Keeping Mum

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)...