A KINDLY GANG-MEMBER from Da Local Baby Gangsta Crew let me have some drugs on tick today. I paid half and owe half. I only had money to spare because all plans for today fell through, leaving me at a loose end, exceedingly "peeved", to put it mildly and in need, so I thought, of a chemical emollient. (Not an exfoliant, that gets off hair. An emollient. That soothes.)
O man the effort I put into today. All for nothing!
I was supposed to see my Mum. I got up, crystal clear. Cleaned myself up as best I could, physically speaking. But to be frank I just looked like a heroin addict on a daytrip.
I had checked train times and prices etc etc etc. I had the option of going in and out of London or taking a long couple of bus rides across town. The bus rides seemed cheaper and got me to a station further up the right line.
So I took this bus. Got to station. All was silent. The ticket machine utterly refused to take my £5 note. Not that it was bulimically constantly regurgitating the thing. I think this machine was anorexic. Its mouth refused even to open.
By the way I know someone who used to work on the
Eating Disorders Helpline in Norwich who said that without exception bulimics verbally spewed and spewed, while anorexics were barely willing to open their mouths and thus said barely anything at all... Isn't that fascinating...
So anyway this ticket machine refused my money, which hardly bothered me. I chucked 10p in the Permit to Travel machine. This meant I was covered if an evil ticket inspector chose to pounce on me like a barn owl on an unsuspecting harvest mouse... as frequently happens on London suburban trains. If he queried whether or not the machine was in fact working, I would just tell them to check CCTV. Britain does not have the oft-stated 4 million cameras (surely it's many more than that now as that figure's a decade old) for nothing. For once I might use one to my advantage. I do
not trust ticket inspectors after having the most almighty altercation with two on a platform having been told my ticket, which I'd checked in advance was good for it, was invalid on my chosen route. Something, incidentally, which tended not to happen before rail privatization. The worst ever move by the Tory party, in that particular line of activity. I got my money back and a grovelling apology. I always do. Or did. When I could be bothered with such things.
Anyway long story short, I got to the interchange station to find it surprisingly quiet. I hadn't taken the train, I'd walked because it was so near the other one (but wrong for the bus). I thought I'd
let the train take the strain. In the end my feet did. And this station was empty with almost unreadable electronic notices saying something I could not understand. It transpired the entire line was down, and if I did want to see my Mum I'd have to take two trains in the wrong direction, with no guarantee
how long they might take.
Full of misery and fury I phoned her and said this is impossible. So we had to leave it for another day. Such a shame as Branzy my step-Dad wouldn't have been there earwigging in every word. In other words we might have done something else except discuss 25 topics I don't care about, skating merrily over life's surfaces, yet barely scratching them.
I went directly to the nearest cyder-selling shop and got two White Stars. Well I wasn't gonna need this money for train fares any more. Poured them into Lucozade bottles to spare myself disgusted glances. Jumped on bus. It was well over an hour till I got home, and then I phoned that heroin dealer who "kindly" ~ if you wanna call it that ~ provided that lump for half price.
If I don't cough up tomorrow I get a bullet through my brainbox!
Anyway all this just goes to show,
I'm stone cold sober and it still goes mammaries up. Oh what a day ...
Illustrated: selection of ultra-modern British trains. Especially the top one.
Very top pic: HM the Queen mysteriously riding public train (no wonder she looks glum)...
Now I know where I wanna go by train next after Berlin!
I know what y'all are thinking: Let's wait and see what actually happens. I've heard enough bluster and guff from this blogger to keep a fleet of hot air balloons afloat!
I don't know how on earth I'm going to get there, by the way. Not a single website I've found will sell me one all-in ticket London to Berlin return. I don't know why. Only last month I heard a government minister blustering about high-speed rail infrastructure. What's the point of all those whizzy trains and new tracks if you can't go where you want? I am NOT going by plane, unless I really have to. It's the stopovers along the way (and it's looking like Paris at the moment, with a €50 sleeper "couchette" each way, which would push the cost of tickets up to £170) that are half the fun. If I took the Eurostar out of London on a Sunday, I could see the Paris bird-market, which is amazing. All those feathery little pixies tweetling away on the pavements...
Today I found a book by my illustrious old German teacher, who (I found out years later) was being tipped as a potential Nobel laureate ~ until he died in a car crash in 2001. Austerlitz by W G Sebald. He was known to us at UEA as Max Sebald and he taught my German grammar class. OK, I seem to recall it might have been just once when the ordinary teacher was sick, but he did teach me German grammar!
200mph/320kph GERMAN ICE TRAINS will run direct London to Frankfurt in three years' time, it was announced last week. I found out at the same time that Deutsche Bahn offer fares (one-way though ~ there had to be a catch!) from London to anywhere in Germany for under €50! The only (other) catch is you currently have to change trains at Brussels. A rail website gave two prospective rail routes to Berlin.
SURELY y'all remember arriving in a big city, full of names ~ legendary and half familiar... you get off the plane, train or bus wanting to see as much of this place as possible ~ yet the first thing you have to do is plunge into a hole deep underground and ride the city's metro system before you can really see anything.
ALL IN ALL it took a bus and five trains to journey from my place to Windsor and Eaton Central Station. When finally I got there I was stressed out of my brains ~ in the 15 mins' leeway before the 1-stop shuttle train from Slough departed, three giant poisonous Caterpillar-style Intercities roared past at extra-high speeds. I was in such a negative mood I actually found myself entertaining the impulse to jump. When I met my Mum and stepDad Branzie I was mentally frazzled and I'm sure they thought it was drugs. Well maybe "it" was, in a round-about way. No drugs at all!
I only had three hot flashes the entire day. Not bad for a day not on heroin. I didn't feel I needed heroin at all. We sat in a very posh konditorei-type place and had high tea with cut-off sandwiches and little cakes on a multi-storey stand.
It really was great to see them but I wish I could have been a little more gracious, as I say, and less sour. I didn't want to be like that at all. I wasn't bored by them or upset with them in any way at all. But I was afraid that was the impression I would give out if I wasn't careful... I did make a big effort.
Branzie even offered to go Citizens' Advice with me to sort my debts out. I have to sort out my financial tangles sometime otherwise there's no point trying to piece my shattered life back together. Y' have to face your responsibilities in the end.
I found Der Spiegel and Stern on a newsstand outside. The hubbub of French voices drew me into the hi-tech inner hall where screens displaying 13:28 Paris Nord set off a frisson of excitement and longing inside me. It's been such a long time since I travelled anywhere at all except just down the road...
The last time I saw a newsstand with a half-decent selection was near Baker Street tube. Baker Street of course being famous for Sherlock Holmes... Madame Tussuad's museum is right by the tube station so the place is thronging with tourists (unlike in this snap!)...
I picked up a weekly Take-a-Break -style magazine called Freizeit Revue. It is an old woman's magazine but I bought it for the endless crossword puzzles sandwiched next to advertisements for piles ointments and surgical support stockings ...
