Crammed into the middle of a train, I am positioned perfectly so that everytime it rocks slightly I swat myself like some underprivileged fly against the glass partition that separates me from first class, where the opulence is such that people have room to sit down on the floor without being trampled.
I know why this happened, too. It wasn't demand exceeding supply or some sort of freak herding. As last on in Manchester, I overheard an employee of First travel simultaneously swearing and apologising profusely to a woman in a wheelchair. Before the doors clattered shut on my jacket, I distinctly heard him explain that she couldn't get on this train as the carriage with the disabled facilities had been "forgotten".
20 tons of screaming steel, plastic, flame-retardants and commuters' prayers, vanished on the Transpennine line. More a ghost tram than a ghost train.
The weather country-wide has been clear and mild, so it is no surprise the York is still operating its own freak microclimate. As soon as the train crosses county borders, we enter a squall. One that, judging by the puddles, has been going on for a while.
As I wait for a bus that is 20 minutes out of schedule, I loathe the shortening of "First Travel" on the signs to "FTR" 'cos, like, that's like text speak for "future", y'know, with, like, no vowels. Not only can I imagine the corporate meeting where the advertising shits unveiled this little epiphany to gluttonous and grey-eyed executives, I can also imagine the dismay on the fresh faces of the slick, speedy advertising emissaries faces when they discover that they will be paid for their services with 15% off rail vouchers and time-share chalets in Torquay.
Actually, I just loathe First Travel. And students, whom this stunted and noxious "FTR=Future" meme conflagration is aimed at. Escpecially the Freshers standing in a gaggle...no, wait. What is the collective term for freshers? Stew? Confusion? Preen? Preen. Definitely preen. This PREEN of Freshers spouting banal cliches concerning housing, fee and drunken party times to each other like some kind of grey aural vomit. A smattering of "gid"s, a number of "legend"s, all this would be forgivable if it wasn't for the incessant pain of the nicknames they have selected for each other.
Wilkinson, naturally, is "Wilko". They discuss a fellow called "Muscles", since, as they remind each other, he has them in abundance. I'm 16 seconds from someone being called "Mungo" when the bus arrives. My only thoughts are that people like this are what drugs were invented, and then made illegal, for: because it makes these people easier to tolerate/avoid/ignore but uses law to put them beyond the reach of these aforementioned dullards. For once, Britain's predisposition to reactionary, over-bearing and completely inappropriate categorization of chemicals made me somewhat gleeful.
That is, until I realise I am out of even caffeine and I was in York: the home of nothing stronger than imitation "mezcal tea" and "opium-scented-five-hour-aromatherapy-candlewax".
As for my course, a smattering of films from the 70's have educated me to the extent that I can now draw three profound conclusions about the early years of that decade:
I know why this happened, too. It wasn't demand exceeding supply or some sort of freak herding. As last on in Manchester, I overheard an employee of First travel simultaneously swearing and apologising profusely to a woman in a wheelchair. Before the doors clattered shut on my jacket, I distinctly heard him explain that she couldn't get on this train as the carriage with the disabled facilities had been "forgotten".
20 tons of screaming steel, plastic, flame-retardants and commuters' prayers, vanished on the Transpennine line. More a ghost tram than a ghost train.
The weather country-wide has been clear and mild, so it is no surprise the York is still operating its own freak microclimate. As soon as the train crosses county borders, we enter a squall. One that, judging by the puddles, has been going on for a while.
As I wait for a bus that is 20 minutes out of schedule, I loathe the shortening of "First Travel" on the signs to "FTR" 'cos, like, that's like text speak for "future", y'know, with, like, no vowels. Not only can I imagine the corporate meeting where the advertising shits unveiled this little epiphany to gluttonous and grey-eyed executives, I can also imagine the dismay on the fresh faces of the slick, speedy advertising emissaries faces when they discover that they will be paid for their services with 15% off rail vouchers and time-share chalets in Torquay.
Actually, I just loathe First Travel. And students, whom this stunted and noxious "FTR=Future" meme conflagration is aimed at. Escpecially the Freshers standing in a gaggle...no, wait. What is the collective term for freshers? Stew? Confusion? Preen? Preen. Definitely preen. This PREEN of Freshers spouting banal cliches concerning housing, fee and drunken party times to each other like some kind of grey aural vomit. A smattering of "gid"s, a number of "legend"s, all this would be forgivable if it wasn't for the incessant pain of the nicknames they have selected for each other.
Wilkinson, naturally, is "Wilko". They discuss a fellow called "Muscles", since, as they remind each other, he has them in abundance. I'm 16 seconds from someone being called "Mungo" when the bus arrives. My only thoughts are that people like this are what drugs were invented, and then made illegal, for: because it makes these people easier to tolerate/avoid/ignore but uses law to put them beyond the reach of these aforementioned dullards. For once, Britain's predisposition to reactionary, over-bearing and completely inappropriate categorization of chemicals made me somewhat gleeful.
That is, until I realise I am out of even caffeine and I was in York: the home of nothing stronger than imitation "mezcal tea" and "opium-scented-five-hour-aromatherapy-candlewax".
As for my course, a smattering of films from the 70's have educated me to the extent that I can now draw three profound conclusions about the early years of that decade:
- Bras had not yet been invented.
- Men drink scotch, bourbon, beer and little else.
- Secret conspiracies controlling everything were EVERYWHERE and they were terrible at covering up their shit.
4 comments:
This was enjoyable, unlike most things on the internet tonight. Thank god I will not run out of caffeine.
I hear Boots do a good two for three on "vitamins". So everyone now knows where to get my Yule gifts.
"The weather country-wide has been clear and mild, so it is no surprise the York is still operating its own freak microclimate."
I feel like that about London sometimes. No matter what it's like in Portsmouth, when I take the train home to London, the skies are always grey (probably from all the smog) and the place is just a tad warmer than anywhere else. I'm pretty sure it's the heat emitting from the overpacked trains on the Central line.
At least London has an excuse, bustling and hideous metropolis that it is.
York is also bustling and hideous, but it isn't a metropolis. It is barely even a polis.
I wish I had a Central Line to keep me warm. In the 21st Century, I use my laptop like a Victorian bed warmer.
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