write.as/jonbeckett

My most recent journey from one end of the country to the other last night via the nation's railway network went almost entirely without incident. I say “almost entirely” because somebody chose to stick a spanner in the smooth workings of the universe purely to aggravate everybody elseme, specifically.

I arrived at Kings Cross station a few minutes before 6pm, and had all good intentions of getting on the train departing a few moments lateror rather I would have done if my ticket had worked in the barrier. The ticket guy looked at it, and smugly lectured me;“You see, what you have here is a 'Super Saver' ticketthese can only be used during off-peak timeswhich means after 7pm”.

What he really meant was Kings Cross regards “off-peak” as 7pmbecause I had arrived at Kings Cross on the same ticket, completely legally. If you search online for what the British Rail network regards as “peak”, and “off-peak”, you will find nothing obvious at all. I'm guessing they intentionally use this as a mechanism for catching people out. Even the guy that sold me the ticket admitted as muchopining the days of “British Rail” when everything was much more simple. Apart from the uniform, he looked like he had just walked out of a 1970s metal band.

SoI found myself with an hour to kill at Kings Cross station, and did what anybody with any sense doesbought an insanely expensive collection of food and drink from Pret a Mange, and set about eating it all. I found a seat opposite a pretty girl reading a newspaper, who when finished left all her rubbish strewn across the table. At first I thought this incredibly rude, but then discovered whyno rubbish bins. It never ceases to surprise me that London is still so paranoid about bombs that you cannot find litter bins anywhere in public spaceseven in cafes that sell you everything wrapped to within an inch of it's life.

I somehow wasted an hour wandering around the station like Victor Naborsky, and finally lined up with the crowds watching the arrival times for the trains. My train suddenly flashed up with a notice in red lettering next to it”Seat Reservations Cancelled”. This basically means if you had a seat reservation, tough luckall bets are off. I smiled, and when a platform number was announced set off at some speed to find a good seat.

Just as I finished folding my coat and stowing my bag above the seat, a pretty woman arrived behind me.“Excuse methat's my seat.”“But all seat allocations have been cancelled?”“But that's my seat”I held my hands up. “Fine”.“Oh it's okayI didn't mean to”“No. It's fine. I'll move”. I moved everything to the seat directly in front, and shook my head as I did so.

Karma is a funny thing. For the next two hours, she had a baby sitting directly behind her, screaming it's head off. I felt sorry for the Baby's mum, because we've all been thereor at least those of us with children have. We can even filter out insane amounts of crying, bellyaching, and screamingit comes with the parent kit for free. I didn't feel sorry for Mrs “I'm more important than you” at all though.

I busied myself with watching movies, eating junk, and reading books for the remainder of the journey while a businessman next to me read a book about “Long Term Evolution”. At first I thought I might comment on it, and have a lively debate about the idiocy of creationists, but then realised it was actually a book about management for managers to readprobably titled cunningly to hoodwink evolutionary biologists into buying it to increase it's sales numbers.