Rantipole

Meaning wild or disorderly. Rather like me.

Now, since I'm away this weekend, as I've mentioned several times, I think this is the only chance I'm going to get to upload this. So, after an eventful journey to Kings Cross, I'm now on my train to Cambridge. Well, actually, I'm not. I'm on a train to Welwyn Garden City. Because Transport for London is abysmal. Utterly atrocious.

Allow me to recount my day thus far. I begin at work (to those of you who do not know, I work in a garage, doing general body repair work). I wake up at 8am to get to work for 9am promptly. I'm not the world's greatest for waking up early (or in general for that matter), but I manage it, all in the name of money. It wasn't particularly awful to begin with, but then tragedy strikes. Well, not quite tragedy, but it wasn't particularly pleasant.

At work, we have a spray-bottle of brake-cleaner. This brake-cleaner is a potent mix of hydrocarbons that works efficiently and powerfully as a degreasing agent. When refilling this bottle, care is to be taken. Care that I do not have to begin with. The metal can from which I was pouring the cleaning fluid slipped, and spilt over my hands. It's not painful on unbroken skin, it just dries out your hands badly (hence the reason we have moisturising handwash). However, in a cut or graze, it feels like Satan's pitchfork is being stabbed into your cut (or graze) and wiggled around. Pretty intense pain. I imagine it to be quite an effective form of torture. Not that I'm sadistic or anything.

This, understandably, put me in a foul mood. I finished my work, and left to go home. The next hour or two was pretty uneventful, until I departed to begin my Journey of Fun and Delight to Cambridge. To get to Cambridge, one requires a tram to Wimbledon, a train to Vauxhall, a tube to Kings Cross, and then a single train from Kings Cross to Cambridge. Fairly simple, you think? Think again.

"Due to engineering works . . ." are the four most dreaded words to hear when departing on a long journey. These four words began a sentence while waiting for a train at Wimbledon. My train was delayed by ten minutes. I cursed under my breath a little, but accepted that there was, by and large, nothing I could do to change this fact, and so waited for my chariot pulled by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

I might add, at this point, that I am carrying three bags. One for my notebook PC on which I write this, one for my clothes and any other paraphernalia that I might require for the weekend, and one for the inflatable bed that I sleep on. On my train from Wimbledon to Vauxhall, not one healthy, unburdened young person allowed me to take the weight off my feet. I mean, it's only four stops, but they weren't to know that. As far as they were concerned, I could have been on that train all the way to London Waterloo. Nonetheless, this leg of my journey was completed (including waiting time and delay time) in around 35 minutes.

From Vauxhall, I needed to take the London Underground Victoria Line from Vauxhall to Kings Cross / St. Pancras. This train was, fortunately, not delayed. It's seven stops between Vauxhall and Kings Cross / St. Pancras. Again, not one inconsiderate human being allowed me to take the weight off my feet, being too preoccupied with their phones or makeup, or in one case, painting. And of course, refusing to make eye contact with me for fear of feeling guilty. And rightfully so, too. Regardless, it should only have taken me around 15 minutes to finish the second leg of my journey. How long did it take, I hear you ask? A further 35 minutes.

I had the choice of two trains. One in less than a minute that was inevitably going to be packed, or one in two minutes that would be a little less packed, so I had room to prevent my items being crushed. It seems that I may have annoyed an omnipotent, omniscient being up above, because this day is not getting any better. I choose the second, less-packed train to maybe save a few items from getting ruined, since they include the presents for my girlfriend for Valentine's weekend, and by the fates of the Gods above, it appears that the driver of the first train is unable to pull into Kings Cross station properly.

What does this have to do with me? Well, since my train was merely a minute behind, we were held at a red light signal until the driver had rubbed together his two little grey cells and pulled into the station properly, amounting to between ten and fifteen minutes. We were agonisingly less than a hundred metres from the stop.

[[It is at this point that I stopped writing this post to get the bus replacement service from Welwyn Garden City. Oh how my luck just got worse from here on in. I am now in Cambridge writing this, but goodness me how my journey went from bad to worse. But I will continue from where I left off.]]

From Kings Cross Underground stop, I needed to get to the National Rail station, which to be fair isn't a long distance to walk. But London is full of yet more inconsiderate people (I can think of much better words to describe them, but this is a family show) who seemed determined to hinder my travelling by simply walking in my way, and honest to God, there was one young lady, completely preoccupied with her phone who was actually oscillating between the two walls of the walkway and thus taking up the entire path so that I could not overtake with my three painfully heavy bags. After what should have been a much faster walk, I reached platforms 9 to 11 (the Cambridge platforms) and boarded the aforementioned train to Welwyn Garden City.

This train in itself was probably the most straightforward part of my journey today. There were no delays, no unnecessary hold-ups and it wasn't even full. A chance to relax and get a bit of the blog done, so I did. Now, once I reached my destination, I had to get a replacement bus service (it was really more of a coach, but this is hardly the time to split hairs over something so trivial) to Stevenage. Or so I was told. I waited for the bus to Hitchin to leave and then boarded my bus which took me to Stevenage in the company of a drunkard who felt the need to shout every little thing and sing songs with new crude lyrics that didn't even particularly make sense. You will be pleased to know that I managed to get to Stevenage without shoving my fist down his oesophagus and ripping out his vocal cords. Though I did loudly proclaim my wish to do this.

Upon reaching Stevenage, I was rather looking forward to just being able to get my final train in peace. There were, as you might expect, rail replacement mascots, if you will. Rail officers in high-vis jackets, with the train operator's name emblazoned onto them. I kindly asked where one might get the train to Cambridge from. The response? "Hitchin". I felt the fire in my stomach ignite, my blood began to boil and I nearly heatbutted the helpful young man. But I didn't. To cut a very long story short, I got another bus from Stevenage to Hitchin where, fortunately enough, my final leg awaited me, shimmering in the late evening sun (at this point it was around 6pm, four hours after I'd begun my journey, and the sun was just setting). I boarded my train in a positively unspeakable rage at how damn-near apocalyptic my journey had been, put my earphones in and immersed myself in the sounds of heavy rock, complimenting my dark mood.

I hope this has highlighted just how useless the public transport services are in London. Just as a final note (I'm sure you've read just about enough to be bored now) imagine how much worse this is going to get when the cuts hit public transport. So many people will lose their jobs, meaning that there will be fewer people around to help during these times, fewer people to actually operate the replacement services and, of course, higher costs for the privelige of this high level of service. Sigh, what is the World coming to?

"Look at all these buses now, asking for exact, exact change. I figure that if I give them exact change, they should take me exactly where I want to go."