3205 days ago
It is 4.37 and I am just pondering whether to have a last cigarette or to head straight onto the 4.47 from Temple Meads. I stand in the area in front of the ticket booths pondering when a petite young Chinese woman wanders up. Er…uh, a hit person from AIM fraud Jiasen?
She opens her wallet and shows me a ticket to London. “Where go?” she says. Follow me say I beckoning as I walk towards and through the ticket barriers and point to the train on platform 3 just the other side.
She follows. As I wander up towards my normal seat in coach F (a full desk next to the coffee bar) I hear the pitter patter of tiny footsteps. I climb on board in coach F and wander to my seat on the deserted train. The following continues. The normal solitude of my journey which lasts until Didcot, when the train fills up, is today broken. Follow me was an instruction followed literally for the little lady now sits directly in front of me.
Maybe she is a Jiasen hit person after all and is waiting to do her job when – in a few minutes – I head off for a coffee?
3235 days ago
In this week's postcard I ask can someone in a wheelchair jump queues as of right - this is based on an incident at 1.35 AM at Bristol Temple Meads last night. Then it is onto jihadis on UK welfare and what that says about welfare and finally to answer a few points made by my pal Paul Scott I explain why I believe in gun ownership
3376 days ago
I really cannot be bothered to walk down to the cashpoint machine at the bottom of the hill. It is too close to drive to but a bit of a schlepp to walk to. And so with the Mrs and her purse away how will I fund the essentials of this weekend: 40 Marlboro lights, a pint of milk and a cab fare to Bristol Temple Meads?
As another reminder of my student days it was a matter of rummaging in the pockets of my trousers and coat. What a lot of junk: a letter (unread) from my Aunt Lucy, my passport which carry at all times in case I need to flee the country to escape the jihadists of the QPPSAG, used train tickets, an entry pass to Beaufort Securities, a good weighting of Euros but there was more…
3422 days ago
I arrived at Bristol Temple Meads for the 4.47 AM in good time but a bad mood. My driver at V cars had attempted to sting me with a £1.80 penalty for getting into his cab at 4.26 AM – six minutes after it was booked for. By the clock in his cab – which tallied with the clock on my phone - that meant he had managed the journey door to door in five minutes which is impossible. I queried him – as a V-Cars regular - and he relented at once. He was trying it on and knew that I knew that he was trying it on.
Instead of handing over a tenner and not asking for change as is my wont I dutifully counted out the now agreed £8.50 exactly and handed him a pocket full of change. He was grumpy and so was I.
Inside Temple Meads the ticket machines were today both not functioning properly. That is to say they were not taking cash. Since my battered old cashpoint card is not accepted by FGW ticket machines although it works in ATMs from Cork to Kalamata, I always use cash on the train. I wandered onto the concourse, explained and a big burly man said that it would be okay to pay on the train.
Sitting comfortable at 4.42 AM the “train manager” announces that this is a penalty fare zone” and that if any passenger does not have a ticket they must return to the machines in the ticket hall to buy one. The message is repeated in threatening tones.
But there’s a hole in my bucket dear Liza, dear Liza, there’s a hole in my fucking bucket why is it that the ticket machines at Bristol Temple Meads never ever work properly you bastards. And so I sit here tapping away awaiting my fate.
Postscript: The Ticket collector was most understanding and I seem to have escaped the “penalty fare zone.” FGW is not all bad.
3464 days ago
I once again bring you the photo of one of the two ticket machines in the main hall at Bristol Temple Meads. This is now week four (at least) of “an engineer has been called”. For all I know the same sign was up for half the summer when I was in Greece.
Catching the 4.47 AM it is of no import to me as Temple Meads is hardly bursting with passengers wanting to buy a ticket. But I imagine that later in the day this is a real pain in the neck. I realise that First Great Western does not give a toss about its passengers or telling the truth but it might, at least, to maintain a vague pretence of caring.
3497 days ago
As ever, I arrived at Paddington at 10.31 PM. It does not matter what time I leave Real Man in Clerkenwell my taxi always arrives just as the penultimate train of the day pulls out for Bristol Temple Meads. Then there is the dilemma.
I can hang around until 11.30 and catch the last train to Temple Meads. It will be full of English drunks and will stink of fast food. Gradually drunks get off the train but – especially on a Friday – drunks also pile on at Swindon and Bath heading to the bright lights of Bristol to get even more drunk. Does everyone born in Swindon have the intelligence of a 12 year old Orang Utan? The taxi fare from Temple Meads home is less than a tenner. But Paddington is a ghastly place to spend 45 minutes and the Mrs is not that impressed if I pitch up at 1.45 AM.
And so there is the 10.45 to Bristol Parkway. I get home just before 1 AM, the taxi fare at the other end is c£20 but there is less time to kill at Paddington. The real downside risk is that I fall asleep and this train carries on all the way to Swansea. I have more than once woken up to find myself heading into Newport, a truly dreadful place, and facing a £45 cab ride home. On this train there is also the stench of fast food but most of the drunks are Welsh. As such, while buying a coffee at the bar, I have just listened to three sheep shaggers discussing in a most animated fashion how to say “The toilet is broken” in Welsh.
I guess you learn something new every day.
3597 days ago
I have a routine when I go up to London. Stay up until late. Go to bed. Set the alarm for 3.46 AM and that gives me 40 minutes to shower, shave, dress, pack and download from the web all that I need to write offline on the 4.47 AM from Bristol Temple Meads to Paddington. With a bit of luck I will have four or five articles to load when I reach Real Man at 6.45 AM.
