It’s a bit of a cliché to moan about the railways – the arguments and moans are always the same: “Cuh! The train is always late!”, “The trains are so expensive”, “The staff of East Midlands Trains are like the Stasi”. Clichéd though it may be, this isn’t going to stop me from having a lengthy moan about the,
Maybe that last complaint is uniquely mine – a few years ago I upset the Midland Mainline press office by writing a newspaper column when I likened their attitude to that of the Stasi. I got a rather frosty reaction from the people at my local station too. “Maybe I was a bit harsh”, I thought at the time, though once again I now feel fully justified, self righteous, and I’m about to mount my high-horse.
The other day I had to go down to London on business, as part of my new job (that’s right, I’m basically Don Draper now), so thinking it was the sensible thing to do I booked tickets online like I have done many times before. I went down to London, did the sort of jet-setting important business you’d expect someone of my stature to do, before heading back to St Pancras to catch the train home.
Because I’d booked online, I’d ended up with “Advance” tickets, assuming they worked like they always have – whilst the return train isn’t tied to any particular time, the seat reservation is, but that I could catch any off-peak train back with the ticket I’d paid for.
If any train spotters are reading, you can probably predict the horror that was about to unfold as I boarded the train. I put my advance ticket into the ticket-gates, they swung open, seemingly verifying my preconception, I boarded the train, found a seat and tried to decide whether reading New Humanist or The Guardian would make me look more important to the other passengers.
The ticket inspector came along the carriage checking tickets, I presented mine expecting no problems only to be told that my ticket wasn’t valid. I calmly explained that this had never happened before, but the ticket inspector wouldn’t budge – he insisted that I had to buy a whole new ticket. “Oh, fair enough, it’ll only be something like £11 as it’s a single in the middle of the day”, I thought. Then he dropped a bombshell: the ticket would cost me FIFTY-ONE POUNDS. I think I looked visibly shocked – and the woman sitting opposite me looked as horrified as I did. The ticket man explained that if I’d changed my tickets at the station it’d have been somewhere in the region of £14… but because I’d got on the train he was going to charge me £51 – this despite the ticket machine he was holding clearly being able to issue a variety of suitable fares. I asked him about railcards and the like, but he said it was “company policy” to charge the full fare.
I was furious, but remained calm as I handed over my card – before asking, in a sort of passive-aggressive way what the complaints procedure was, hoping that he’d let me off.
What enrages me about this whole experience is that East Midlands Trains were technically in the right, their small-print and “policy” had got me… but morally, I don’t know how Ian Dobbs, chief executive of Stagecoach’s rail arm can sleep at night. How can a company so ruthlessly enforce such arbitrary rules and metaphorically shit all over their customers?
At risk of sounding like a left-winger who’s much older than I am, the problem seems to be linked to nationalisation of the railways. Not the de-linking of infrastructure from train operation, or the impenetrable topography of who-owns-what, which has de-incentivised train operators from improving their service, but the complete removal of any accountability of the companies operating the trains. Because of the way the trains are operated, the commuters rage – our rage – is completely impotent.
One of the key ideas in capitalism is that it empowers the consumer by allowing them to “vote” with their money – if they don’t like a product or service, they can stop buying it and force the companies to change to win them back… that’s basic economics. The problem is that there is no competition for trains. Don’t be a smart-arse and say “what about national express?” or “what about walking?”, I mean actually plausible alternatives – and besides, bus and train operators are all eventually owned by a small handful of bastard parent companies anyway.
So basically East Midlands Trains have a free hand in treating their (whether they like it or not) loyal customers like shit, wringing as much cash as they can out of them for providing such a basic service. I feel completely powerless.
At least if we had a nationalised railway there’d be some political responsibility, and more crucially the whole ethos of the “business” would be about providing an affordable service and getting people to their destinations, not about maximising profits. Hell, a nationalised railway might even run services over night at a loss – something that they’re going to have to start doing for me to give up driving and enable us to achieve the “low-carbon future” that we so desperately need to do something about.
I wouldn’t even mind paying the penalty fare if the prices were not so wildly taking the piss – the ludicrous disparity in peak and off-peak ticket pricing, and the high prices in general create essentially an apartheid system, where if I want to catch a train earlier in the morning, I probably need to be earning a six-figure salary or I should forget about it.
I think essentially what I’m trying to say is that trains are very frustrating. And I loath East Midlands Trains with a passion.
One of the best things about living in London is that there’s so much going on in almost every sense of the phrase, and thanks to a superb public transport network, you can string together different activities to have the most eclectic of adventures. For example, on the same day you may find yourself at a talk in a pub on UFOs and then less than half an hour later be watching a rap battle. Or you might spend the day at some fairly academic science lectures putting faces to authors of books you’ve read, and then spend the evening watching punk poets in a squat surrounded by people flouting the smoking ban and all sorts of other European laws covering health and safety.
It’s even more exciting if the activities are fairly impromptu and unplanned. The other week I visited the Imperial War Museum with @katyhaughey (this was pre-meditated), and later on found a cinema showing the George Bush biopic ‘W’ for dirt cheap, starting just 15 minutes after we walked past. A couple of months ago now after a day at uni, my friend Eve and I ended up going to see the Dark Knight at the IMAX for FREE because we happened to be walking past and some people were (inexplicably) trying to give away their tickets). If I were a less rational man I might claim that mystical forces were at play. Though then again, if I were a less rational man I might also claim the Holocaust didn’t happen, so it’s probably good that I’m not.
The reason I tell you all of this is not just to provide some “SEO” for my blog, but because something similar has happened again this evening. Whilst in a fairly mundane seminar at uni today, I noticed that celebrity comedian Chris Addison had twittered that he was doing a gig at the British Library at half six. It was about half five at the time. I messaged him asking for details and he explained that his fellow comedians Rory Bremner, Paul Sinha and Andy Zaltzman were going to be there too.
So I hopped on a tube to Kings Cross as quickly as I could, got to the British Library and learnt that it was an event called “Political Animal“, part of the civil liberties exhibition they’ve got on at the moment, and that tickets were still available and only a fiver. And then I spent the evening unexpectedly enjoying some brilliant political comedy – all thanks to Twitter and living in City of Dreams.
Living in London has changed me quite significantly. Three months ago, I was a terrible wimp, nervous about walking around late at night in Leicester – by contrast, I now don’t think anything of catching the night bus home in the early hours from Stabbington to Murderville via Kill[&]Burn. In fact, I’ve learnt to just sit back as an observer and almost enjoy watching potentially deadly situations unfold in front of me. So I’m basically just like the international community with Zimbabwe.
On the night bus home the other week, for instance, the bus was trundling along through Soho, and it was about the time when people get kicked out of clubs, so there were plenty of drunks. One group of drunk girls tried to board the bus but the driver, quite rightly, was not having any of it, as one of them didn’t have a ticket. This led to an interesting stand-off where the girls screamed “You’re legally entitled to take her home”, with the stress on “entitled”, as if this clever piece of legalese was a loophole that allowed for free bus journeys. In retaliation, the driver simply switched off the engine.
Wisely, I decided not to wade in and point out that the phrase they were looking for was “legally obliged”, and that the driver is not legally obliged in any way. Other passengers didn’t feel the same way as me though. One passenger emerged from the top deck – an old man of about 60, who had the Churchill-dog-esque partially melted face look about him, decided to try and broker some peace.
“You’re being disruptive and abusive”, he told the drunk girls with the natural air of authority that older people tend to have, before undermining himself slightly by adding “…now fuck off“.
Last night I went out in trendy/dodgy east London to see some stand-up comedy with 66.67% of my housemates, Paul and Jim. It was a mixed bag of entertainment but was certainly worth going to. What made this exciting and notable was what happened on the bus on the way home. You mileage may vary on the phrase “exciting and notable”.
To get to Liverpool Street from the comedy club we had to take a bendy bus. It was a pretty exciting experience – it was my first time on a bendy bus, and I really can’t see what Boris’s problem with them is. We were so thrilled by the concept of a bus that bends, we decided to stand in the bend itself. Basically we were having the time of our lives.
As we approached Liverpool Street, a bloke who was perhaps in his mid-twenties leant over to us and say “they don’t allow faggots on buses”. Which was, er, a useful piece of advice, I guess? The thing that bothered me about this most that was my concern that he was passing on inaccurate information, and that he himself had been misled. And I think I’m pretty justfied in thinking this.
I don’t think he was a bus conductor, or an employee of TfL in any capacity – unless hoodies are now part of the uniform. Even if we accept his premise as true, and TfL did try to impose the “no faggots” rule, it would be almost impossible to enforce as it would be overruled by various pieces of anti-discrimination legislation, and would require getting some sort of system installed or at least training staff to detect them. I don’t think this technology exists, at least in a way that is deployable to the many thousands of buses in Greater London. And I don’t remember participating in any sort of test to determine whether or not I was a “faggot” upon boarding the bus – even if there was I would have “passed” anyway. Being a straight, white, male has many advantages, such as having society hugely balanced in my favour, but it does have one disappointing downside: I’ll never be able to fulfill my goal of being the next Rosa Parks and acting as a figurehead to some sort of great civil rights movement. I guess I’ll have to pursue my second and third life goal instead, of winning a MOBO award and successfully suing the campus LGBT society for discrimination instead.
So this leads me to the question as to why he acted as he did. One possible explanation is that he was trying to impress the girl – possibly his girlfriend – sitting next to him. Whilst I wouldn’t like to jump to conclusions and claim that he thought his homophobic language would endear him towards her, it is certainly a possibility – I must admit, even though he is misguided, when he used the word “faggots”, I thought he was a cool dude. Maybe this is where I’m going wrong? Maybe women prefer men with uneducated prejudices?
There is, however, an equally likely alternative hypothesis: that the guy was implicitly implying that all other men were homosexuals, in order to leave the girl next to him with no other choices – if he could convince her that every other man was gay, then she’d have nowhere left to turn.
So really, I think rather than being a rather lame attempt at some off-the-cuff wit, I think he was trying to provoke this much discourse in understanding his actions.
I’ve decided to write this post now, whilst I’m still a London n00b, and am still awed and amazed by the bright lights and bendy buses of the capital – if the look on the faces of nearly every other commuter are anything to go by, I’ll presumably go through a period of soul crushing disappointments and will soon enough be cursing the day that Ken and his cronies were ever left in charge.
See, I’m really liking London Transport. The tube, the buses, the “proper” trains, and hell, even the riverboat services on the Thames all work as one beautiful machine. Unlike the small town where I grew up, there are train stations every few streets, and bus stops every few hundred metres, meaning that public transport and consequentially access to the rest of London are only a short walk away. Near my house, I have a tube station and an overground station within about five minutes walk. If I walk a little further, I can get to even more stations on a wide variety of lines. Hell, rather than walk, I could take the bus – along most big roads there are bus stops up and down, meaning in a lot of cases, because of the frequency of the buses (literally every four or five minutes, it seems), it could be easier to catch the bus down the road. But then, maybe I’m just incredibly easy.
I’ve owned an Oyster card for some time now – for those oblivious (ie: those north of Watford), Oyster cards are little smartcards that replace tickets, and you can top them up similar to how you do mobile phones. And brilliantly, all of London Transport is compatible with it. This means that today I’ve managed to catch a regular suburban commuter train, then a bus, and later I’ll be catching a tube, all without changing ticket. Brilliant.
Compared to what I’m used to all, this is almost science fiction – there used to be only two trains north and two trains south an hour from the one train station, and buses were so ineptly operated that the paltry four buses an hour in either direction were usually over an hour late.
What makes this all work so well is the TfL website’s journey planner. It’s genuinely brilliant. Put in any two locations in London, down to postal address level, and it’ll tell you exactly how to get there using public transport, and will break the journey down into stages, telling you how long it will take – it will even take walking into account, and it’ll play off different modes of transportation against each other. The reason I took the national rail train earlier rather than the tube was because the journey planner reckoned it’d be faster – even if the Tube Map suggests otherwise (it doesn’t even have national rail stations marked on it).
So I guess my message is: London is brilliant. No surprises there, then. Now I’m off to the South Bank. Excellent.
If you’re wondering why it has been quiet on my blog lately, its because last week I was in London with my internet mates. Here’s a video diary of what happened:
Yesterday, I went to London with my friend Bouff. Why? Because London is excellent. And it certainly proved that yesterday.
After faffing about around Oxford Street and Speaker’s Corner, we decided to head to the Science and Natural History Museums – which as every good Londoner knows, are next door to each other on Exhibition Road. Unfortunately, when changing tubes at Notting Hill Gate, we discovered that the Circles and District line were both closed – so we were faced with the choice of either trekking across Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to get there, or going to David Cameron’s Notting Hill home to see if he wants to come out to play and ride bikes with us. We chose the former, obviously, because even if Cameron did commit himself to a policy of coming out to play (unlikely), the car following us on our bikes would cramp our style a bit. Also, Cameron’s a dick.
As we approached the Royal Albert Hall, we heard what sounded like some jazz fusion. Intrigued, we stumbled upon a great big stage with a band on, where the jazz fusion was being emitted from. Ace.
I did stop to wonder who was bankrolling this? Was it one of Ken’s ideas that Boris didn’t have time to cancel in his new role as fun-spoiler? As it turns out, excellently, it was being partially funded by the EU (yet another reason not to hate them). The thing that gave this away was not the EU flags, but the incredibly clunkily name that had clearly been thought up by some top-class Eurocrats: “European Year of Intercultural Dialogue” – which presumably follows on from last year’s successful European Year of Macro-Economic Indicators or something equally dry.
We walked on down on to Exhibition Road itself, which had been closed off, and encountered a couple of men who took the “there’s always a weird old guy at a gig who’s too old for it” tradition to giddy new heights. Witness the following video of them rocking out to a devastatingly average band:
After having a look around the Science Museum for a bit, and wondering why the credit crunch hasn’t done the noble thing and prevented American tourists from entering Britain (I mean, really, who goes to a museum and films everything if they’re not making a stupid satirical video? Are they really going to watch it back?), we headed back outside to perhaps the greatest thing ever.
We stumbled on some ska.
An apparently unsigned band called Brothers Bab were getting a decent reaction from the crowds outside (and the two old guys were down at the front skanking their old, weary hearts out). Surely this only makes the summer of ska all the more imminent?
Museums… ska gigs… being able to namedrop streetnames without having to specify the city… this is why I want to live in London.
So, I was browsing the East Midlands Trains press release archive (yeah, it’s the sort of thing you do when you’re unemployed), and in amongst the tedious news about timetable updates and corporate partnerships, this leapt out at me:
“On Friday 23 May East Midlands Trains played host to a very special passenger. His Holiness the Dalai Lama travelled on the company’s 14.55 from St. Pancras International to Nottingham. His Holiness was travelling to the city to give five days of teachings.”
Christ on a bike. This means that the DALAI LAMA, must have sped through the small, unimportant, somewhat incestuous, Tory safe-seat in which I live – in fact, His Holiness must have passed a mere few hundred metres from my house. This is particularly notable, as he must be the biggest celebrity we’ve had in a ten mile radius since Frank Bruno opened the Carnival about 15 years ago.
EMT, who seem pretty chuffed with this PR-coup, posted some photos for proof:
Unfortunately for his Holiness, it looks like had to put up with the gurning East Midlands Trains chief executive for the entire two hour journey. No doubt they exchanged stories about what its like to be the spiritual leader of millions of Tibetans, and what it’s like to be in charge of an important transport artery linking London with places like Luton and Kettering. Looks like the EMT guy managed to work his magic and charm his Holiness with his dreamy eyes though:
“So the other week I was campaigning for human rights in Tibet and highlighting abuses by the Chinese occupiers to the United Nations Security Council”
“Yeah, I was having my photo taken with a sausage”
It does make you think though, what do you do if you get on the train and see the Dalai Lama. Do you say anything? Exclaiming “You’re the Dalai Lama!” would be pretty stupid, as he probably already knows that – he was discovered to be the 14th incarnation when he was four years old, so is probably well aware by now.
Similarly, sitting opposite him and just reading your book or newspaper with your iPod in as usual seems a bit of a waste – and staring at him would be even more awkward than it is when you forgot your stuff and have to just stare at the person opposite.
And what if you’d reserved a seat and when you got there found the Dalai Lama sitting in it? Do you turf him out? Actually, I’d quite like to be able to tell the story of how I kicked the Dalai Lama out of my seat.
I’ve had a rather hectic eight days – I hesitate to claim that I’ve been “busy”, because that would imply that I’ve been doing something worthwhile. I’ve been over-indulging in a hallmark of popular culture: I’ve been to see one of my favourite bands, Reel Big Fish, three times. Yeah, that’s right, three times.
I’ve travelled all around the country to see them – to the Cresset in Peterborough, the Academy in Birmingham and Rock City in Nottingham. Each gig had almost the same set list – starting with Sell Out, about half way through having “Good Thing” and “Your Guts (I hate ‘em)” segue together (just live the live album), finishing the main set on “Beer”, then having “Trendy” and their cover of “Take On Me” in the encore. They also played at some point: “Everything Sucks”, “Ban the Tube Top”, a cover of “Enter Sandman” and “She’s got a girlfriend now” (sung with the singer from Sonic Boom Six, introduced in almost the same way as the live album), “Where have you been?”, “Somebody hates me”, “Don’t start a band” and “Kiss Me Deadly” (just like the live album, introduced by saying “Here’s a song!”, before launching into it). One notable difference in the set lists was that in Peterborough they played “She’s Famous Now”, whereas at the other two gigs they replaced it with “A little doubt goes a long way”. They played some other songs too, but I was too busy rocking out to remember them. Last night in Nottingham, right at the very end, just as they were going off stage, Aaron played an impromptu riff from “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by the Scorpians, bizarrely.
The support were good too. Sonic Boom Six are pretty cool – they stuck to the same “script” at all three gigs, getting the audience going by doing a “When I say ‘Reel Big’, you say ‘FISH’”, bit – and mixing in a couple of hip-hop bits. Streetlight Manifesto, who were also supporting, are also rather excellent – and rather ska.
So it will come as no surprise to you that I think they’re the best thing since sliced bread, and one of the best live acts around. And I’m still on the post-gig high right now.
One of the best bits, aside from meeting Aaron Barrett, the main bloke in the band last night, was knowing all of the words to all of the songs, and being right down in the pit for most of the three gigs, surrounded by hundreds of people all saying the same thing, in time, appreciating a charismatic group on a stage in front of us… without any fascistic undertones.
Contrary to popular belief, celebrities actually enjoy fans harassing them for photos and autographs.
It was excellent. Go and see Reel Big Fish, readers.
![Album art for 005 Warped Tour Compilation [Disc 1] by Dropkick Murphys](http://jamesomalley.co.uk/blog/wp-content/lastfm_album_art/2005_Warped_Tour_Compilation_[Disc_1]^Dropkick_Murphys.jpg "Dropkick Murphys - 005 Warped Tour Compilation [Disc 1]")
_Noise_Conspiracy.jpg "The (International) Noise Conspiracy - 002-09-17: 9:30 Club, Washington D.C., USA")
Last night I went out in trendy/dodgy east London to see some stand-up comedy with 66.67% of my housemates, Paul and Jim. It was a mixed bag of entertainment but was certainly worth going to. What made this exciting and notable was what happened on the bus on the way home. You mileage may vary on the phrase “exciting and notable”.
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