handed over two slightly murky-looking cappucinos and stamped my loyalty card inaccurately, before staggering off to the kitchen, presumably to take some valium or slit her wrists.

When I eventually sat down, pondering the future of the beard I had grown while I was waiting to be served, it turned out that one coffee was really nice, creamy and flavoursome, but the other was watery and bland. Needless to say, I gave the good one to my better half, and downed the dodgy one myself. I did consider complaining but mistakes do happen, even Baristas are only human and, to be honest, I was too tired to stand up.

We apologise for the disruption to your service

2007-11-10T22:44:00.000Z

It's been just over two months since my last post. It feels like it's been a lot longer, but maybe that's because it's a commuting blog, and as we all know, commuting time moves more slowly than realtime. That's why a five minute delay always feels like at least an hour. I've frequently been held up on the Tube or Bus on the way to the office, not bothered to consult my watch and arrived at work panting and sweating and profusely apologising for being late, only to be met with a collection of bemused glances because its still twenty minutes before 9.

It hasn't been a particularly exciting two months, commuting-wise. There have been no major developments on the railways, although I did pick up a leaflet about how FCC is improving the service and will lay on something like 1500 more seats at peak times next year, which sounds very impressive. Although someone did point out to me that they don't appear to be legthening the platforms, which could render the extra seats somewhat redundant. Still, it will be nice to know that they're not just fleecing the passengers when the fares go up in Januray. The Leaf Fall timetable came in unheralded and barely-noticed (and isn't that a lovely phrase - so much gentler than "the Leaves on the Line" timetable or the "Just Call The Office And Tell Them You're Going To Be Late" timetable. People are still playing music too loud, yapping away on mobile phones and doing all the usual things they do to make their fellow passengers' lives just that little bit less enjoyable. And amazingly, given this cold weather we've been having, the bright sparks in contorl of the trains have put the heating on in the carriages. What's going on? Somebody at HQ clearly hasn't read the rules properly.

But, brilliantly, I realised the other day as I was coming back from work, the heaters pump hot air out of the ducts at floor level, and this rises up the trouser legs of the person sitting directly above them and has absolutely no effect on anyone else. And then there are vents just below the windows which let cold air in from outside and blow it down the collar of the person sitting directly below them. An inspired waste of energy, and clearly a design feature that was meticulously planned in the ensure that the whole ventilation system is as inefficient as possible.

Gosh I love commuting!

We'll be stopping here for a while . . .

2007-09-02T08:35:00.000+01:00

I've thought long and hard about this, but all good things must come to an end. A change is as good as a rest and all that. I started this blog in June last year, with the intention of recording my experiences commuting to London for one year. I've gone on a bit beyond that point, mainly because of the friends I've made through doing this, and wanting to keep the network going. However, the simple truth is that there are only so many hours in the day and days in the week, and with lots of other stuff going on at the moment the time I get to actually write has been quite substantially reduced.

Now, blogging has been great fun and good discipline in terms of making me sit down and write regularly, but there are a few other writing projects I want to focus on for a little bit - not all of them commuting-related. So, just like Paddy and Rish have previously done, I'm taking a break. I will certainly continue checking in with my friends Paddy, Rish, DJ, Chopski et al, and I'll probably be blogging again before the end of the year. Whether it's this particular blog or a brand new one about some other exciting aspect of my life, we shall have to see. In the meantime, thanks for reading - I really am deeply flattered that people consider my stuff worth reading and indeed worth coming back to. Be good, have fun, be happy, and however you get to work, enjoy the ride.

JD

What's eating me?

2007-08-23T22:38:00.000+01:00

Food on trains, that’s what’s eating me. Well, not food on trains per se, but rather some of the people who eat it. Casting my mind back a few months, I remember a post in which I got uncharacteristically hot under the collar about a discarded plastic pot which had presumably once contained some form of dip to accompany some of those curiously tasteless carrot sticks one can get from concourse retailers, but was now stuck to the inside of the seat-back tray, rendering it inoperable. This kind of thoughtlessness does grate on me. This evening, I took a seat next to a gentleman eating sushi, immediately regretting my decision, only to find that the guy was indeed a proper gentleman, who finished his fishy snack, wrapped it in a plastic bag to conceal the smell, and tucked it inside the tray in front of him, rather than hiding it under the seat for its next occupant to discover. But all around me were less considerate commuters rustling, crackling and crunching their way through bags of sweeties, crisps and various other types of pick-me-up.

Now I’m not one to moan without due cause, as I hope you all know, but if there is anything more annoying than listening to someone else fiddling with food packaging when you’re trying to concentrate on crafting some kind of literary masterpiece, I have yet to encounter it in a commuting context. It’s worse than mobile phones or music players because it’s so intermittent. One moment there can be rustling assailing you from all sides, accompanied by the inevitable strong whiff of artificial ingredients, and then suddenly it’s all peace and quiet. Just when you start to relax and your senses lower their defences to enjoy the serenity of a packed yet silent carriage, it starts again, setting off a nerve-shredding chain reaction of tremors inside your head which resonate to the very core of your brain. I’m not exaggerating.

So, in many ways, the people who eat food on trains are the bane of any right-thinking commuter’s life on the rails. On the other hand, and this just adds to the frustration because it’s such blatant hypocrisy, there can be few things more amusing than the sight of somebody actually trying to eat the food once they’ve retrieved it from the packaging. There’s a stall at Kings Cross that sells pasties, one item which always smells better than it tastes but even to those in the know is well-nigh irresistible. On those evenings when I’m home late, there is invariably at least one person tucking into, or attempting to tuck into, one of these messy, stodgy, utterly intractable pastry monstrosities. And what a complex operation it is. First of all, you watch the remarkable solemnity with which the poor sod opens the packaging, treating the oversized paper bag with tender, almost loving care lest the ludicrously delicate product inside get squashed or in any way disfigured. Then, having extracted the thing, in the process getting flakes of pastry absolutely everywhere in spite of such assiduous delicacy, the first bite, so mouthwatering in prospect, sends a shower of crumbs to the far end of the carriage, and invariably much of the filling down the person's front. If he (it is always a he - females are just too intelligent to fall for this one) does manage to get a proper mouthful, the sense of achievement is palpable, almost radiating from him, Which is strangely apt, because the next thing that happens is that he belatedly realises how scaldingly, impossibly hot the filling is, and his face turns purple.

The single most remarkable thing about people eating on trains, however, is how energetic they are. The simple process of easting a sandwich, baguette or pasty seems to take so much phyical effort that one feels any calories must be burned off in the process of consumption. It's as if they feel that, having paid for the food, they really have to enjoy it, and be seen to enjoy it. They don't just eat it, they devour it. It's faintly grotesque, really. And it only seems to apply to food that is bought at the station. People that bring sandwiches with them are far more delicate about it. But you can't help feeling they are missing out on something.

Weekend services

2007-08-12T08:22:00.000+01:00

I often say to people who invite me into London for social purposes on a Saturday that I try to avoid commuting at the weekend, lest it should lose its lustre through the tiresome combination of engineering works, reduced services and deserted station that tends to constitute the railway experience at weekends. Whether that makes me a a miserable git is open to question, as I will make the effort in exceptional circumstances - someone's birthday or some other special occasion, or if there is any chance at all I might get a game of football out of it. Yesterday was even more special than that - The Wife had been invited to a Hen Party in Covent Garden, and I assumed the role of chaperone. Lest I should seem overprotective here, let me clarify the reasons for my solicitousness - she is, to corrupt a well-known phrase, commuting for two at the moment.

Consulting the weekend timetable, I was a little surprised to discover that in fact it was all but unchanged, with practically a full service running (provoking a twinge of sympathy for the gallant men and women that staff the railways - don't they deserve a weekend too?). But it made our quest simpler, so we selected a train to aim for and set off in plenty of time. Now, as I have noted before on this blog, I am accustomed to walking to the station every morning, but it was a hot day and The Wife didn't want to tire herself out, so we drove. On reaching the station, I dropped The Wife at the ticket office, after checking very carefully that I had a pound for parking, and took the car into the unfamiliar surroundings of the station car park (which is so long that if you park at the far end you are pretty much within walking distance of London anyway).

I crawled past the first few bays, looking in vain for a space, because I really didn't want to have to leave it down the far end and have to sprint for my train. For some reason, the powers that be reserve certain space in priveliged positions (ie less than a ten minute hike away from the platform) for certain customers who can afford to pay extra, which means that even on weekends these space have barriers erected preventing Joe Public, or in this case me, from using them. At one point I thought I saw one of them free, and moved to pull in, only to be confronted by a cleverly camoflaged barrier clearly erected with the intention of luring unwitting drivers, Siren-style, into an embarressing and potentially expensive situation. Executing a perfect (though I say so myself) three point turn, I headed back out in the wider expanse of the car park slightly frustrated but intact.

Only a few minutes later, I managed to find a space, locked the car and sprinted off toward my rendez-vous with The Wife before heading over to the platform, where our train was approaching. On we climbed, and proceeded in extreme comfort through the Hertfordshire countryside and past Stevenage. It was all going so well, but then The Wife turned to me and said "You did get a car park ticket didn't you?" Whoops!

Whst to do? I was already past Stevenage, and the train was non-stop to London. I had a leisurely evening of drinking, talking and possibly even treating myself to a special fried rice lined up. And it was coming up to 5pm on a Saturday. Was anyone really going to be checking the car park? The Wife didn't think so. But I had traumatic memories of getting stuck outside Hyde Park back in days of yore when my Grandpa's car got clamped and we had to wait around for hours (and pay fifty quid) to get it released. Driven on by these visions, I decided that I would not be able to relax until I knew that the car was safe. I couldn't abandon The Wife, however, so I took her all the way to Covent Garden, before heading back the way I had come, waiting twenty minutes at Kings Cross and getting a train back to Hertfordshire. By a happy twist of fate, there was a fast service back to London within five minuites of my arrival, so I dashed through the barriers, grabbed a car park ticket, stuck it on the windscreen, checked that the car hadn't been clamped already (it hadn't), and ran back over to the other platform past the bemused station staff. The whole thing took about two hours, and frankly was all a bit of a waste of effort (I doubt anyone would have checked it anyway) but I felt, morally speaking, that I had done the right thing.

So, we've established that I'm a bit of an idiot. But was it a noble gesture that proves my moral rectitude, or just a waste of time? Eh?

Apologies for the disruption to your service

2007-08-10T12:27:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the extended delay in posting. I'm just not a very happy commuter this week, what with delays in both directions on the train, rubbish service on the Tube and intermittent cock-ups on the buses.

Don't want to post a lot of moaning grumpiness - there'e enough of that about already.

Don't they have trains in Leicester?

2007-07-27T21:49:00.000+01:00

In line with the prevailing custom amongst the blogging community, I just thought I'd record, for anyone who's wondering why I've not posted properly this week, that I'm off on holiday to the Midlands. I'll check in with another undoubtedly hilarious post when I get back on the 6th.

Love you all.

Good humoured commuters

2007-07-21T09:35:00.000+01:00

It’s been a bit dodgy on the railways recently – the wrong kind of July weather, perhaps – with a greater than average number of delays both into and out of London. Nothing too remarkable about that – these things go in phases, and as a general rule of thumb if there’s a delay on a Monday you can pretty much bet there will be another before the week is out (although I’m sitting here hoping I’m wrong). But the thing that has really struck me over the last few days has been the distinct dichotomy in the way people tend to react when their train is held up.

Now whereas if you’re driving, you tend to plan before you leave, checking everything from local radio to Ceefax to the AA Dear-me-aren’t-the-roads-in-a-complete-mess hotline, before nodding sagely and announcing in a tone of grim satisfaction that the M25 “will be a nightmare” and whipping out the road atlas to plan a ludicrously convoluted alternative route that will inevitably involve getting stuck on some country lane behind a load of sheep crossing (this happens even in central London – it’s amazing). Train travel, for some reason, is another matter. Commuters arriving at a station and finding that the train they were aiming for is either delayed or, in extreme cases, cancelled, are thrown into a state of confusion – this despite the supposedly reassuring presence of a timetable (which of course they won’t have bothered to consult before embarking). This state of confusion results in a lot of running around like a headless chicken, followed by a frantic survey of every passenger on the station along the lines of “Do you know when the next train to Biggleswade is?”. Finally, reluctantly, the commuter moves on to the station staff themselves, who will nod (no matter the question, or whether their response is in the affirmative or not, there is always a nod) and point the by-now-hopelessly-confused commuter in the direction of the farthest platform from wherever they happen to be standing, with firm instructions to go and ask somebody over there.

Then come the mobile phone calls, to home, loved ones, work, parents and anyone else whose number they have stored in their mobiles. The standard beginning “I’m at (insert station here) is generally followed by “No one knows what going on.” (even if this is manifestly untrue), or in some cases “It’s chaos, I’m afraid.” This is the precursor to an elaborate account of the adventure so far, almost always in real time. Eventually, having exhausted all the options for sharing their misfortune with others, they will tramp over to platform 9500, or whatever the outermost number might be, and ask the first railway employee they see (everyone chooses the same one, and a queue rapidly forms, regardless of the availability of his colleagues) whether its best to get on the slow train or wait to see if a faster one turns up.

Having ascertained that delays are expected on all services, everyone gets on the slow train, usual formed of four coaches or less, that’s sitting in platform 9500 under starter’s orders. This precipitates a stampede comparable to the migration of the wildebeeste on the African plains, as everybody races to get to the front of the train in the hope that there is a seat available. Some people actually run. Needless to say, no one makes eye contact, and everyone is terribly careful not to push or shove unless absolutely necessary. There are, of course, no seats left anywhere on the train, so people pile in with shouts of “Can you move down please?”, and if anyone dares to try to read a magazine or newspaper everyone instinctively zeroes in on the guilty party, crowding him or her until they have no choice but to stop reading or hold the thing so close to their face that it’s actually rubbing against their nose. But everyone is very polite about it, naturally.

The funny thing is, that as soon as the train moves out of the platform, even if, as has been known, it rumbles to a halt a few yards outside the station and sits there for an hour, the atmosphere is utterly transformed, and lateness becomes not so much an inconvenience as a source of hilarity. Each further delay, or announcement from the driver, is greeted with a cacophony of chuckles, a gallery of wry smiles and rolling eyes, and lots of manifestly unfunny comments along the lines of “Typical, eh?” or for the really comedically gifted something along the lines of “Might be home by Christmas”, which somehow seem like the wittiest thing in the world and draw hoots of laughter from the galleries. It’s like the Blitz, that famous spirit in adversity – suddenly everyone is best friends, swapping anecdotes, sharing photographs of children and loved ones, playing Eye-Spy, and for the rest of the journey, no matter how long or short, an indefatigable spirit of conviviality is maintained. On disembarking, passengers bid fond farewells, shaking hands, embracing, promising to stay in touch and maybe meet for drinks at some point. The last person off always wishes everyone good luck getting home, drawing even more good-natured laughter. It really does warm the cockles of the heart.

The following morning, its elbows-at-the-ready, eyes-down sullen silence once again, as if none of this had ever happened. Remarkable..

Credit where it's due

2007-07-06T21:18:00.000+01:00

When I started blogging in June last year, I had vague notions of charting a year in the life of a London commuter, but mainly just the urge to write something and stick it on the web to see if anyone would read it. My very first post garnered a comment within days from a chap called DM, from whom I've not heard since, but who turned out to be called BigDaveMurray, according to his sketchy profile, and may well have been someone I was at school with who has just accepted me as a friend on Facebook (I must ask him at some point). I didn't honestly imagine I'd still be here 13 months later, still mining the rich seam of nonsensical narrative that commuting provides. But it occurred to me today strolled underneath Euston Road and into the bowels of Kings Cross St. Pancras, that that first post was entitled "Sinister Forces at Kings Cross" (I used to go in for Excessive Capitalisation on my tabloid-esque headlines - as you can see from the above, I don't bother anymore), and the subject was the gradual transformation of Kings Cross into a prison camp, with the exits closed off one by one by the construction workers guided by some unseen and malevolent authority. Now, Network Rail come in for a lot of stick, some of it deserved, but you have to give them credit whre it's due. Kings Cross St Pancras has really evolved since then, and although it's (hopefully) not finished, what they have done so far is a big improvement.

In the old days, getting from the platform at Kings Cross to the other side of Euston Road where I could pick up a bus or, if I was feeling especially energetic, head off down Judd Street on my way to Oxford Street, was a stressful and time-consuming process. Getting off the platform was a trial in itself (and this is not something that has changed) as you had to pick your way past hordes of commuters who seemed to have suffered a collective attack of indecision with regards to where they had planned to go after they got off the train. Then actually making it across the station concourse remains an exercise in snake-hipped gymnaticism, picking a way through the dawdling crowds with bewildering balance that would make Ryan Giggs red with envy. But on emerging into the daylight, the real challenge was still ahead. The synchronisation of the traffic lights was, shall we say, inventive, so that that it became a real-life version of that classic computer game "Frogger" if you wanted to attempt to get across the road up top (substituting fellow commuters with malevolent luggage for those crocodile things that used to lurk in the river). But the alternative was scarcely less intimidating.

There used to be, outside Kings Cross, a rickety old staircase leading from street level to the Underground station. It was wide enough for approximately one and a half average-width human beings. Anyone who has ever experienced rush hour at Kings Cross will know that you just don't get one-and-a-half-times-width people. What you get is one sprawling mass of humanity that even at its outermost extermities is never less than about four times the width of a regular person. So what used to happen was that a row of five commuters would march to the top of the staircase and head downwards using their bags as a kind of protective sheild (a bit like the Roman legionaries used to do). Meanwhile a row of equally-determined Undergrounders would advance the other way and there would inevitably be a clash, which would result in at least two people from each side being knocked out the way, right into the path of the people behind them, leading to a kind of human domino rally.

The powers-that-be soon got wise to this brutal sport, and started posting a solitary (and very lonely-looking) sentry at the top of the rikety staircase with strict instructions to bar anyone from going down it, which I thought very unfair, because effectively it penalised one side and not the other. Evidently I was not alone, because soon enough people started to just ignore the hapless conductors, and the whole thing threatened to get messy again.

So the powers-that-be called in the forces of construction and decreed that the staircase should be widened to allow free access to and from the Underground station to all the denizens of the South side of Kings Cross. Construction work ensued, the whole staircase was sealed up and for a time no one had any idea what was afoot. And that's where I came in, one slightly bewildered commuter who fancied publishing his thoughts on the situation to see if anyone was interested.

These days, the staircase is wide enough quite literally for a train to pass down it, and a steady flow of happy and hardy commuters travels up and down it in perfect harmony at all hours of the day and night. We all remember what it used to be like, and we must all acknowledge our debt of gratitude to the people who made this come about. Even if they can't provide decent access to platforms 9, 10 and 11 meaning that people frequently miss their trains because they get stuck outside Whistlestop waiting for the passengers of the Cambridge train to clear out of the way.

Getting caught short

2007-06-24T18:01:00.001+01:00

Last Thursday I had arranged to spend the day with The Accountant, going through all the company finances and ticking boxes on an electronic tender I am currently filling in. This meant another trip to Leeds on the red-eye from Stevenage. It's strange - I'd hardly been up there all year until Easter, and all of a sudden I seem to be there every other week. It brings to mind something another commuting sage once said about waiting ages for a bus. Anyway, it is quite a long way to Leeds, and when one is on the early train with a cup of coffee and the obligatory free piece of carboard masquerading as a biscuit, what can often happen is that one has to use the toilet. Now, since my schooldays, I have made the most of one of the greatest natural advantages of being of the male persuasion, and avoided actually sitting down on public toilets (the phrase "hover job" sends shivers down my spine). On this occasion, however, and without wanting to be too explicit, I had to.

It had all been going so well, too. I had caught the train at Stevenage, found my reserved seat and plonked myself down, sipped my skinny cappucino in a very sophisticated way, moved because it was too hot with the Sun shining directly on that side of the train and even managed to find an alternative seat facing forward. But then I felt something stir within me, and realised with grim certainty that I was going to have to forgo my principles.

I looked up and saw that the toilet at the far end was engaged, and realised to my dismay that it was the only one accessible from this carriage. Crossing my legs, and reasoning that I could always wipe the seat with a bit of paper before baring my behind to it, I waited. After what seemed like forever, the Engaged sign went dark and its counterpart flashed. I stood up nonchalantly (one never hurries on trains, particularly not in these situations), only to realise, to my horror, that two other passengers had the same idea as me. What's worse, both were nearer to that end of the carriage than I was (although if I'd stayed in my original seat, I would have been in pole position).

Without showing my frustration, I strolled down the aisle, wondering if there was another toilet adjoining the next carriage. Alas, the other guy had clearly done this before, as he had exactly the same idea, and as I reached the vestibule, with the first toilet now newly engaged, I saw his back vanishing into another doorway. Resigned, I took up position midway between the two cubicles to await a vacanacy. A few moinutes passed, and I began to get very gloomy, reasoning that the longer the wait, the worse the smell. Eventually the second chap emerged from the further toilet and made his way back to his seat, raising his eyebrows at me as he passed. Not a good sign - I believe the corect translation of such a gesture is something along the lines of "You won't believe what's in store for you."

Against all the odds, it turned out not to be so bad - there was a slight whiff, but on the edges of consciousness, and I don't think I caught anything. What was striking was the size of the cublcle. Whereas the other loo was big enough to park a Chelsea Tractor in, this one was tiny, cramped, and certainly offered no prospect of being able to swing a cat. But you don't go to these places for luxury. I did what I had to do and got out of there.

Now here's the funny thing - on my way back that evening, I was caught short again, but mercifully this time it was only what get euphemistcally called Numero Uno. I found the big deluxe loo unoccupied and walked straight in. The toilet was blocked up with loo paper, the flush didn't work and the soap dispenser was empty. Which I suppose just goes to prove (yet again) that size doesn't matter.

a few home truths

2007-06-15T22:53:00.000+01:00

It's been a disquieting week. I've been having lots of little epiphanies concerning my place in the commuting world. You know how sometimes you'll chatise someone for doing something and then find yourself doing the same thing an hour later? Well, my week's been a bit like that - I keep catching myself doing all the things I've frequently poked fun at on this blog, and drawing down on myself the same scorn that I bestow on other people. I put it down to the fact that I'm tired, a bit needy and have had one of those weeks, work-wise, where you run really fast in order to stand still.

On Monday, for some unaccountable reason that I can't quite identify, I stood up almost as soon as we had left Stevenage, and suddenly realised that we were at least five minutes from my stop. A couple of other people had got up already, and they were doing the steely-detrmination face that says "Yes, I really did mean to get up ages before my stop, and now I'm going to stand here for ages with a look of steely determination because then I'll be respected far more than if I sat back down." I actually did sit back down (and I'm sure people respected me all the more for it), but it was the start of what was to prove a series of faux pas which have left me feeling far less sure of myself in position as detached observer of commuting behaviour.

This most surreal experience of the week came on Friday night, on my way home from London. I sat down in an aisle seat, next to a girl with a newspaper who seemed to be almost magnetically drawn to the wall of the carriage, so tightly was she hugging it - meaning plenty of room for me to slouch in my own seat without worrying about invading her personal space. I retrieved my laptop from my bag and fired it up - I don't normally take it home on a Friday but I've got lots to get through at the moment - and started tapping away at the keyboard. Normally I'm quite self-conscious in this situation, acutely aware of how noisy each keystroke seems to be, but I was tired and grumpy (and - wouldja believe? - absorbed in my work). After a few minutes, I realised that the girl with the newspaper had started flicking the pages in a very pointed, noisy manner, not even bothering to pretend to read any of them. Instantly I recognised a classic negative revenge tactic, exactly the type (if you'll pardon the pun) of thing I would do if the positions were reversed - creating my own disturbance to counter the one being inflicted on me. It dawned on me - I've gone from being the gamekeeper to being just another poacher. And actually that's no bad thing - just confirms what I've always said - commuting is a great leveller.

An Unhapy Commuter on a Monday night

2007-06-07T09:49:00.000+01:00

Ironically, or perhaps portentously, I had a miraculously hassle-free journey into work on Monday morning. I got a slightly earlier train than normal, forgoing the chance of a seat for a faster service, the bus turned up within a minute of my arrival at Kings Cross, and then seemed blessed with the goodwill of every set of traffic lights between Euston Road and Oxford Street. I was first in the office, managed to make myself a cup of tea before anyone else arrived (which I believe is what is known as a “cheap round”) and had been through my emails and filled in my timesheet by the time the rest of my colleagues turned up.

It was quite a busy day, as it turned out – I worked through lunch, dealing with a few bit and pieces that had been foisted upon me at the last minute. I had a late night lined up on Tuesday, so I was determined to get away on time and spend a quality portion of the evening with The Wife. Come five to six then (I was taking no chances), I arose from my desk, bade my colleagues good evening, and headed out on to the streets to catch a bus. The first sign that something strange might be going on came when I emerged on to Tottenham Court Road and found that there was no bus pulling away from my stop just before I got there. As I have said before, I believe it to be a general rule of any dash across London by bus that there is always a bus that pulls away just as you arrive at the bus stop. Naively, I took this as a good sign, not a bad one, reasoning that the bus I would normally expect to be puling away in front of me must just not have arrived yet, therefore when it did turn up, I would be able to get on it. Peering down the street, I was indeed gratified to see several buses heading towards me, but as each got closer it turned out that none of them bore any of the numbers that go to Kings Cross. There were a couple of sevens (it really bugs me when that happens – what kind of system have you got when two identical buses turn up at the same time?), a twenty-five and a thirty.

Eventually a seventy-three turned up, and I got on, squeezing my way down to the end to stand between two seats. We headed through the traffic lights and off down Tottenham Court Road, making remarkably slow progress. After what seemed like several hours, we got to the first stop and a number of people got on, whereupon I overheard one of them saying that Oxford Circus was closed, which accounted for all the extra people top side, and I privately awarded myself a gold star for avoiding the tube. Then the bus doors slid shut, the lights ahead of us turned green.

The bus stayed exactly where it was.

I glanced ahead out of the window and could see a solid row of traffic stretching up toward Warren Street. Now it’s always busy on that stretch of road – the traffic lights halfway down have a creative approach to timekeeping – but for some reason this did seem worse than usual. We sat there for a couple of minutes while I performed the usual calculations over whether I would be better getting off the bus and dashing to Warren Street to pick up the Victoria Line (the challenge is to beat the Kings Cross train to Finsbury Park, and is entirely dependent on the alignment of several factors – there needs to be a train on the Victoria Line platform as soon as you get there, you need to pick the right set of doors to deposit you right next to the stairs to the mainline platform at Finsbury, and of course it needs to be a smooth journey on the tube with no delays in tunnels – it’s a high stakes game of chance). I concluded that, ironically, the four or five minutes I had wasted waiting for this bus might have been sufficient to get me to Finsbury Park, but that now I was too far away to get to Warren Street in time, and anyway it would be jammed with people who had ventured up the road from Oxford Circus.

In the time it’s taken you to read that last paragraph, the bus moved not an inch. Finally, we crept forward a few inches, whereupon the lights went red again and we ground to a halt once more. Pretty much the same pattern repeated itself at the next set of lights, outside Goodge Street station, and I had just about resigned myself to getting the later train, when all of a sudden the road ahead cleared and the bus put on a sudden burst of speed. We sailed part the gang of leather-loving furniture shops and it started to look genuinely promising. Oh what cruel tricks the transport network plays.

I did at least have the satisfaction of seeing that I had called it right about Warren Street – it was jam-packed with commuters who looked short of patience. When we hit Euston Road we stopped for an unaccountably long time while someone dithered about whether to get on or not at the stop by the Wellcome building, and then we got into a jam at the lights coming out of Euston Station. I had developed a theory that getting off one stop earlier might provide me with a better route into the Sticks (the outlying platforms at Kings Cross) but the driver decided not to stop there, and I probably wouldn’t have made it in time to get the train anyway. When I did get on a train, having relied solely on my powers of deduction to figure out the cause of all these delays, it picked up a further seven minute delay en route to Stevenage, again with not a word of explanation. I arrived home a little grumpy, rather hungry and saw The Wife for a few minutes in between Corrie and Eastenders, whereupon I went and washed up. At the end of the second Corrie episode she announced she was going to bed, so I sat up on my own for an hour reading other blogs, which is normally a thrill, but was bit of a let-down after I had planned to some quality time with the woman I love.

That’s what makes an unhappy commuter.

The Unhappy Commuter

2007-06-07T09:48:00.001+01:00

What makes an unhappy commuter? Delays? Well yes, obviously, but most of us regular commuters are a fairly tolerant lot – we appreciate the complexity of the transport network and the inevitability of occasional problems that have ramifications elsewhere – as some very talented wannabe writer (now who could that be?) once put it “It’s like that Butterfly that keeps causing storms in China”). How about rudeness? Again, this is something one is conditioned to expect and rise above after a year or so on the rails. Lack of information – ah, now we are getting closer to the truth. Sitting in a crowded carriage surrounded by rural serenity, with nary a clue as to why the train has stopped moving or when it is going to start again, can cause even the most seasoned commuter to frown. Imagine the lush countryside replaced with the claustophobic dank darkness of a subterranean tunnel and you can bet that the frown will rapidly become a scowl. Doubtless, there are several factors that can ruin a commuter’s normally sunny disposition. Combine the lot of them into one, infuriating journey, and factor in a rumbling tummy as well, and you have a commuter who is not just unhappy, but severely pissed off. Which brings me neatly on to . . .

Walking the walk

2007-05-31T12:26:00.000+01:00

My journey to work starts at around twenty past seven in the morning. Not when I get on the train, but when I leave the house, marching purposefully out of the front door and across the road, then back into the house to collect whatever it is I’ve forgotten. This is invariably one of two things: my mobile phone or my train pass – oddly, I never seem to forget my keys anymore, although The Wife would no doubt point out to me that this is because I followed her advice and started keeping them in the same place every night. I’ve always taken the actual train journey as the focus for what I write on this blog, but in fact, the trip from my house to the station is an adventure in itself, and just as deserving of attention. The people I encounter (and in most cases pass) every morning are like characters in a soap opera – consistent, predictable and above all ever-present – and all contribute to rich tapestry of commuting experience with which my current occupation provides me.

When I first moved here, I used to regularly encounter a couple of about my age, who lived at the end of the street I walk down to get from my house to the main road. He works for a law firm. I don’t know what she does but then we shouldn’t all be defined by our work should we. Being new to the area and keen to make friends, I made several overtures in their direction but was not welcomed with any great enthusiasm so I gave it up. These days they’ve started getting a later train – can’t stand the pace – so I guess they just aren’t ready to hang out with a guy like me.

It takes me about twelve minutes to get to the station. When I reach the bottom of the hill |I turn smartly right on to the main street bypassing the centre of the charming little market town where I live, and stride past a bus stop, where a number of ladies of mature years are waiting for a bus to take them into Luton. It is an enduring mystery to me why ladies of mature years would want to go to Luton at any time, let alone half past seven in the morning, but maybe they know something I don’t. If I had a cap, I would at this point doff it respectfully in their direction, but I don’t, and even on cold days when I wear my woolly hat, the effect would not quite be the same, so I just march on past.

When I reach the local theatre, there is always, without fail, a car waiting to pull out of the driveway, and so we engage in a brief game of After You Claude, each waving frantically at the other to indicate that he should go first. As always happens with these things, we both reach the decision that the other is definitely not going to accept the invitation at precisely the same moment, and move forward into one another’s path. Cue much waving of arms in a distinctly Gallic manner, followed by brief exchange of sheepish grins, and I’m off on my way again.

Much the same thing happens at the zebra crossing I reach a short while later, where things are further complicated by the dog-walking brigade. There are three doting dog-owners who regularly take the half past seven slot to exercise their canine companions. The first of these is a burly bloke with a big black beast (probably a Labrador, but I’m no expert). I have to say I was a bit nervous when I first encountered this fearsome-looking pair, but without justification – I’ve never been subjected to anything more aggressive than a tentative sniff. And nothing from the dog either. The second of my barking brigades is a proper pack – a younger lady with a brood of those big white fluffy creatures that look as though they have come straight from the hair salon. Nothing to fear from this group, although passing them is complicated by the fact that they occupy the whole of the pavement – so to get round them I have to walk right out into the middle of the road, into the path of oncoming traffic, which can be inconvenient. Finally, and inevitably, there is the poodle-walker. Now as is always the case, the smaller the dog, the more vicious the little maniac is, so to for the sake of trousers and ankles, not to mention the dogs, it’s best to get clear of these creatures as soon as possible.

It is at this point that my nemesis, Goliath-lite, appears. Goliath-lite is a really really skinny bloke with implausibly, ridiculously, long legs. Now, there’s something you should know about me – as I’ve alluded to before, I am a bit of a shortarse, and as such carry around on my shoulder a chip identical to that carried by many vertically-challenged people, which manifests itself in a burning desire to walk faster than everybody else. It’s not so much a competitive streak – if it was I would probably be a lot sportier, and would have shown at least a passing interest in physical pursuits at school. It’s more of a petty conviction that if I can walk faster than everyone else, I am on some level displaying my physical superiority, and proving that being short is no barrier to being The Best. Sadly, by dint of sheer physics, there are some people I just can’t outwalk, no matter how hard I may try. Goliath-lite is one such person. I may well get past the dog-walkers, the schoolkids, the businessmen in their power suits, but Goliath-lite can give me a hundred yard start and still overtake me before I reach the station. He also walks with his hands in his pockets, the model of nonchalance, in complete contrast to my own arm-swinging, gut-busting pose, which lets everyone know how hard I am working. It’s really quite dispiriting.

Of course, I carry a bag, a heavy one that slows me down. Otherwise I’d leave him choking on my dust.

Comment is free

2007-05-21T09:48:00.000+01:00

One of my correspondents has pointed out to me that there is no comments box on my previous post. Am mystified as to the reason for this, but if you do have anything you want to add please feel free to do so here.

Hope someone does otherwise I'm going to look a bit silly.

Lightening strikes twice

2007-05-19T20:56:00.000+01:00

Amazing. Twice in just over a week. I'm a few days late posting this, but my pulse is still racing. Unbelievably, following my exhilarating dash across North London, via Warren Street, last week, I was forced to tempt fate again this week by attempting to beat the system once more. I have to say it didn't give me the same buzz as last time, simply because this time around it was too close for comfort. This time around I didn't just push my luck - I gave it a real shove. And amazingly, it stretched.

It was Tuesday afternoon. The Wife works a half-day on a Tuesday, and so where possible I like to get away from work promptly so that I can be home in time to share a few quality moments with her before Holby City starts. So at 6pm I rose from my desk, grabbed by things, bid a cheery farewell to my colleagues and hastened out the door into the early evening Soho bustle. Making my way to the bus stop, I joined the back of a longish queue of people and waited for the number 73 to arrive. And then I waited a bit more. For some reason which did ont become clear, the bus was runinng a bit late, and it didn't actually turn up until gone five past - not much of a delay by public transport standards, but on such slim marigns, as I have observed before, are trains caught and missed.

Already running a few minutes late, I was concerned when the first two sets of traffic lights on the way down Tottenham Court Road proved to be against us. Then we stopped outside Goodge Street and for some reason people took ages getting on - fumbling for Oyster cards and passes, asking the driver where the bus was going to, all that sort of thing. All the time the second hand on my watch continued it's methodical march, the minute hand trailing slowly, reluctantly, but inexorably behind it.

It got to ten past - less than fifteen minutes before my train and still we hadn't got to the end of Tottenham Court Road. I knew, with gloomy certainty, that we'd get held up by the lights at Euston, and the memory of that occasion a few weeks back when I'd had to dash across Kings Cross, unwittingly causing a lady to spill her coffee as I sped past, only to see the train pull away from the platform in front of me, flashed before my mind's eye. I made another of those split-second decisions. I got off the bus, and made for Warren Street tube station.

Now here's a wierd thing. I know it's not a long way from that bus stop to the station, but somehow on this occasion it seemed much further than usual. Bobbing and weaving between people, I reached the top of the escalators and plunged downwards into the bowels of city. A glance at the watch confirmed that I probably still had time to make it up and out of the Underground station at Kings Cross and get the train, so I made my way to the end of the platform where I thought the rear of the train would be, and waited. A minute later than the electronic board said it would be (but I'm experienced enough to expect that), the train arrived but somehow I'd got my bearings mixed up, and it turned out I was at the front! It was also packed - I might have been able to get on, but my bag would have had to remain at Warren Street. Not an option. With a growing sense of foreboding, I hurried down to the other end of ther platform to await the next train. It turned up fairly rapidly, and mercifully thre was just enough space for both bag and body. Checking the watch again, I realised that the hike across Kings Cross was now out of the question, and then it struck me that if I was going all the way to Finsbury Park I was in completely the wrong part of the train. With the exit at Finsbury halfway along the platform I was bound to get stuck at the back of the queue. Nothnig I could do about it now. I would just have to be ready to sprint up the stairs, three at a time.

When we got to Kings Cross, I briefly considered getting off and making a run for it, with the exit right in front of me when the doors opened, but the watch told me that there were only four minutes before my train left, and weighing up my featherlight chances, I realised that the scales were still just about tipped in favour of the Finsbury Park option. I put my bag down, closed my eyes, and started a few rudimentary stretching exercises to prepare my limbs for the dash.

Eventually, we reached Finsbury. I leapt from the train, slung my bag over one shoulder and sped along the inside of the platform, perilously close to the edge (the yellow line may as well have been a distant horizon). Reaching the spiral staircase, I bounded up the stairs, squeezing between a couple of ladies with a shouted apology, and on to the platform where the train from Kings Cross was just pulling in. My brow glistening with perspiration and my heart racing, I hurled myself through the doors just as the alarm signalled that they ready to close and slumped against the partition, thinking to myself "I've got to stop doing this. I'm getting too old for it."

Then I remembered that life bigins at thirty.

When a plan comes together

2007-05-11T23:25:00.000+01:00

Every now and again, in the life of a commuter, there comes a moment when a split-second decision is called for, the kind of judgement call that will mean the difference between getting home on time and being stupidly, pointlessly late, marooned at a bus stop or station in the cold, in that strange mental no man's land between work and home. Now, as many of the posts on this blog will testify, I invariably get these decisions wrong, but very occasionally, one of them comes off, and I am able to bask in the warm glow of a job well done. The jorney home on Friday was one such occasion. I feel like General Hannibal after his elephants had trampled all over the Roman legions, or Agamenmon, after that trick with the wooden horse.

It puts me in mind of the could-have-been-great film Sliding Doors, in which alternate realities are shown in parallel, having diverged at the crucial moment when Gwnynneth's character does/does not get on the train. Incidentally, what was that ending all about, eh? Slightly disappointing films notwithstanding, I feel, as I have already pointed out, a tremendous sense of ahievement. In the words of another Hannibal, "I love it when a plan comes together."

What happened was this. I left work shortly before 6pm yesterday, and for some reason decided that as I had 5 minutes to spare I would walk down to Oxford Circus and get on the Tube, rather than taking my chances on the recently-unreliable buses. I knew I was taking a chance, but it didn't seem overly busy in London and I progressed down to Argyll Street pretty quickly and without having to dance my way past too many dawdlers. I skipped past the freesheet-hawkers, crossed the road to avoid the crowds forming outside The Palladium (all of them perhaps wondering "How do you solve a problem like coming to see the winner of a reality TV show and finding that the understudy is on in her place?") and rounded the corner on to Oxford Street where I hit The Bottleneck at its very worst. There were people coming from all directions, as I have described before. It wasn't so much a series of queues in different directions as, well, a gathering.

It is at times like these that I do wish I was just a little bit taller. I had no idea what was going on because I couldn't see over the shoulders of the people around me. Some girls from the London Beautician's College, or whatever it's called, were my only guide to what was happening above the canopy, conducting a noisy debate over whether the station was closed or not (inconclusive), whether they should get on the bus (too slow), and whether they should split up to try to move faster (they didn't). Like them, I decided to stay put.

After a few long minutes, we did start moving again. Unfortunely, the people coming the other way started moving at the same time, so there was a bit of a stand-off, resolved when we somehow managed to form ourselves into two orderly lines running side by side. I eventually reached the top of the stairs and headed down into the station, headed down the escalators and on to a crowded platform.

Now this was the key moment.

A glance at my watch confirmed my worst fears - it was nudging ten past six, and I knew that by the time I had made it up and out of the underground station at Kings Cross and then hotfooted over to The Sticks to get my train, I would be just in time to see it pulling away out of Platform 9. If I went all the way to the rather more compact Finsbury Park, however, I suspected that I might make it up to the platform in time to catch the same train as it arrived from Kings Cross. But only if I could avoid getting caught up in a queue on the stairs.

This is where it gets really clever. I knew that, if I went down to the rear of the platform, I would be prefectly positioned to get out quickly at Kings Cross, where I would have easy access to the escalators. However, at Finsbury, the exit is halfway along the platform, not at one end, so if I wanted to make a quick getway there I would need to be somewhere in the middle section of the train. With the rumble of an approaching train and people piling on to the platform behind me, I had no time to think. My instincts told me that Finsbury was the better option, so I opted for the middle carriage.

We reached Kings Cross with surprising speed, and momentarily I doubted my decision, but anothre glance at the watch reassured me - I would have had just three minutes to get from one train to the other, a forlorn hope during rush hour. Then when we got ot Finsbury Park I was right by the staircase, bounded up and had enough time to pick my spot on the platform. Howzat!

I even got a seat. What a feeling.

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning (the sequel)

2007-05-07T10:10:00.000+01:00

Off up to Leeds again on Thursday morning. This time the course kicked off at 9, so my colleague CE and I were on what I believe is known as the Red Eye Express from London. I was up at quarter past four, rocked up (literally) at Hitchin Station for ten to six, bidding a cheery good morning to the bleary-eyed station master and strolled over the Platform 1 to await the arrival of the 06:04, which I confidently expected to be deserted. Imagine my surprise, then, when I boarded to find that there was barely a seat to be had (okay, I’m exaggerating slightly for effect, but it was still quite busy). And it got me thinking – it’s so nice and peaceful at that time in the mornings. More people should try getting up then. Though I suppose that wouldn’t help with the peace and quiet.

The other thing that struck me about the early morning trains is that they all seemed to be running early. Not on time, mark you, early. I had ambled down to the station more slowly than planned – my head was a little fuzzy - and so missed the 05:54. This was slightly annoying, because my connection at Stevenage was due at quarter past six, and I hadn’t wanted to cut it too fine in case of any delays on the way there. As it turns out, I needn’t have worried, because the train turned up a couple of minutes before the clock struck six. I got on it, stood by the door in a “I’m not going to be on here long enough for it to be worth sitting down” sort of a way, and waited for the gentle jolt of locomotion.

Nothing happened.

Nonchalantly reaching down to rummage through my (ludicrously full) bag – I really should clean it out from time to time: there was dirty underwear in there from the last time I went to Leeds 2 weeks ago – I could not help but notice that several people, who had already been on the train when it pulled in, got up and left. The doors closed automatically behind them, which never normally happens – normally the driver shuts them just before the train pulls out, and even spookier there’s no button to shut them on the outside of the train, so it was almost as if they were acting of their own accord. It started to feel a little bit like that scene in The Empire Strikes Back when the shield doors of the Hoth base are closed with Luke and Han still lost in the snow, in which the combination of dramatic music and Chewbacca’s anguished howl serve to make the closing of the gates portentous.

After what seemed like hours, the train rumbled into life, and we pulled out of the platform on our way to Stevenage. Bizarrely enough, those people who had got off the train whilst we had been sat there didn’t return, so I was left to imagine them emerging from the toilets or the coffee shop or whatever, being bemused to find an empty platform, and standing there, lost and confused, for the rest of the day, or at least until the nice lady at the ticket office (who always helps me when I’ve lost my ticket) came to take them away and stick them in a taxi.

The rest of the journey was all a bit dull, really. No delays, no fearsome old women buying tea at the coffee shop, and even Leeds was suspiciously free of eccentrics. The only slightly unusual thing was that two of the three cashpoints on the station concourse at Leeds were out of service, so I had to queue for ages, in which time CE had time to get herself some breakfast, use the loo, and have several cups of tea. The course was fun and interesting, but by far the most significant aspect of the day, for me, was that I managed to get home before the chippy shut, and because I was the last customer, I got a free piece of fish. Now that’s worth getting up early for.

A Couple of Commuters

2007-04-27T19:53:00.000+01:00

The Wife was on a course in London this week, which meant that I had the rare pleasure of her company on the train. It was, as it always is, a strange experience. A delightful one to be sure, but as somebody accustomed to the essentially selfish ways of the lone commuter, which sometimes verge on solipsism, it is profoundly unsettling to find that number one is not the only number that counts, and in fact, number two, in terms of priority, counts double.

Things began to get weird on Monday morning, when we had to leave the house early to ensure that we could get there in time to buy a ticket and catch the train without resorting to my usual power walking. We even took a different route - the "scenic" way - which might actually be quicker but its never been proven and I am a creature of habit (just ask any of my colleagues who try for a mid-afternoon cup of tea before 4pm). It was pleasnt enough - no denying that it does make for a nicer walk, and not having to dodge traffic made a nice change. Then when we reached the station, we marched down to my normal position near the end of the platform and discovered to my consternation that our relative tardiness (I like to get there with five minutes to spare) meant that all of my daily rivals had got there first, and we couldn't get near the yellow line, let alone in front of it. Fortunately I know a few tricks of the trade and we managed to secure a position just outside the gent's toilets which I knew would be precisly in front of the doors when the train stopped, giving us a chance to effectively queue-jump (not a habit I approve of, but needs must).

When the train pulled in and the doors opened, I had to fight my ingrained instinct to forge ahead, elbows at the ready and wearing an impassive yet steely visage, and devote my energies to ensuring that She got on in time to get a seat. This I achieved, but only at the cost of not being able to sit down myself. I had to stand for the entire jourrney, whilst many of my everyday acquaintances preened themselves in the very seats that I might have occupied had I been more ruthless.

Travelling home together was far less stressful - twice She came to meet me in Soho and we went for something to eat (once to my old haunt at Pierre Victoire), and on the other night she went home earlier than me, and come Thursday when the course was over I felt quite lonely. By Thursday night, however, I was back in the groove, tapping furiously away at my laptop, glaring meaningfully at the overly-loud MP3 brigade, and doing a passable Road Runner impression between the station and home. So what does this teach us? Well, Man (at least this one) is an adaptable species, able to adjust comfortably to a changed environment and tailor his behaviour accordingly. And I would like to see more of The Wife.

White-and-two-sugars-cino

2007-04-24T10:35:00.000+01:00

Monday morning took me to Leeds, a change from the usual routine necessitated by a training course I was booked on at Corporate HQ. In accordance with Corporate Directive #293 (approximately), I selflessly decided to wait until the first off-peak train from Stevenage at five to ten, enabling me to pay a visit to Tesco and have a thrilling time conducting an audit of the rums and spirits category (oh, if only I could communicate the sheer wonder of it in mere words).

Anyway, grocery retail excitement aside (that’s a subject for another blog, I think) what really caught my attention on this trip was something that actually took place before I got on the train, when I paid a visit to the coffee shop. Now, travelling off-peak on inter-city routes you tend to get very different passengers from the peak-rate business types with the laptops and Blackberries. In their place, you get the obligatory smattering of students, of course, but also a peculiar breed of formidable retired ladies with walking sticks and spectacular handbags. And they tend not to be cappuccino-drinkers, much less macchiato or chai fans.

So when they walk into the platform’s branch of the latest funky coffee chain, they have no truck whatsoever with the menu of improbably-named beverages, and order a straightforward cup of coffee, much to the consternation of the people who run the place. You can see them struggling not to respond, in tones of righteous indignation, “A cup of coffee? White with two sugars? What do you think this is, a Greasy Spoon? Begone from my brightly-coloured plastic retail space with its tasteful, if fake, oak floor and pine furniture, and never darken my door again. Sebastian, get me a Tall skinny mochaccino with a coconut biscotti and a scented flannel! I’m going to have to lie down!”

Of course, they never do say that. They just extend a friendly hand and rest it on the scary woman’s arm (only if you look into their eyes can you see the contempt smouldering) and gently direct their attention to the charmingly retro blackboard with its painted-but-looks-like-it-could-be-chalk menu of made-up Italian-sounding names, before slowly talking them through it, pointing out which one is the nearest equivalent to “white and two sugars” – “except for the rich intensity of the espresso beans” or something like that.

And then comes the best bit.

After looking solemnly up and down the menu for a few minutes, our scary lady fixes the barista with a serious look, and asks for a cup of tea instead.

Integration nation

2007-04-12T09:19:00.000+01:00

Something truly remarkable happened yesterday morning. I was on my way to work, standing on a dusty, crowded platform in the hazy morning light, waiting for the 0751 to Kings Cross via Finsbury Park. My shoulders protested at the indignity of being made to bear such a burden as my lunchbox after a long weekend of sloth, and my newly cut hair lay matted across my scalp, seemingly the only part of my body still to wake up. My plan, such as it was, was to get off at Finsbury Park and pick up a Victoria Line train to Oxford Circus – as I have previously explained, it actually works out quicker than going all the way into Kings Cross and getting a bus which deposits me right outside the office, such is the early morning traffic in London. All around me, my fellow commuters were well into their daily routine, plugged into music players, struggling with newspapers, unobtrusively yet insistently trying to get further forward towards the edge of the platform – it was my first day back after an extra day off, and I found myself slow to get going, not even bothering to buy a ‘paper. And then, as if summoned by the commuting god to jolt me into life, it happened.

“London Underground have informed us that there are severe delays occurring on the Central and Victoria Lines this morning due to signal problems. Passengers are advised (and don’t you just love that word by the way? Advised? More like warned, but that would sound too negative) to seek alternative routes for their journey.”

I had to pinch myself. What this, an integrated transport system? The Tube and the trains actually talking to each other? Whatever next? I suppose in my industry the equivalent would be the admin staff and the creatives actually engaging in some sort of a dialogue about how they can work together to provide a better service to customers (it sounds really dull when you put it like that doesn’t it?). Seriously though, how many times in the past few years have I had cause to lament the apparent reluctance of the different arms of the multi-limbed transport network to talk to each other and communicate news about delays and problems to customers before they embark? Too many to mention, that’s how many. Remarkable. Was it just a one-off or the harbinger of things to come, of a happier, more efficient capital where passengers are able to actually plan their journeys?

It put me in a good mood for the rest of the day.

The best laid plans

2007-04-02T22:22:00.000+01:00

Well, I said I needed a holiday. I'm just back from a week in Dublin. And what a fine city it is. We spent most of our time wandering the streets on foot, so I didn't really get the chance to study the city's transport provisions in detail (they have trams!). We did take a day trip to Howth on the coast though, and this enabled us to travel on the marvelously-monikered Dart, the mainline rail system. The other line's called Commuter, which doesn't seem quite to do justice to the Irish literary tradition, but I can forgive them that lapse on the basis on the sheer wonder of having a train called a Dart - it doesn't even go particularly fast!

So, first day back and, coincidentally, the first day of the month (not technically true - it was the 2nd - but weekends don’t count because no one commutes). After the traditional end of holiday feast on Sunday night, I had gone to bed early with the intention of getting up with the early-morning songbirds, and for once this actually came to pass. I left the house slap bang on quarter past seven and headed for the station, taking time as I went to note the first flush of Spring bringing new life to the flora and fauna of the beautiful market town where I live. I had in the back of my mind a faint but persistent hope that I might make the half past seven train, but knowing that I had to renew my season ticket and that there is always a huge queue at the ticket office at the start of the month, my head told my heart that it was a forlorn hope. Imagine my surprise, then, to arrive at the station and find that there were only a few people waiting to be served by the ticket staff, of whom, remarkably, there were three - a full compliment - on duty (unprecedented for rush hour). The clock said twenty-five past and I thought to myself “By golly,” – I was in a particularly Billy Bunter frame of mind, possibly brought on by the Spring – “I miught just make this.”

Now, you’ve probably guessed that I wouldn’t be telling you a story like this if something hadn’t gone awry, and sure enough, when I got to the front of the queue at half past (2 minutes to spare) the gentleman serving me informed me glumly that his ticket machine was afflicted by “mechanical difficulties”, and therefore the ticketing process would be slow. Resigning myself to my fate - after all I had never truly believed I could make the train - I relaxed into the normal rhythm of the Monday morning journey, barely flinching when the train pulled in just as I was collecting my receipt. Now I don’t like to run for trains, so I just went and bought myself a newspaper, fully expecting the train to be gone by the time I looked again, To my consternation, when I looked again it had not moved, and in fact I could see that the doors were still open. Just as I was about to launch myself into a humiliating run, the whistle blew, the doors slid shut, and the train moved off. If only, I thought to myself, I hadn't stopped to buy the newspaper. It was a lament I would have cause to repeat sevreal times before I reached the office.

In keeping with the theme of making the wrong decisions, I plumped for the earlier, but slower, train, partly because I knew I would get a seat, and having bought the paper I thought it would be nice to read it in comfort. Now on these stopping trains I can either get off at Finsbury Park and catch the Tube, or go all the way to Kings Cross and catch a bus. This day, I opted for the Underground. I hopped off at Finsbury to board the Victoria Line, only to find when I reached the bottom of the stairwell there was a lady just pulling a barrier across the entrance to the Victoria Line platform. Turning around and swimming determinedly against a tide of humanity flowing down the srairs, I reached the top and bumped into my colleague NM, who had been not one but two trains behind me and yet still arrived only a few minutes later. Appraised of the situation, we had a split-second decision to make - wait for the Piccadilly Line (now facing serious overcrowding) or take a train into Kings Cross and get a bus on the same route I could have been on earlier if I'd only stayed on the original train. Out of nowhere, NM pulled out a third, ingenious, option - get a different train to Old Street and get the Northern Line to Bank, where we could pick up a connection to Tottenham Court Road, right next to the office. It sounded too good to be true. But I opted to cast caution to the wind and follow him on this crazy scheme. To my surprise, it worked perfectly.

Until we got to Bank.

At Bank, we reached the Central Line platform - just four stops away from our destination. There was a train on the platform with its doors invitingly open. We moved towards it eagerly, but suddenly an evil-sounding voice boomed over the tannoy, like the wrath of a particularly malevolent deity, and told us that there was a power failure further down the line (at White City, for goodness' sake!), no trains were moving and, that, basically, we could all give up on getting to work. Ha!

We wearily ascended to street level to get a cab the rest of the way, eventually reaching the office at twenty past nine - more than two hours door to door. And I'd even got up early.

The moral of the story? Don't try to outsmart the transport system. Short cuts invariably end up being very long cuts.

Confessions of a Grumpy Commuter

2007-03-23T15:19:00.000Z

I have a confession to make. I am no better than the rest of them. I may pretend (to myself as much as to anyone else) that I am, in fact, fundamentally a nice person and well above all that nastiness and pettiness that commuting seems to bring out in people, but it is not true. This was brought home to me on Monday morning, as I boarded the 07:51 train to Kings Cross.

It was a Monday morning, and I was very tired, having not slept terribly well over the weekend. And I was provoked. At least, I felt provoked. The guy who was provoking me probably didn’t think he was being provocative, but that’s how I read it. All mitigating circumstances, to be sure, but not sufficient to hide behind: everyone could surely point to such mitigation every single day when they shove in front of someone, fold their newspaper the moment they suspect someone else may be reading it, or just scowl at someone on the train just because they happen to make eye contact.

What happened was this. I had got to the station quite early, having left the house five minutes or so ahead of schedule. Taking up a position just behind the yellow line, in between the two chaps who were there ahead of me, I suddenly realised that I was vulnerable to people piling in from the side, who often get in front of those in the centre of the doors. So I decided to be smart, and moved around to stand side by side with one of the other guys (the one on the left, to be prccise). Minutes passed, and as the clock reached ten to eight, there was a sudden influx – a group of about five passengers arrived and stood behind the other two. Young, tall, confident-looking – I took an instant dislike to them. To make matters worse, three of them seemed to know each other, and started laughing and joking together. Then one of them, a tall ginger bloke, caught my eye, and I swear it was a dirty look he gave me (in retrospect, it was just a look, and barely even that, but I was feeling insecure). I fumed.

Then the train turned up, and the carriage rumbled to a halt with the doors right in front of the other two guys, and by extension my tall ginger nemesis too. Steaming with rage, I turned, put my head down, and advanced. The ginger guy actually got on first, after the guy I’d stood next to., but I was damned if I was going to let his young lady get in front of me too – after all, I had been there fully five minutes before them. He caught me with the strap of his rucksack as I forged in behind him, and the jolted me back to reality. I don’t think anyone noticed, but I felt very foolish, and realised hoe childishly I had been behaving.

I’ve been feeling ashamed all week, salving my conscience by pointedly ignoring free seats on the bus and letting other people take them instead. I think I need a holiday.

Anthology

2007-03-12T22:53:00.000Z

Nothing noteworthy to report other than the fact that the train was very overcrowded on the way home. Coupled with this morning's similarly crowded carriage that means I haven't sat down on public transport all day, which is possibly a first - normally I manage to find a seat for at least a portion of one of my journeys.

But there is some exciting news for blog fans, as the sheer quality of writing available on the web finally receives overdue recognition. Shaggy Blog Stories, published through Lulu.com, features some of the very best writing from fellow bloggers including the only man to have got away with making a virtue of Northampton's essential dullness, Andrew Collins.

More details at:

http://troubled-diva.com/

In the wee small hours of the morning

2007-03-10T18:55:00.000Z

Well, not quite. But we were on one of the last trains home on Thursday night after an evening at the theatre in London (late deal from the Net). The final curtain came down at around half ten but due to another tiresome episode involving my disappearing train pass we were delayed getting to Kings Cross, and by the time we got ourselves on a train it was nearing the witching hour. Late-night commuting is always fascinating, to me at least, because of the characters you get. Actually it was fairly civilised this time (other than the young woman berating her husband for not keeping things safely in his pocket, the sight of which caused the weary travellers some amusement I'm sure). Perhaps we just picked the wrong carriage. There was, however, Chewing Gum Man, to keep this correspondent stocked with material.

I suspect it may just be me, but I have to admit to a horrible tendency to stare at gum chewers. Particularly on trains, where I find myself unable to tear my attention away from them. I suspect it is my commuting instincts, which put me in a heightened sense of awareness vis a vis everyone else around me, but it seems to me as if people chew more ostentatiously on the train than elsewhere (doesn't happen on buses - it really is a train-specific phenomenon). This particular chap on Thursday night was not, mercifully, one of the open-mouthed brigade (at least not until we reached Stevenage, when for some reason he decided we would all benefit from a good look at his tonsils - although if one were being cruel, one might say that at least it provided a welcome distraction from the town itself). But my word, did he give that gum a good going over. He seemed to be trying to grind it into submission. He chewed his gum like my dad rides an exercise bike at the gym - and anyone who has ever witnessed my father at the gym will know exactly what I mean. No quarter asked, none given - you could see the veins standing out on his forehead. By the time he embarked on what we might call the post-Stevenage sprint for the line (the aforementioned open-mouth bit) his jaw had been through the oral equivalent of a full-body workout. There are, by all account, serveral hundred muscles in the jaw, and I'm guessing he used every single one of them. I hope I didn't stare too much, although from the triumphant grimace he shot me as I exited the train, I suspect I may have done.

As for the train pass, well, I dragged The Wife back to the theatre to check if they had picked it up (they hadn't), then back to my office to see if we could find it on my desk (we couldn't), and then rang the restaurant we'd eaten in to see if they had it (they didn't). I bought a ticket home, then a full-fare Travelcard on Friday. I was just leaving the office for the weekend, via the photo booth to get some passport photos and replace the darn thing, when I chanced to move a book on my desk and there it was. Oh, how we all laughed.

Moving to my own beat

2007-03-01T17:32:00.000Z

One of my most notable Christmas presents was a Samsung MP3 player. I mention the brand not out of an loyalty to Samsung, or just because I work for a branding agency and want to show off how “brand-literate” I am, but because I work in an office, and indeed an industry, full of Apple geeks, for whom possession of any other type of music device than one of those Ipod thingies would be tantamount to treason. It’s my rather understated, middle class way of railing against the establishment. Actually that’s bollocks – the Ipod was just more expensive. But I digress.

The thing is, or was, that I had reached the stage that my daily commute would be immeasurably improved by being able to listen to music. Like so many others, I realised that shutting oneself off from the rest of the world is much easier when set to the soundtrack of my choice. So since the end of January (when I finally got round to putting some tunes on the thing) I have been able to count “MP3 player” amongst the portfolio of things that I must verbally namecheck before I leave the house every morning (more complicated than it sounds – like the global temperature, the slightest adjustment to the norm has had a profound effect – I’ve frequently been missing my train). And my fellow travellers have been treated to the sight of a much happier, more serene me, jacked into a pair of those little white headphones, lost in a world of my own, barely even bothering to notice when my personal space gets invaded, or someone pushes in front of me on the platform.

Which brings me to the point of this post – you don’t need to have the music at full blast. I’ve always been struck by just how loud some people have their personal music systems, and have long fantasised about removing an earphone from a neighbouring ear and saying something incredibly witty like “Would you mind turning it up a bit? I think there may be some people in the next carriage who can’t quite hear.” Of course, I’ve never had the balls, but then when you’ve been building up to saying something like that for so long, it never comes out right, does it? I had come to the conclusion, having observed, and indeed examined the eclectic musical tastes of, many of these people in the last couple of years, that earphones just aren’t very good at containing sound. But then I actually got a pair of my own. And do you know what? They aren’t bad at all. I frequently remove my earphones and hold them a decent distance from my ears to check that I am not playing anything noisy enough to disturb other people, and find that I can’t hear a thing, even when I think I’ve got it on quite loud. So I can only wonder what it must sound like inside the head, so to speak, of someone whose thumping bassline is audible from the other end of the coach.

It all puts me in mind of an incident, years ago, when I was driving a friend to a club, and she stuck the radio on so loud that the car shook – it was like being in a nightclub. It was a profoundly disturbing experience as I could not concentrate on my driving, and what’s more my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man (I have just turned 30, and a friend did buy me a book called, yes “Grumpy Old Men”) what is it with these kids? Eh?

Friday fun

2007-02-16T21:28:00.000Z

It was so unexpected, which probably helped. Whenever there have been problems on the rails recently, it's usually been down to inclement weather, and therefore quite predictable - the anticipation and dread has built up over several hours. On Friday, it was a total shock - I got to Kings Cross having enjoyed my regular Friday afternoon stroll across London, and made my way to the platform where my train was waiting, where I was rather suprised to find myself in the midst, and then rapidly falling behind, a horde of commuters running at full tilt down the platform. It transpired that there had been "overhead line problems" between Huntingdon and Peterborough, and as a result, no GNER trains to the North were going in or out of London. Which meant that all those poor sods who had to travel up North at the busiest time of the week had to get on the local trains and pick up a replacement bus service at, of all places, St Neots. What made it even better, from a dramatic perspective, was that the train we were all piling on to was comprised of only four coaches.

I strode purposefully towards the front of the train, never breaking into a run in spite of the energetic sprinting going on around me, because I don't ever run for trains, and certainly not in order to try to get on one before all the seats are taken. By the time I got to the doors, it was standing room only, and there was precious little of that. Being a small chap does have its advantages in these situations, and I managed to get on and in without pushing, just sort of inserting myself into gaps to small for normal sized people. There was a bit of a kerfuffle with a wheezing fellow who had his elbow in my back and seemed loath to remove it as I tried to turn around - he treated me to a somewhat disparaging glare. Without meaning to, I found myself moving deeper into the carriage as more and more people squeezed on, until I had one foot in first class and one in the vestibule. This, I'm sure, would have presented any ticket collectors who managed to get on the train with an interesting dilemma. It did actually cause me to wonder briefly whether you get charged for standing in first class or not. I wonder if it's written down anywhere. I'll find out and let you all know.

Second ticked by and became minutes. The appointed hour arrived and still people were trying to force themselves through the doors, beseeching people to move down, even though they really couldn't. There was someone sat on the floor of the aisle in the first class section and so it looked to people outside, and indeed further down the train, as if there was extra space when in fact there wasn't. The nonchalance of those people who are sitting down never ceases to impress me at times like this - they bury themselves in their books and papers, and seem to utterly block out the noise of the mob around them. All apart from one chap who looked up from his seat with an expression of mild irritation and asked me if I could possibly move so as not to block the sliding door dividing first class from the rest of the train. I honestly could not even move my feet, so wedged into position was I - in fact we were so crammed in that I wasn't even the only one blocking it - so I politely informed him that no, I could not possibly oblige.

What was nice to see was that everyone in the vestibule area, which really was so full that people were short of air, took it all in good humour. There was a guy with a can of lager, almost finished, who offered the last few sips around - no takers, unsurprisingly, and a couple of Yorkshire lasses who informed the guys around them that they really weren't trying to touch anyone's backsides but in the circumstances it was unavoidable.

The really good thing about it from my perspective was that the train was only ten minutes late getting to Hitchin, although I felt for those who had to brave the reaplacement bus service from St Neots. Dread to think what time they got home.

Winter Wonderland

2007-02-11T17:26:00.000Z

Well wasn't that exciting? A couple of months too late, maybe, but exciting nevertheless. Perhaps we should put Christmas back by a couple of months (bearing in mind that Christ was probably born sometime in July anyway, at least according to a Blue Peter report on the subject that I saw when I was twelve), so that we might actually hava a chance of getting a white Christmas. Honestly though, I haven't seen it snow like that around here since, ooh, 1991. Back then, it was my fourteenth birthday, I was due to sit a biology exam, school was cancelled, I had a nice long birthday weekend - it ws defintely one of the happier episodes of my secondary school education. This time around, it was, incredibly, my thirtieth birthday (I'm actually finding it harder to come to terms with than I had expected). Although I got in to work on Thursday, unlike several of my London-based colleagues, because the transport system in the city itself seemed less able to cope than the suburban commuter routes, I worked at home on Friday. This was partly because I didn't want to get stuck in London on a Friday night before a weekend of celebrating, and partly because I had something I really wanted to get finished, and had been totally distracted on Thursday by a problem with the office printer.

I would have been okay if I had gone in, to be honest. The trains coped admirably, certainly much better than expected. I understand it got a bit messy further north (one of my colleagues, due in from Leeds at 10am, turned up at about four in the afternoon), but on my line there was a full service, albeit running with about ten minute dealys. It was heartening, actually, after seeming to be in the eye of the storm regarding most of the recent transport problems in London (not trying to elicit sympathy but look at the evidence - Kings Cross Fire, Blustery Thursday, Overhead Cable problems (Grrr!), etc).

So nothing of note happened this week, commuting-wise. Turning thirty has been traumatic enough in itself, so it's probably a good thing. I did take in a very good exhibition on housing development at the V&A on Wednesday, and visited the Tudor section at the National Portrait Gallery. I'm sure I'm not the only one that finds portaits eerie. I mean, why have they always got to look so miserable? Even photographic portraits are invariably either stern-faced or focusing on some point just above the camera, probably in the middle distance. What's wrong with just smiling and saying "cheese"?

Not really in this blog's regular sphere of interest, but I needed to gt it off my chest.