Planes, Trains and Automobiles Part 4

A Grumpy Old Man’s Trip To London

Well, it has not been a good start to the day. I am currently sat on the 07.13 Virgin Pendolino inter-city train from Crewe en route to London Euston. It is 07.35 and we have just left the station. This means that we will be behind all of the still-on-time trains with the likelihood that we will be further delayed. They seem to work on the principle that it is better to have one very delayed train than lots of slightly delayed trains. But, that seems like a very strange principle upon which to run a train company. Whatever happened to punctuality?

As ever, they haven’t thought up a decent enough reason for the delay with which to share with the paying customer. And I have paid. Through the nose. £275 for a First Class return! Extortionate. It is cheaper to fly to London from Manchester but, unfortunately for me, it is still less convenient.

Crewe station is just ten minutes from home, and, after a couple of hours in which you can stretch your legs, read a paper, hopefully complete the Times 2 Crossword (although I am struggling with 5 down at the moment) and the Killer Su Doku, and maybe do some work, you are delivered to Euston station. Then it is just 15 minutes by Tube, unfortunately, before I am delivered straight to the office alongside which is alongside Waterloo station. Door to door in two hours forty five minutes if I am lucky. But, as with today it would seem, I am rarely that. Lucky.

Manchester Airport, however, is a good (or bad) 45 minutes drive away itself. With the heightened security you definitely now need to be there at least one hour before the flight is delayed. And you have all that hassle with your luggage and your clear plastic bag for your toothpaste and eau de cologne (Euphoria for Men by Calvin Klein). And, Heathrow is just not as convenient for central London, although the Heathrow Express is much better than the old crawl in on the Underground.

At least when travelling care of Sir Richard Branson, the food is generally OK, and the tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages (not at breakfast of course, unfortunately) flow much more abundantly than they do in the air these days. I am currently sipping tea, having already partaken of a grapefruit juice and a passable sausage sandwich with brown sauce. The bread was a little dry though.

And, there is generally more to see out of the windows. And, every so often, you get to meet a celebrity. Those of you who have read my earlier postings (Celebrity Spotting) will know that I had a very enjoyable chat with Pete Waterman once and nearly had sex with Sarah Lancashire. The more I think about it the more I realise that she wanted me. And, these new toilets in the Pendolinos are so much more accommodating than in the old days. Another opportunity missed.

I have also seen Patrick Moore, the male chauvinistic stargazer who recently complained about there being too many senior placed women running the BBC, and, the diminutive and foxy news reader Sian Williams recently. Which reminds me, I literally bumped into Suzannah Reed, the other foxy if midget morning newscaster with the BBC, when buying my lunchtime M&S sandwich at Waterloo Station last time I was in the Smoke. She was quite startled and seemed a little spooked when she realised that I had recognised who she was. She was dressed all in white with a very long flowing coat. She had very white face make-up and very red rouged lips and cheeks, which made her seem even more alarmed. It was probably my fault. Living in the countryside and frequenting only small towns such as Sandbach and Holmes Chapel these days I get quite alarmed by the crowds in the big cities. I seem to have lost that knack of walking through a crowd without bumping into people. It can feel quite claustrophobic at times.

Well listen to me extolling the virtues of Virgin Trains. Mr Branson are there any jobs going in your marketing department?

On the downside, things can get a bit tense on board train. Especially in the Quiet Zone. Of course, the Quiet Zone is hardly that. Quiet. You still get the normal train announcements, and that strange beep beep noise as the Pendolino seems to tilt precariously when taking a bend at speed. You still get passengers chatting, passengers snoring and the like. No, things get tense when some jumped up self-opinionated, self-important oik decides that the “No Mobile Phones” sign does not apply to him and proceeds to have a loud if disjointed conversation. Conversations are disjointed because the signal quality is so poor, conversations require a lot of redialling after thirty seconds of “hello, hello, can you hear me?” or, “I’m in a tunnel”). These noise abusers can often be found wandering up and down the carriage to annoy as many people as he (it is invariably a he) possibly can. Or they stand at the end of the carriage, in the vestibule as Mr Virgin calls it, next to the loos. They seem to think that they are less annoying there. They are not, it is even worse listening to the self-important oik on his phone with the carriage doors sliding open and then shut again, and again, and again, as he triggers them with his proximity.

Things can also get tense when the staff forget to reserve pre-booked seats or all reservations are cancelled because of a train cancellation requiring two or three trains to be merged into one. Pandemonium. Even on “normal” days, people ignore the seat reservations and assume that just because they are a party of eight they have the right to sit next to each other. I can feel myself getting tense. I shall move on.

Unusually, the train staff this morning are not Eastern European. They seem to be Scousers. So, they are as good as Eastern Europeans. Homegrown Eastern Europeans if you like. But it is unusual. Have you not noticed how, in the last couple of years or so, the service industries of our great nation have been overwhelmed by Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Albanians and the like?

I learnt at the weekend of a very successful restauranteur and property developer who only employs Bratislavans. He does this because they are reliable, polite, and punctual and have excellent language skills. So, nothing like Scousers then. He pays them the going rate so they are not cheap.

Every London bar, every hotel reception, every waiter and waitress, every shelf-filler in Waitrose, every bricky, carpenter and electrician. They are all Eastern European. Crewe has shops selling “Polish Food” now, and in parts of the country road signs are now displayed in both English and Polish. The influx of devote Poles has now resulted in the Catholic Church becoming the biggest religion in the country again.. Henry the Eighth must be turning in his grave.

No, it is the Australians I feel sorry for. And the New Zealanders. They used to have the monopoly on the London bars. I can only assume that all the Kiwis and Australians are now serving drinks in Warsaw, Prague, and wherever the capital of Bratislava may be. Although at least a couple of our Antipodean cousins could be found at this weekend’s Home & Garden Design Show in Tatton Park, selling Magic Shammy Leathers. How the Empire has fallen.
The train now seems to be crawling along. I don’t think we’ve even reached Nuneaton yet. Now, where’s that girl with the tea……….

Celebrity Spotting Part 1

Business travel, and Sainsburys in Wilmslow have been a great source of rendezvous with minor celebrities.

Perhaps most enjoyable have been train journeys. You feel closer to the celebs in some sort of strange way. Journeys on Virgin trains between the North West and London and back have been most fruitful. On one occasion I sat opposite Sarah Lancashire, star of a “wealth” of Sunday night family viewing such as “Where the Heart Is” and, most notably “Coronation Street”. She starred as Raquel Watts, ditsy barmaid who married (and divorced) Curly Watts. She was/is a bit of a babe. Especially in the flesh, so to speak. The kind of homely, northern lass that your mom would approve of. And only two years older than I. She asked me the time. It was the was she asked. You know. The way she asked implied “do you want to come somewhere and get to know each other intimately?”. I did want to. I didn’t. I couldn’t be quite sure that I was reading the signals correctly. Another opportunity lost.

My other notable train claim, in a very different way, was Pete Waterman, of Stock, Aitkin, and Waterman fame. He who discovered Kylie. For which, I shall be eternally grateful. Pete sat opposite me on a journey from London to Crewe. He was on his way home to Stockton Heath. At first I was dead cool and did not let on that I recognised him. I surreptitiously texted C and colleagues at work who I thought would be impressed. C sent a simple text back “Don’t sing!”. Good advice. I am tone death (and I mean death!) and toneless. J, whose uncle is the keyboard and song writer in Tears for Fears replied, “My uncle says he’s a tw*t!”. Not quite the reaction I was looking for.

When I subsequently told my best mates about the encounter, they were similarly suitably underwhelmed. None of them have quite the same affinity with Kylie as I have. Most comments ranged from “Tosser”, “W*nker” (they meant Pete, not me of course), or “big deal”. But, they don’t know Pete like I do. Most likely they were trying to deflect me from one of my usual waffling, rambling stories of great adventures starring the Middle Man. They know me too well. But, they’re very forgiving.

Actually, he, Pete that is, was a thoroughly nice guy. It was vodka that broke the ice, both literally and metaphorically. Pete exclaimed: “Vladivar. Not seen that for ages!” “From Warrington”, says I. We have been best buddies ever since. I explained that my Uncle Tom used to drive the cart, and then then truck, making deliveries for Greenalls the brewery and Pete told me of the brewery’s demise. He is into real ale and was looking forward to getting home. His local village hall turns into a real ale pub for locals and members of CAMRA on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and he was keen to get there by 8pm for opening. I wish our village hall did the same.

We chatted quite freely for a good hour. He told me about his home in London - a disused warehouse (3500 square feet) in Borough which he bought for fifteen thousand pound in 1983 (presumably on the back of Kylie……now there’s a thought). He employed interior designers for thirty five thousand. They painted the walls white and the floors black. He has one bedroom, a dining room (Chinese red, "very warm and welcoming in winter") with a table and four chairs, a huge lounge with two fourteen foot long sofas, and a “f*ck off bathroom”. The latter was his main stipulation. He has no shower, but, apparently a palatial bathroom. He explained, “I didn’t live anywhere with a bath until I was 17.”

I asked him for Kylie’s telephone number. He declined. When I explained I only wanted to wish her the best after her recent cancer he said he would pass on my regards. So close. So far.
We talked of Pop Idol and X Factor. Allegedly, Simon Cowell’s banter is scripted and the US version of the game is fixed. But, enough of that…..let’s talk about Kylie. Sigh……