Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

For once, despite all the horror stories coming from National rail, the journey back down to London wasn't so bad. It took longer than it should have, but wasn't too bad. I had to walk across the centre of Birmingham to change between Moor Street and New Street stations, but that was OK too. My geographical knowledge of Brum is very poor; I can place the city on the map, but with the exception of the very immediate environs of New Street (and that information is largely 30 years out of date), the city plan is blank and labeled "here be dragons".

Anyway, it's only a 5 or 6 minute walk, and not the immense hike I had feared. Moor Street is a much nicer station to hang around on waiting than New Street, or would have been had the temperature been just a few degrees higher.

At least my ticket was valid for the enforced change and I eventually got back to the Athenaeum Club by seven o'clock (rather later than usual because of the additional traipse across London caused by coming in to Marylebone instead of Euston).

Looking at Christmas from a solely secular point of view, this year's haul has been my best for some time. Apart from the spiffy X-Files DVD box set from Furtle as reported previously, I am now the proud owner of twelve bottles of beer (I feel a song coming on), a Shrewsbury Town football shirt courtesy my niece and nephew, a shirt from my sister (It's a black shirt, happily free of silver runes. I'm not sure when people wear black shirts when not demonstrating outside the Reichstag), a cheque for £50 from Mum and a copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf, the bilingual copy with the original text in parallel and the radio controlled dalek that I mentioned before I went away¹. I have, as they say, done quite well this year.

There has been the odd piece of decent TV over the holiday period. The past two nights have seen the final installment of Prime Suspect. Before that there was the BBC's new adaptation of Oliver Twist, with its odd little infusion from Merchant of Venice². I remain in two minds about the Christmas Dr Who special. Glossy, loud, brash and unnecessarily messianic, with further heaped spoonfuls of gay rights allegory. The story just about hung together, but once again demonstrates that the weakest of the script writing team is Rusty himself.

There we are. All up to date. I am back in the smoke and I still have another week off. Furtle will be back from Egypt tomorrow and there is still some vacation time ahead of us before the entire wheel starts off again in January.

Oh, and I have bought a new jacket for work so that I don't wander in for the first half of 2008 at least, looking like a tramp in tweed.

¹Now I know that I am not the world's most observant person, but I am sure that the Dalek I encountered in the bathroom this morning was not there last night...
²As colonel_maxim pointed out, Dickens did not have the judge attempt to force Fagin renounce his Jewish faith àla Shylock in what presumably was an attempt to make Fagin appear a little more sympathetic and possibly even a man of principle. An odd approach to a child exploiter/molester from the Victorian underworld, but there we are.

Well it's about 7.15am on Christmas Eve. I've been up about 40 minutes and will be wandering down for some breakfast shortly. Then I will be getting an early tube down to Euston and a comparatively early train to Shropshire.

These things are relative; on a work day it would not be early for most people, but today I think it is. And all the last minute rushing around will take place once the main shops are open. Provided I'm on a train and gone by then, all should be well.

So; time to dress and find food I think. And make sure Furtle's phone is near the bed so I can phone her about 9 to make sure she doesn't forget to wake up and go to Euston.

More later, perhaps, from my niece's computer in Shropshire. If not, Merry Christmas and God Bless us, one and all.

I haven't decided yet (though I shall have to, shortly) whether I am going home today or very early tomorrow. I have already had a text from my sister telling me my youngest niece wants me to go home today; the emotional blackmail begins before breakfast.

I have done the early run home on Christmas Eve before and once started, it isn't so bad. You can always doze off on the train. It's a bind, but not really a problem.

Coming back to London after Christmas will be a problem. The West Coast Line is being dug up again. I think that since the Paddington rail crash in 1999, there has been about one year when the lines have not been subject to hectic maintenance. I don't think much more than a fiver in maintenance was spent on the entire network between Nationalization in 1948 and de-Nationalization in the mid 80s, and maybe a tenner in the ten years before the rail crash. People have to die before improvements are made and that's what happened. So, time to get 60 years of maintenance done in under ten years.

The upshot is that on 29th when I aim to come back to London, I have two options: I can either take the usual route from Shrewsbury to London. That will involve rail replacement buses between Birmingham International and Northampton. Total travel time over 155 miles? Three hours 55 minutes.

Or, I can take the train from Shrewsbury to Birmingham New Street, walk across the city centre to Moor Street Station and travel down to London Marylebone. Total travel time a much more acceptable two hours 46 minutes but with a 20 minute walk in the middle with bags. If I take this option, I can't get a return ticket as I shall be using a different series of rail companies. That will effectively move the fare for the holiday from an already extortionate £45 to around £90...

I hate traveling in the UK.

As advertised I went down to the West End today, having lounged away yesterday and left it too late. I spent an unconscionable amount of money, all of it on me! Amongst the junk I acquired is a (semi) hardback omnibus collection of Commando comic which I used to buy when I was at school. This where I learnt such useful German phrases as Achtung! Donner und Blitzen!, or Gott in Himmel!, and let us not forget the immortal, "For you, Tommy, ze var is oafer".

When I met my first German, many years later, I was sorely disappointed that these phrases were not part of his everyday vocabulary. He was equally disillusioned to find that English youth of the late '70s didn't regularly say "Wizard!" and such. I have since tried to rectify this, but to little effect.

The trip home was an exercise in petty annoyance. Whenever the Northern Line is suspended north of East Finchley for engineering works, London Underground routinely provide a bus replacement service. It is routinely inadequate, so I opted instead to wait for the regular 263 which drops me off directly outside the Athenaeum Club and is thus to be encouraged. Sadly a 263 sailed straight past the bus stop with East Finchley as its final destination. Not a lot of use to man or beast. It took twenty minutes of soft coaxing to lure another out of the woodwork, so it ended up taking around 2 hours to get home.

Back in Whetstone, I popped into Waitrose with 10 minutes to go before it closed; I only wanted a packet of cigarettes. I left empty handed having lost patience with the woman in line before me who queried the price of every item the cashier scanned. Had he strangled her, I should have appeared happily as a witness for the defence.


*Pace The Mamas and the Papas.