“London Bridge is failing Dan, failing Dan, failing Dan….”

Posted on Jan 22, 2014 by headinablender

London Victoria underground station was closed tonight due to ‘someone being taken ill’.

Bollocks.

There’s no way someone said “I think I’ve got the flu coming on” and they shouted “Stop everything!”

I suspect it’s a more subtle version of “someone being liquidated by a train”.

If it’s not I can assure you that I, and about a thousand people frantically redirecting to other stations to escape the city like a frantic piss out of a pair of leaky rubber pants, will be hoping they feel better long enough to fall under the next train that’s “not stopping at Victoria”

It was utter bedlam tonight with agitated commuters strutting around directionless looking for an alternative way of getting home, and failing.

I made my way to London Bridge station as I knew I could get home from there and stood waiting for my platform to be announced.

It’s always been platform 5 whenever I’ve travelled from this station so I went through the barrier into the station, up the escalator and waited patiently by the platform entrance.

And waited.

It was 6 minutes until my train was due to leave and the platform still hadn’t been announced.

And then….

‘Platform 9’

What??

Where the fuck is platform 9?? There’s only platforms 1 to 6!

Cock!!

I ran down the escalator, back through the barriers, out of the station and saw there was another entrance which had platforms 7 and up.

Grrr!

There is nothing more infuriating than the possibility I was going to miss my train despite having been there for ages!

And, true to form, all the commuters had been switched to ‘slow, ambling, zombie fuckwad mode’; making my run that much more varied with slaloming, hurdles, chicanes, twists, turns and twats at every step.

I bolted through the masses, up the escalator, through the barriers to the platforms and ran (a concept unfamiliar to the cretins around me) down the platform alongside the train.

Ideally I wanted to be at the front of the train, but it was about to leave so I boarded halfway down and continued my journey inside.

It was at this point that some suited prick boarded the train at the next doorway and cut in front of me, only to then stand still.

Oops, my mistake, he WAS walking but at a speed which I could be forgiven for mistaking as ‘stationary’.

In fact, ‘Mr Stop’ here was so piss-achingly slow, I got off the train, walked down the platform and boarded ahead of him (on the same carriage) so I could continue at a pace that actually involved putting one foot in front of the other.

No sooner had I traversed another carriage than a woman did the exact same thing and cut in front of me; moving at sloth-like speed while she decided where to sit on this virtually empty train.

It amazes me how these people function day to day.

I sat down and took out my phone to begin writing this blog entry.

It took around 40 minutes to write (as autocorrect can be a bitch) and, as I sat thinking about how I could end it, I looked up and saw Mr Stop finally taking his seat.

Perfect.

Zzzzzz….huh?

Posted on Jan 14, 2013 by headinablender

This morning I overslept.

In fact, I woke up precisely 57 minutes later than I’m supposed to leave the house. This was not a good start to my day.

I opened my eyes, realised it was 7:57am and bolted upright in bed to utter my first word of the day;

“Shit!”

I promptly followed this with “shit shit shit” and “how the fuck did that happen?”; although why I didn’t just ‘think’ it is beyond me as my girlfriend had already gone to work at 5am and I was alone. There was no one there to appreciate my BAFTA winning performance of a guy who’s going to be seriously late for work.

But was I to blame? Well this is the weird part.

I checked the alarm settings on my clocks (yes, clocks; plural) and they were both set correctly. I thought that maybe I’d snoozed them to death, but they were still showing as having not actually ‘gone off’ yet, despite them being set for 6am and 6:05am. Strange.

Maybe fate has something in store for me today. Or maybe fate has prevented me from some disaster that would’ve befallen me had I followed my usual morning routine. Maybe the headline ‘commuter snaps and beats man to death with his own hands, repeatedly screaming “stop hitting yourself!”‘ will never get printed.

These are all things I pondered in the shower whilst I washed myself at speeds unmeasured by today’s technology. My arms were a virtual blur and the water was turning to a fine mist.

I was most annoyed when, whilst drying myself at the same speed and causing my towel to catch fire twice, I heard one of my Judas alarm clocks kick off from the bedroom.

You have got to be shitting me.

I managed to leave the house at 8:30am which was pretty good and briskly walked to the bus stop that would take me to the train station which would take me to the tube station that would get me to work.

I decided not to walk to my usual station this morning because it’s snowing, there are no direct trains after 8:44am and my new shoes are tearing my heels an new asshole each. So a bus into the main station in town it is.

Right now fate wasn’t impressing me.

The roads were gridlocked due to last minute car commuters and school runs, which meant that my bus was painfully late. If only there wasn’t one adult and one child per car we may have got moving a little quicker. The words ‘car pool’ came to mind. Mind you, so did ”common sense’ and ‘birth control’.

The bus finally arrived and it was packed solid with children screaming and crying, and these small pockets of adults ignoring them desperately (who I later learned are referred to as parents). In fact the only adults keeping an eye on the children were the non parents who had looks of trepidation and self righteous judgement in equal measures.

When one of these ‘parents’ decided to talk to their cherubs it was clear how much love they had for their offspring, particularly one woman who was missing a few teeth, some patches of hair, some brain cells and who was clearly a Spandau Ballet fan; “Oi Hadley! (yes, Hadley) Oi Hadley, will you and Jayden sit down and shut up!”.

Loving.

But for authenticity its important to point out that certain words were pronounced differently;
Down = pronounced Dayan
Shut = pronounced Shart

It was not only her, but her mother who basically looked like an older and fatter version, with a few more stains on her velour tracksuit…and a beard.

Usually this bus is so blissfully empty and quiet.

Fate was starting to piss me off.

I got to the station, boarded a train and prepared for the utter fuckwit that will inevitably sit opposite me.

It took three stops until he got on with a female friend. I knew it was just a friend because, well…he would only have women as friends if you know what I mean. He looked like a cross between Wally from ‘Where’s Wally?’ and Doctor Who himself Matt Smith. Add to this an extremely plummy voice and ridiculous little round glasses. He also talked really loud with his equally plummy ‘friend’ and was quite abrupt and intrusive in his questions and statements. I dont think he had any malice, he just didn’t have any etiquette filters. This was confirmed when he started going through her phone.

Maybe we should publish a new book called ‘Where’s Wanker?’. It would be quite easy though as he finds you.

Fate, you can kiss my asshole…all three of them.

London Undergrind!!

Posted on Oct 29, 2012 by headinablender

Faaaaarkin’ hell!

What a tube journey!!

The whole thing started badly when I left work late which usually means I miss my train from London by literally one minute.

One. Whole. Minute.

I made it to the tube station, having successfully avoided black cabs and ninja cyclists, and attempted to enter the station. And when I say attempted, I mean attempted. It’s amazing how many people just stop dead when walking, or don’t know how to walk forward.

It’s not that hard; it’s the direction your fuck ugly face is pointing. Can we please fit these people with brake lights or, at the very least, indicators??

I managed to slalom these bungling bell-ends and get through the ticket barrier (which, interestingly, was the only thing that was reliable this evening). I then joined the escalator and started walking down on the left, which is the understood escalator etiquette on London’s underground network. I made it half way down when some twat stood on the right realised everyone on the left was walking down and decided to step out and join them, taking each step at the speed of dark. The stationary people on the right arrived at the bottom quicker.

Finally I made it onto the platform just as a train pulled in. “Result” I thought to myself as I jumped on.

The train then sat there for four minutes, which, on the underground, equates to about 3 weeks.

Finally we pulled off and we bumped, swerved and jiggled our way to my final destination. Great if the carriage was full of busty bikini clad girls.

It wasn’t.

The good news is…I could still make my train here.

We all got off. And it was at this point I was utterly and violently fascinated by the speed we all disembarked. It defies logic that people in a hurry….aren’t! It’s not because of bottle-necking or anything because I managed to wriggle through the plodding pillocks like a good looking knife through thuddingly dumb butter. I now know where George A. Romero got his inspiration, although his zombies would go hungry with the lack of delicious grey matter in the vicinity.

At last i made it to the final escalator and decided to opt for the left hand side walk up. This time no-one stepped out in front of me because they were all too bloody lazy, and they didn’t need to as the person in front of me was clearly struggling to climb the steps. Would it have been wrong to grab them by the shoulders, shove them to the right and exclaims “for fuck’s sake!!” Loudly as I stomp past? Hmm….possibly. I opted for silent rage.

I made it to the top, through the rest of George’s flock, through another non-obstructive ticket barrier and onto the conc…. onto the conc…. onto the conc…

Will you get out of the fucking way people!!!!

…onto the concourse. Jesus! It seemed no-one could walk in a straight line, or continue without stopping, or control their kids, or luggage, or their knuckles as they dragged along the floor.

It’s been an emotional journey and, oh look, I’ve missed my train by one minute.