Planes, trains and automobiles II

Part 2 - Trains

As a result of the yet-to-be-written part 3 of this trilogy of posts, I was taking the train to work for some of last week. When weather permitted, I was riding my new motorbike. More on that later.

So, you may ask. What's so noteworthy about trains? Well nothing really, except how infuriating they are, especially if you travel in the other direction to most commuters. What this means for me is that I have to get the 08:19 train from Cannon Street to Orpington. If I don't catch that train, there isn't another one for an hour. This is what happened to me on Thursday, so I had to walk to London Bridge, where I had to spend about 10 minutes looking at the departures board to figure out which train I needed to get, and from which platform. Although travelling to London Bridge doesn't take very long, the net result is I end up half an hour late for work. Fortunately my boss was even later than me due to traffic congestion on his bus route. And, if I were a bit sharper, it would give me time to write blog posts from my phone. You'll note from the absence of any posts that this wasn't the first thing on my mind. I was far more interested in catching up with facebook updates :)

On Friday it was even worse. I had a meeting in Liverpool Street, and took the train to Bromley in the afternoon, with my colleague. Except that was an even bigger fail. We got the tube to Farringdon, saw we'd have to wait for the 14:45 train and at 14:45, we got on the train that rolled up. We were talking about work and motorbikes and such, when the train announcement said the train was going somewhere we didn't want to be. I looked out of the window and we were at Tulse Hill. This was the wrong place. I told my colleague, and after some to-ing and fro-ing about whether or not I was sure, we jumped off the train just in time for the doors to close. OK, well I jumped, he stepped off it like a normal person. We then studied the comprehensive map, which just showed the line we were on, before I resorted to the London Transport iPhone app. That app advised me to walk to Tulse Hill station, which would take 2 minutes. Strangely, we were actually in Tulse Hill station. Anyway, there was a 15:00 train to Beckenham Junction that would take us in the right direction, where we could change to an Orpington train that would take us to Bromley. The time was 14:59 and the train was the one on the next platform, so we bolted it and made that train just in time. We reached Beckenham Junction only to find the 15:15 Orpington train was cancelled and we'd have to get the next one at 15:30. I was ready to give up and go back home, but my colleague insisted. Out came the iPhone again, this time Google Maps was the app of the moment. I noted that we were only 2 miles from where we needed to be, so we got a minicab. The minicab was a car, which leads me nicely onto part 3 :)

Newsflash!

dotmit is now in a relationship on facebook. This generated many comments within minutes of being posted.

facebook makes the world a very small place...

Oh and I have a twitter account now. Not that I do much with it. About as much as I do with this blog. No, not even that much.

Happy Potato Day!

I just came back from a lovely weekend in Eastbourne in celebration of that Valentino chap, who I think rides a motorbike or something.
Today everyone is going on about him on facebook, but let’s not forget the humble potato. The potato is often overlooked because Potato Day falls on the same day as this motorbike dude.
So for all you potato lovers out there, I wish you all a Happy Potato Day.
Happy Valentine’s Day too

Tube Strike

I have no idea what the strike is about.

My guess is it's either pay or holidays, or maybe they are upset that people have to be made redundant because they shouldn't have been hired in the first place.

So this morning as expected there was lots of traffic, everyone was complaining on facebook about the tube and there were more bicycles on the road than usual. I was pleasantly surprised to see a BMW bicycle. These are quite rare because they cost so much, and well, who wants a BMW bicycle? What was nice though was that this bicycle was well used by its owner. It was covered in mud and the tyres were completely worn out. Good show :)

I tried a new restaurant last night. It was called Zaza's and it's opened next to Whitechapel Mosque. It's very similar to Mirch Masala and Tayyab's in format, so quite familiar. I have to say the food wasn't as good but it was a little bit cheaper. Score. And the chilli sauce they give you with the poppadums was awesome. I couldn't get enough of it! Good service too, but don't think it's good enough to pull me away from Mirch Masala which is my usual haunt. Yes, I do eat something other than burritos...

My blog

A few people told me I should write a blog. Or a book. A blog is easier because I don't have a printing press. Or a printer.

It will be full of random thoughts about random things that affect my life.

At the moment one of the people who told me to start a blog is on facebook, so this message is intended for her.

Look, here's my blog, mysterious facebook friend.

So there.

I will think of more stuff later. Or maybe I will just forget about writing here again, but at least I have the URL reserved now.