Where am I?

I was wandering around yesterday on my way home from work trying to figure out where I could buy myself a paper that wasn’t the Evening Standard for the journey home. Kew Bridge station and its environs are never going to feature in one of the top ten lists of shopping districts in London. There’s the corner shop, which sells sweets, alcohol and mobile phone topups but which doesn’t sully its hands with newspapers. There’s the scary looking pub to end all scary looking pubs. There are two derelict shops which have been hidden behind a large billboard for decades and which have only recently emerged, but their facades suggest that if you did dare look past the grime on the windows that you’d see prices in shillings and pence. There’s the mysterious blue monolith that has appeared on the station platform, which will probably get a blog entry of its own once I’ve figured out what it’s for. And that’s it. Not even any purple people handing out trashy freebies. London’s odd that way. A few hundred yards away, across the river, there are million-pound houses and shops selling designer wallpaper, but this side of the river is all dereliction and decay, empty office blocks that have been turned into flats, an empty lot growing buddleia and a last few remnants of light industry clinging on in the shadow of the motorway. And no shops. Kew Bridge isn’t even a place, it’s just the bit between somewhere and somewhere else, the area time forgot. Which may go some way to explaining why the local area map and bus route information that’s proudly displayed on the platform is actually of Chiswick.

So that’s it, the last working day of the year and a whole new year of commuting adventures to look forward to in 2007. May all your trains be long ones, and all your carriages be quiet ones and may engineering works not blight your plans for this weekend or any other*.

*I can dream, can’t I?

Where is Everyone?

I’d like to make it known for the record that in the 18 months I’ve been travelling on SouthWest Trains I’ve never had an eight car train in the morning. No matter how many school children are trying to cram themselves on, no matter how buggered the District line, or how cancelled the previous three trains have been, four cars have been our lot. Until today. For today, when pretty much the entire commuting population of London was either lodged in the bosom of its family eating turkey sandwiches, or out laying waste to Oxford street in the sales, and when the platform this morning held an excited crowd of three, we got an eight car train.

Not that I’m complaining, or anything. I just wanted it said.

Perfidious Albion

Overheard in the crowded Eurostar terminal at Gare du Nord, Paris, a few minutes before boarding was due to begin:

Immaculately dressed older English gent* to his equally immaculately dressed wife, sotto voce: ‘Darling, can you try and limp a bit, I’ve told them you’re disabled’

*I use the word in its loosest sense.

Vive la Difference

I’ve always worked on the assumption as a pedestrian that cars won’t generally run you over from a standing start. They may not stop for you, granted, they’re happy to turn a corner into a road you’re crossing without so much as a twinge on their conscience, true, but when l’homme vert turns into l’homme rouge, they will wait for you to clear the crossing before the engine gunning turns into actual acceleration.

Or so I thought.

Not in Paris.

Vos Papiers, s’il vous Plait

This blog doesn’t trade in cheap stereotypes* – it would be ridiculous, for example, to characterise the entire German railway as being mindlessly efficient, or to dismiss the British ones as being purely greedy and incompetent. Therefore there must be some reason other than some putative gallic love of needlessly complex bureaucracy to explain why, when I paid the SNCF ticket machine 4 Euros and 10 cents for a 4 Euro 5 cent ticket, it didn’t merely pocket the difference as some British machines do, nor did it efficiently pay out the change as a German machine might, but instead printed out a slip explaining to me that I had overpaid by 5 cents and inviting me to apply for a refund at any SNCF office.

I’d do it, but I’m worried I might have to fill out a form.

* ahem

Virtue, its own Reward

In general, virtuous behaviour isn’t rewarded by much more than a warm feeling in the heart-cockle department. But sometimes one’s principled decision to travel overland (or undersea) can reap unexpected benefits. Like sitting in one’s comfy Eurostar seat, watching Kent glide dimly past in the fog and reading all about this. Ah, travel chaos, I thought, how glad I am to miss that. For a while it looked as though our only deprivation was going to be the fact that the Eurostar buffet had run out of pains au chocolat (we bring you all the train-related misery here on Disgruntled Commuter, I tell you) but fortunately the steward sneaked me one of the first class passengers’ croissants for free to compensate (‘I’m not supposed to do this, but they won’t find out,’ he said. Ooops. Maybe bloggers should be forced to wear some sort of visual warning sign- ‘watch out, blogger about’).

But then we got to Gare du Nord and attempted to travel two stops on the RER without our native guide but accompanied by more bags and backpacks and Christmas presents than you could usefully shake a stick at. Gare du Nord has ticket machines of such a complexity that even the French were simply giving gallic shrugs and giving up trying to work them out. Fortunately there was also a row of ticket offices for the mechanically challenged. And a queue. A queue of eighteen people – it’s a busy time of the year. And one, count ‘em, one window open. Plus ca change, as they say over here, plus c’est la meme chose*.

*only with more squiggly things on the letters. Sorry

Going Soft …

Today I:

• Exchanged small, meaningless pleasantries and seasonal greetings with the news stand guy at the station
• Gave the carol singers at Vauxhall a quid (they weren’t bad and it was for charidee…)
• Failed to give the man who attempted to strike up a conversation with me about Strictly Come Dancing the cold, dead, fish-eyed look of a Londoner whose personal space has been violated, but responded like a normal human being (he moved away hurriedly shortly afterwards).

It must be Christmas … and more to the point it was my last day at work. Normal service will resume on the 28th, or earlier if the Eurostar and Paris Metro service aren’t up to scratch.

Fave Raves

I am, like most commuters, a creature of habit. I aim for the same train, the same carriage and I even have a favourite seat – well not a favourite, exactly, (that would involve it having more in the way of a roaring log fire nearby, maybe a faithful hound, certainly a tin of chocolate biscuits handily placed) but the seat I aim to sit in, all other things being equal. But there’s a problem with favourite seats – other people tend to have them too. In some cases this can lead to an unhealthy contention, a bit of jostling at the doors, sharp suited commuters racing each other down the aisle and elbowing little old ladies aside in their rush to be first for the prize. I’d never stoop to that, obviously. But what about when you get a nuisance commuter, someone with a personal habit that sets your teeth on edge, whose favoured seat is close enough to yours that you have to endure it every single day? How long would you stick it out for?

I thought I had it bad with a bunch of passengers on my morning train who clearly work together and who have taking to infesting my favourite 2-by-3 seat cluster with their inane chatter for the entire length of the journey from Vauxhall to Kew Bridge and beyond. They get on at Waterloo, so always beat me to it, and recruit reinforcements at Clapham Junction so that everything has to be said twice. They talk about the sorts of things that people do when they don’t know each other too well – holidays, builders, a little light joshing. It’s dull enough that I can’t tune it out, and worse, the details are beginning to lodge in my brain. It’s almost more than I can do to prevent myself from chipping in at times helpfully, when one of them asks a question. ‘No, it’s not Morrocco she’s going to this year, it’s the Maldives,’ or ‘The kitchen extension? Six weeks late now and counting, after the plumber put the sink in upside down.’ Yet day after day I stick it out because, damnit, it was my favourite seat before it was theirs. And besides, I want to know how that extension turns out.

But I am not alone. Disgruntled Commuter’s Cannon St. correspondent writes of his experience with one of the worst nuisance commuters of all: the nose picker. The kind who – well no, let me put it in my correspondent’s own words, for the picture he paints is compelling:

"First he blows a few times and manages that silly farting noise that i have tried for but never quite achieved without cheating. Then he looks. Then he wraps the handkerchief tightly around his index finger and inserts said finger in his left nostril, which is large and hairy by the way. He turns and twists, goes really deep, infact i’m sure i’m gonna see that finger come out of his ear one night. He then does the same in the other hairy nostril, has a long hard look at what he’s found and then looks me straight in the eyes as if to say ‘Well what d’ya think about that then’."

Does our correspondent change carriages? No, he does not, for he is made of sterner stuff than I am. But here’s a point for you all to ponder as the year draws to its dreary close: What would make you change seats, carriages, or even trains? And do you have any stories to share to get us through the Christmas period?

Ho Bloody Ho

I’m beginning to think Santa has it easy. Sure, delivering christmas presents to every child in the world in the course of one night is physically impossible, but at least he’s not attempting to do it on public transport. All I have to do today is deliver two or three sets of presents to various godchildren, nieces and nephews over the course of this weekend, but I’m finding it a tad difficult. It’s not that I want flying reindeers (think of the carbon footprint), but some trains would be nice. Instead, I get engineering works.

Remember when weekends were about gadding around, seeing friends, going for country walks or long Sunday lunches or late night boozy Saturday meals? Now they’re about anxious consultations of the relevant train companies’ websites, frantic text messages to arrange pickups and replacement bus services. So far one drop off (to the babe) has been affected by (and I swear I am not making this up) my father’s train being delayed by a balloon on the line. This evening our trip to Chalfont and Latimer is going to be interesting because the only part of the Metropolitan line that isn’t under planned engineering works has suffered signal failure. And to put the tin lid on it, the line to Kew Bridge, ominously, is closed for work this weekend suggesting a repeat of last fortnight’s travel chaos might be in the offing. I know, I know, years of under-investment, vital upgrading, improved services in the long run, yadda yadda yadda. But for once, just once, I’d like to be able to go where I’m going and arrive when I planned to on a weekend without being forced to resort to Rudolph and his pals.

If you don’t hear from me again, I’ll be on the platform at some station in the middle of nowhere, cobwebs growing slowly over my recumbent form, waiting for a train …

Shhh, please

Obviously, I couldn’t comment on the merits or otherwise of cycling while drunk, but cycling with a hangover is definitely not a good idea. Although no doubt the fresh air and exercise did me good, I had no patience for anyone and somehow my mere presence on the road seemed to bring out every idiot in the entire borough. I had someone in a Chelsea tractor roaring past me, only to stop and block the entire road while attempting to parallel park in three different places before finding a space big enough. All my attempts to dominate the road and prevent cars from overtaking me where there was no room to do so, only resulted in them actually overtaking me where there was no room to do so and forcing me over. And I was in no mood to encounter a pedestrian who crossed the road while checking his change, so completely oblivious to my approach that I was almost on top of him before I finally had to warn him before I ran him over (still no bell, or whistle, or air horn on the bike yet, sadly. Or effective brakes for that matter. Luckily my steering still works). My high vis scary yellow jacket certainly looked bright enough to my jaded eyeballs this morning – but not, it seems, to anyone else’s.

And then I got to Vauxhall only to discover that today of all days was the morning they had chosen to give the underpass its annual clean. One chap with a leaf blower was blowing out all the litter behind the bikes. And one in the street cleaning machine was roaring through the tunnel at about 20mph before returning more slowly (and more loudly, I might add) spraying water at knee height across the full width of the underpass*. Still, at least the staff at the underground station had the decency to play something nice and soothing as the day’s classical music, and keep the volume v-e-r-y v-e-r-y q-u-i-e-t.

* Sadly, all this sprucing up was entirely wasted as the local homeless contingent had decided to use the underpass as the venue for their own Christmas do this evening – bring a can, dress casual – so the usual fragrance in the tunnel was, if anything, worse. Oh well. Hope your event was held in more salubrious surroundings and you all got safely home.