wendy house

A weekend trip on the London Underground (Tube) is definitiely a different experience from midweek commuter journeys. Much nicer. The travellers are wearing their weekend clothes, more colourful and varied than the business black and gray

As this circle line (yellow branding) train pulled into Paddington I could see most of the carriages were tightly packed with travellers – except one. I made my way to the half-empty carriage where I met these two Robots. Instant smiles all around. They were discussing how they didn’t know where they were because their GPS wasn’t working…

“can I take your photograph?“

After I’d photographed them the carriage turned into a paparazzi-style frenzy. It seemed that everyone in the carriage had a camera phone and they all wanted a picture, the best picture. They got out of their seats and vied fopositions to get the best shot. They gave the robots instructions on how to poise

“point at the map, up a bit, down a bit, that’s it!”

We helped the robots to read the map so they knew where to get off the train. One man who couldn’t speak English helped the robots keep their arm-protection from falling off.

It was a wonderful experience of strangers laughing and helping each other. I like the tube at the weekend

“are you the princess?” the 67 year old lady asks the 7 year old girl, adding  “I’m a dinosaur”

“no you’re not” even though the girl is already displaying advanced gender conformity, she hasn’t yet refined her agism prejudices…  …she can still spot the difference between dinosaurs and old ladies

“No, not really, but it’s what old people call themselves”  The child makes an accurate observation about aging  “when I grow up my hair wont be blonde anymore” The old bint espouses the popular psuedo-feminist position of  ‘choice freedom’ within the boundaries of legitimate girly behaviours “you can dye your hair any colour that you want”. The mother sighs and adds “she’s a very girlie girl, she’ll only wear dresses and loves pink and purple”

I press my face against the train window watching the beautiful English, Dorset, countryside fly-by – but I can’t escape the conversations of popularist female conformity…

As we approach Camborne train station the announcer says:

Coaches A and B will not be platformed, passengers in coaches A and B will have to move along the train to alight at Camborne

The platform at Camborne is shorter than the length of the train, so the last 2 train coaches are not ‘platformed’

wendy: I’d like a return rail-airbus ticket to Heathrow Terminal 3
Rail ticketing agent (RTA): Returning today?

Maybe he hasn’t noticed the suitcase I wheeled to the desk!

Wendy: No….
RTA: Tomorrow?

Does he think this case and shoulder bag add up to an overnight bag? If so, I have achieved my goal of travelling light!

Wendy: Returning 7 days from now. Can I use my network rail card for discount on that?
RTA: No, we don’t accept Network Rail cards….

I’m sold an off-peak ticket that looks exactly like a train ticket and wonder why the service provider who supplies the network rail card doesn’t allow it’s use on a Network rail service….

The Italian tourist on Paddington station asked me

“what times are off-peak travel times?”

Gradually realising the sysem craziness I reply

“That depends which direction you are travelling, peak time applies to trains into London in the morning and out of London in the evening, so if you are travelling into London in the evening – there is no peak time

but I’m not sure”

Then I asked my Londoner friend for clarification

“Are there peak time restrictions on the tube?”

My friend didn’t know about ‘peak times’ so we assumed that tube trains within London didn’t have travel restrictions based on time of travel. How could this Italian distinguish between tube trains and other trains when they use the same stations?  Should we say ‘you can travel on the grubby looking trains  that are travelling around London, sort of, at any time”?  I felt daunted. Such a simple question, such a complex answer.

Then, to make matters worse, I remembered that at peak times you can catch some trains which are not covered by the peak time travel restrictions, so added

“You can travel at peak time with a non-peak time ticket on some trains, normally the slower trains, but some of the fast trains”

The Italian looked suitably baffled. We hadn’t really helped her. I had a passing thought of Franz Kafka, imagining him stuck on a train station trying to get out of London at 5pm.  No matter how good your grasp of the English language, this explanation, this system is

• fundamentally confusing
• really difficult to remember even if you can work it out in the first place.

it’s not designed to make ticket purchase and use easy, its evolved to satisfy diverse organisations that lack customer perspective. The best pracitcal suggestion that we could give the Italian was

“Find the train you want to travel on and ask one of the rail staff if it works, and what’s their best suggestion,  it’s the only way to be sure”

When I asked a train station employee at Reading main station he whipped out a PAPER leaflet that listed trains that travel at peak times but accept off-peak time tickets. This work-around suggest that the service providers recognise the problem. The cute, archaic, work-around made me smile. But why not make it easier for the traveller in the first place (or time)!

Currently peak travel times are defined by a mixture of train

• time
• service provider (not applied on the tube)
• direction (relative to London, and maybe other citiies?)
• train speed (sometimes)

I know what name I’d like to give the ticket pricing and travel system, but that’s unpublishable …..

Your’s huiffily, wendy x

PS here are the peak travel time trains from Paddington that accept off-peak time tickets:

The entrance guarded by portly middle-aged men, avoiding the wind while they dragged on their cigarettes

hello love
a cheerful greeting as I wove between them in search of the hotel reception. The hotel reception was the bar. Two women sat on a sofa Half a dozen toddlers cahorted around and over them. Several men lacking in cranial hair perched on bar stools watching the largescreen 6 nations play. Not an enticing first impression. A blackboard by the bar announced tonight’s Worx disco. The Worx? Dungeness power station workers, these people were dependent of the power station for their livelihood

The Romney and Hythe steam train trundled under my bedroom window. Heaven! It toot-tooted as it trundled by. I went to stand by the track and the driver smiled and waved and tooted when he drove by. At that moment I wanted to be part of a well practiced cheerleading team waving pompoms, synchronised high-kicking and singing the praise of the train line.

Over breakfast the  landlady whispered her concerns. These guys drank so much the night before a full days work at a Nuclear plant. We watched one stumble through the dining area on his way out of the building for his first fag of the day.  He grunted at the Landlady’s cheery greeting. After he’d gone

See what I mean?

My journey to Paris today was all a bit exciting

electronic checkin:  we cannot check you in please go to an Air France Desk

Air France desk: are you on one of the plane’s that’s been cancelled?

Apparantly I was. Luckily they got me on another flight in the emergency exit seat with more leg room than I could reasonably justify even when waggling my skinny legs around enthusiastically.

At Charles De Gaulle airport the first train wasn’t going exactly where I wanted to go.  What the heck,  I got on with the intention of changing when the routes differed. This tactic got me where I needed to be in time.

I did notice the signs on some platform,  information signs, saying no trains….   …I managed to get where I needed to be without realising that Paris had been immobilised by industrial action

This is the end of short trains,

they will be terminated,

only long trains from now on.

Those French are both assertive and sizist.

6pm in Leicester Square, Westminster, London

England feels crowded compared to the NW US,   even compared to New York.   People brush against you as you pass them on the pavements,   the tube staircases,   mounting and dismounting the trains.   The tube stations are warm and muggy laced with the stench of sweat,   and its only April.

Sidewalk person-to-person collision avoidance weaving is required, not optional.     Here in Leicester square,  Alfred Gilbert’s statue of Eros has his own space above the crowds  on the originally much maligned  Shafetsbury memorial fountain from where he threatens passers-by with a dose of love, intended as a representation of christian charity.

while waiting for a train

wendy: a medium sized mocha please

cashier: £2.45

Wendy Hands over the cash and waits

barista:   medium Latte

Wendy:   is that for me?   I ordered a mocha,   are you making a mocha next?

barista: I don’t have an order for a mocha

man in queue behind me:   actually, you ordered a Latte

Wendy:   checks receipt,   it clearly states Mocha £2.45, shows receipt to man in the queue behind me to verify that I remembered correctly, checks cost of Latte ( £2.35)

cashier:   she did order a mocha

train pulls into station

Wendy:   I’ll take the Latte, keep the tip  

Approaching Peterborough train station.

A  small lady with fake-blond hair drawn tightly against her head by a short pontytail mutters ‘scum scum scum’ under her breath as she rises.   I can barely hear the chink of her three large, gold, hooped earings dancing together over the sound of flirting and empty high spirits from passengers further down the carriage.  ’We love Leeds’  

They all alight at Peterborough.

A sleeping passenger on the other side of the isle  wakes,   pukes half digested  pringles  on the seat next to him,   places a newspaper over the puke then goes back to sleep.   Another passenger pulls his scarf up over his nose and buries his head deeper in his book while hugging a guitar case.

twenty-first  post in  a  pg-13-rated Wednesday series  of “why wendy’s single“.    

Reason # 21: borrowing clothes

Due to an unfortunate accident aged 17 (1981),   with  a track (into you like a train) on the second  Psychedelic Furs album,  I like to wear other people’s clothes.   This raises a number of challenges which may, or may not, be publishable in subsequent posts.   Luckily,   quite a few English chaps* have found it rather amusing when they discover that I literally want to get into their trousers etc. and have been indulgent of my little proclivity.   Since arriving in the US there have been a few minor  outbreaks of Wendy in  street camoflauge,  but nothing too PG.

* male gender specific usage

"Do you know anything about train control circuits ?   Me neither. making it up as I go along"

 

bread = money. From cockney rhyming slang, bread and honey = money. Bread also has associations with the expression ‘earning a crust’, or having enough money to pay for one’s daily bread.