Follow Matthew's travels around the world…
I just wanted to wish Maria Grazia a very happy birthday this year as she turns ahem years old. We went over to her place to join her for a glass of champagne and a slice of cake, which is frankly all someone of her age can be expected to handle.
Another case of “you can’t cure stupid” brought to you by Southeastern Trains.
Our local station seems to have a high incidence of fare evaders, and consequently, we often have ticket inspectors waiting for us at the doors of our otherwise uncontrolled station. In a move to improve efficiency and reduce fare evasion, the lovely people at Southeastern have invested in some automatic ticket barriers which were installed a few weeks ago.
Our station is also unmanned about 50% of the time, meaning that you cannot buy a ticket from a real person. Instead, you need to purchase your ticket from the automated ticket machine.
Now here’s where someone fell off the stupid tree and hit every branch. The automated ticket machine is located inside the station, on the platform by the tracks. This arrangement worked very well before they installed the new ticket barriers.
But now we have ticket barriers outside the platform, and the ticket machine inside the platform. And yes, you guessed it. You need a ticket to get through the barriers and onto the platform.
I’ve finally discovered what’s causing that strange noise in my stereo.
I may be complaining about the dark starts in the morning, but at least I’m getting some lighter nights as compensation. Here’s the view as I stood on the platform at Tonbridge at around 7pm.
I had one of those moments yesterday that made me feel very old and out-of-touch with popular culture. I jumped onto my normal train home last night and looked over at the chap sitting across from me, thinking to myself “he looks a little scruffy to be sitting in First Class.” But he showed his ticket to the conductor and that was that…
…or so I thought. As we neared Canterbury, he was surrounded by a number of young women, all keen for his autograph. Turns out he’s a rock star — Tom Chaplin from Keane.
There I was, brushing elbows with fame and fortune. And I just figured he was a university student with rich parents.
Edited to note: I can’t believe it. I’ve had to edit the post after I realised I misspelled the name of the band. Now I really am showing that I’m out of touch.
