scrambled channel

I would never travel first class on a train under normal circumstances. The cost is prohibitive and no journey in Britain is long enough to really merit it. Yet, this morning, I collected my tickets from the little red machine, only to discover that I was to be traveling among the gentler classes. I’m still not entirely sure how this happened. The price I paid seemed reasonable but I know, from previous encounters with Virgin’s website, that little makes sense when booking online.

I gingerly board the train and head to coach A. I was dressed in my usual scruffy fashion and expected to be outed as an impostor immediately. Did the conductor, sorry, train manager, look askance at me when he clipped my ticket? Never mind, we’re pulling away from Edinburgh Waverly and I seem to have made the grade.

Thus far, the first class experience has amounted to increased legroom, and a perspex barrier between me and the Geordies drinking cider. Sadly that half shit, half nuclear cleaning product stench has seeped into the premier coach. Surely it should be hermetically sealed or something? I turn my attention to the brochure that was on my seat. What free stuff do I get? It mentions complimentary teac or coffee and ’snacks’. Not all that promising then. I decide to keep my powder dry on the snack front.

I cherry pick the glossier bits of my newspaper and start to enjoy the journey. It’s hard not to enjoy the verdant countryside of Scotland and northern England, especially as it’s shrouded in an eerie mist this morning. No sooner do I get comfortable though, the PA crackles with some ‘bad news’. Apparently some power lines have draped themselves across the tracks and the train will be terminating in Berwick.

Realising my first class adventure was coming to an end, I make a frenzied dash for the buffet car for my free cup of tea. No sooner do I enter her realm, the woman I hope will give me drinks and snacks, scowls at me. ‘We’re closed! The train is terminating at North Berwick!’ she snaps. ‘Didn’t you hear the announcement?’ she adds in the tone you might use on someone else’s stupid five year old. My dream over, I trudge back to my seat. I get a sympathetic look from one of the Geordies. He’s doesn’t fancy being stuck in Berwick either.

Back at my seat, annoyed and humiliated, I begin drafting the letter of complaint I’ll be sending, probably from Berwick. I’ll make sure that bint is dunking teabags on a train to Barrow and Furness this time next week. Her days on the east coast mainline are numbered. I cackle softly, eliciting a couple of stares from my fellow gentiles.

Before I’ve actually settled on a salutation, there’s another crackle. We’ve had a reprieve it seems, and will arrive in York as advertised. My vitriol recedes at this news. I realise too, that in my vitriol over a cup of a tea, I hadn’t actually spent any thought on how I’d get to my destination if the tracks were blocked. Thoughts of complaint letters vanish and I start looking forward to that cup of tea.

After a dignified pause, I retrace my steps to the crone’s lair. The scowl still remains on the woman’s face, I think it might even have worsened with the news she won’t be getting an early mark. I pull out my coupon with a flourish. Her scowl is quickly replaced with an obsequious smile. ‘Oh sir, if I’d known you were in first class…’ she swoons. I entertain some uncharitable thoughts but smile magnanimously. I head back to my seat with a tea bag in hot water and a kit-kat and a few sweets. This time the cider drinker doesn’t smile.

So there you go, paying a few extra quid on a train, doesn’t get you much. It does mean miserable sycophants treat are more likely to give you tea though. Face it, if you want to experience the romance and majesty of train travel, try France, Germany, India or China. Basically, anywhere but bloody Britain.

I found this post by cyclingforums.com regular helmutRoole2 rather amusing. In a response to a post suggesting, perhaps more than half seriously, that Lance Armstrong was to blame for Deutsche Telekom pulling their sponsorship from the T-Mobile team, he wrote:

Sad day. I found this on the AP wire:

Quote:
BERLIN (AFP) — T-Mobile, the mobile phone division of German telecommunications giant Telekom, said Tuesday it was ending its sponsorship of major cycling and blaming Lance Armstrong for the entire mess.

“We have decided to take this step to distance ourselves and the T-Mobile brand from the latest doping revelations in sport and especially in cycling and Lance Armstrong,” T-Mobile boss Hamid Akhavan said in a statement. “Lance Armstrong is responsible and for that we call him an assholio. Lance, you’re an assholio.”

“We have worked hard with the current team management to create a cleaner sport of cycling,” Akhavan continued, “but Armstrong is too big of an assholio for us to reconsider. He’s just a plain ass. And a hole. And of course eee-o as well. Put them together and you have assholio.”

The T-Mobile team, formerly known as Depoopchute Telekom, has been rocked in recent years by allegations that its cyclists used drugs because of Armstrong.

The team sacked its highest profile rider, the 1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich, in July 2006 amid allegations he was involved in a Spanish Armstrong network in which bags of Armstrong were link to the German champion and other riders.

Ullrich has since retired because of Armstrong but continues to protest his innocence saying it’s all because of Armstrong. T-Mobile also sacked German rider Patrik Sinkewitz because of Armstrong in July this year after abnormal levels of Armstrong were found in his blood. He blamed it on Armstrong.

“We can no longer ignore Armstrong,” Akhavan said. “He has responsible for Armstrong in cycling and Armstrong in sport. And, he’s an assholio.”

Call me easily amused.

I just watched a dismal performance by the ever insipid England football team. Needing only a draw to qualify for Euro 2008, they lurched to a 3-2 defeat at home to an impressive Croatian team.

McClaren opted for a change in goal and Carson promptly threw one in with his first touch of the game. They never got going after that and conceded another soon after. Shell shocked at half time, the hard working Peter Crouch was the only player who had looked interested. Could McClaren turn it around?

He wheeled out Beckham and also brought on Defoe after the break. Say what you will about Beckham as he drifts into the winter of his career, but he did lift the crowd and he sprinted to take each free kick and corner.

Defoe then won a lucky penalty. He was pulled back in a pretty innocuous position by, Canberra born Simunic, he of the three yellow cards. Next, Beckham hit an inch perfect ball into Crouch who shoed it in. 2-2, the fairytale recovery looks on.

Not for long though. More than a few of the England team were shaking hands with the queen when Croatia notched a third. Ten minutes of route one football came to nothing and England were left hoping that Andorra would grab a last minute equalizer against Russia. Of course this didn’t happen.

Meanwhile, Sven’s Manchester City sit third in the table above Chelsea and Liverpool. He suddenly seems like a genius…