GWR - Delays and other disasters

When I travel by train, it's almost always with GWR, as they have the franchise for my area, and run the trains from here to London. 

Which gets frustrating, as they are, frankly, a bit crap at present - lots of delays, very poor customer service  and the like  (For instance, they claim to process refunds, for delays, in 7 to 20 days. I sent off one in mid June which still has not been dealt with!)

So I wasn't too surprised to find my train to London was over an hour late.

Coming home was worse, though, and involved a new and unpleasant experience, due to a passenger who harassed me, and a member of GWR staff who then ignored my request for help. As in, I explicitly asked him for help, asked him to get this guy to leave me alone, and his response was "Whatever it is, move on"

Fortunately it was verbal harassment,and didn't escalate after another passenger who was more helpful than the member of staff, and told him to back off. 

But it certainly took the shine off the day.

Plus, it's now Thursday, and there's been no response to the e-mail complaint I sent, which seem a bit poor. (I know they take forever with refunds, but you'd think they would prioritise dealing with complaints.)

Grrr.

Blood, Shakespeare and Friends and Family

This week started well, with a visit from my sister and brother-in-law on Monday (which was a Bank Holiday, and therefore rainy). Since we've all been busy, I've not seen them for a while, and this was the first time they've been to the new house. 

So we celebrated with prosecco, and by getting C to help put up some curtains and replace the thing to hold the shower head. (the old one was not up to the job, and I was unable to work out how to get the damn thing off the wall.) 

Then on Thursday I had more visitors - E, who I was at University with, and her husband and daughter. E is one of my theatre-going friends, so I last saw her last November, in Stratford upon Avon, but haven't had the chance to send time with her family, so that was fun!

On Saturday, I travelled up to London for the day, to see Richard III at Trafalgar Studios, starring Martin Freeman in the title role. 

My original plan involved getting to London with about 2 hours to spare, to allow time to go looking for a few of the Books about Town book benches, but unfortunately my train was delayed, and as they were predicting it would be at least an hour and a half before it moved on, I ended up getting off and taking a 45 minute bus ride, and another 40 minutes on the tube, to get to Charing Cross just in time, so other than taking a quick look at the giant blue cock in Trafalgar Square I had no time for anything other than the show itself.

Richard III is not my favourite play -  but decided to see this production as I was interested to see Martin Freeman in the role, and as I  have been to other productions at Trafalgar Studios,and directed by Jamie Lloyd, which I've enjoyed. And I did enjoy it.

The play is set in the 1979 'Winter of Discontent', with the the implication of a Royalist/Military coup having taken place just before the play opens - the stage is set up like a civil service office, with desks, phones, reel-to-reel tape recorders and sickly house plants. I have to admit, I didn't feel that this worked awfully well. It's too complex, and it doesn't really sit well with the severed heads .


Richard's initial speech was given partly as a 'public' address, given to the rest of the nobility, via mike, and partly as a soliloquy, with the mike off, and the others all frozen - it worked quite well, but the same convention wasn't followed for other asides and soliloquies, which seemed odd. 

Freeman is good as Richard - there have been mixed reviews, but I felt he has created a truly scary Richard - as the play progresses, he comes across as an increasingly unpredictable and paranoid dictator, with his black humour leaving other characters unsure as to whether he is joking or not - Freeman is quite subtle - I liked it (one of my dislikes about the Kevin Spacey production was that everything was rather melodramatic and over the top)

I was a little worried about the welfare of the poor goldfish, in whose tank the Duke of Clarence was drowned (and into whose tank his throat was cut, too) I am not sure how goldfish feel about fake blood in their water, but having a person thrashing about in your tank can't be good. 

All in all, I enjoyed the production, but having seen 2 versions of Richard III with modern settings, I would rather like to see a production set in its own period.

And for the record, I didn't experience any inappropriate applause (there have been a couple of reviews suggestion that 'Sherlock' fans unused to live theatre were attending and cheering / clapping at inappropriate points)

Me? I'd like to see Freeman in other live productions, and I think he benefited from a really strong supporting cast.

Transport and Theatre

It stopped snowing yesterday afternoon, but stayed very cold, so today the pavements and the road in my street are all sheets of ice, as there's been enough traffic to compact the snow, but not enough to clear it. It looks as through the roads further out are mostly clear, so I should be able to get to work on Monday, provided we don't get more snow. Although  getting to the end of my own road is likely to be interesting, knowing that the road is clear beyond that is reassuring

I went out this morning to see how bad the going was likely to be, and then walked down to the station in order to get a train into Bath,  to go to the theatre.

The train was late, and horribly crowded - to the extent that there were people unable to get on, at Avoncliffe. It turns out that Bath Rugby were playing at home this afternoon, which no doubt was part of the reason for it being so crowded. It makes me hopping mad that they never put on any extra trains (or even extra coaches) despite that fact that trains on match days are *always* packed. I imagine that the snow and the lateness made it even worse than usual. And they have just put the fares up. Grr.

Once I got to Bath, I grabbed a pasty for lunch, and took a few photos of nice buildings with snow on them, then back to the theatre to see 'Quartermaine's Terms'

The play, by Simon Gray, is set in a school teaching English as a foreign language, in Cambridge in the 1960s, and is presented as a series of scenes in the staff room, over a period of around 2 years.

There are lots of funny moments, but the play is ultimately a tragic one.

All of the characters experience their own personal disasters, whether in the shape of an unfaithful husband, a dependent and critical mother and unsuccessful love life, a daughter's suicide, a partner's death, snobbery and lack of professional appreciation or family breakdown and failure as a novelist. Everything is presented through the medium of staff room conversation, so practically all of the drama takes place off stage, and we only ever get a partial and understated view of anything.

Quartermaine himself (Rowan Atkinson) presents as, perhaps the saddest of all. He appears to be a well-meaning but ineffectual teacher, and to have no life beyond his job.  Throughout the play he is ignored or taken advantage of by his colleagues, who use him as a babysitter for their children, but forget or turn down his own invitations, and the play finally sees him facing the loss of his job.

There was a little too much of Mr Bean in Rowan Atkinson's performance for my taste, pushing his character from pathos to ridiculous once or twice, but despite this is was an interesting play, and I'm glad I was able to see it.

It is going to the West End now, for (I think) a couple of months - I shall be interested to see what the critics make of it.

My train home was late, which was actually a good thing for me - it meant I was able to get on a train 10 minutes after getting to the station, instead of missing one by 3 minutes and having to wait half an hour, and it was reasonably empty, too, so I got a seat.

The walk home from the station was hard work, due to the ice, but having spent a lot of time over the past 48 hours looking for my yaktrax I gave up and bought some new ones (well - these) when I was Bath, so I was able to walk safely.

And I called into one of the local mini markets on the way home and bought a lime, so the well-earned G'n'T I gave myself when I got home could be properly garnished.

Tomorrow, I think I shall try to make another batch of marmalade. It's a nice, warm, indoor occupation.

In which I travel to Dublin

I have been looking forward to, and planning, this trip to Dublin to see various fiends and to attend Octocon, for months, but as often seems to happen, it appears to have been a long time in the future for ages, then suddenly it was week away, without any warning!
I spent most of yesterday faffing about with last minute work stuff, as my quiet day in theoffice to ensure everything was up together turned into a lot of firefighting. And then the evening was taken up with packing. I don’t know whether it’s just me, but I always seem to end up in a state of panic in case I have packed the wrong things, or too little, or that I will discover that my choices of clothes etc. are wholly inappropriate to the place, or the weather, or the event. Knowing how foolish this is does not seem to change anything. *sigh*

Still, I did manage to be quite restrained when it came to packing books, on the basis that if one is attending a Science Fiction/Fantasy convention in a major city the chances of being unable to acquire extra books if needed are fairly low…

I was disappointed but unsurprised to find my first train of the day was running late (Thank you so much, First Great Western.) Probably just as well I booked the train an hour earlier than I thought was necessary, really….

However, the train did make up much of the time and I arrived at the airport with plenty of time in hand, and was able to go through security with only a minor check (apparently books look suspicious under x-rays, Who knew?) happily, Southampton is a dinky litle airport which, at least on a Thursday afternoon, is not crowded. I actually walked past the entrance to the security without realising it as I was loking for a queue, and had to turn back!

The flight was short and uneventful. I was disappointed that low cloud meant I couldn't see much.

Then Dublin, and a long bus ride brought me to the hotel.Several very friendy and helpful Dubliners ensured that I got off the bus in the right place, and shortly after checking in I met up with Lorraine and her Spirit Guide, @Nemone7. (Check out Lorrraine's blog to see what they'd been up to all day - way more exciting than my uneventful journeying!) for dinner and chat and plaanning of nNew Fun Stuff to do tomorrow. I believe graveyards will be invovled. And maybe tea. 

Also, unfortunately, Early Rising.

The Thaw!

It appears that we are no longer suffering the long winter, and will not, after all, be reduced to twisting hay into sticks to burn in order to survive.

The flowers that bloom in the spring (tra la) are not yet blooming, but the snow is melting, the upside-down 4WD wrapped in police tape has been removed from the ditch at the end of the road, the giant snowman is just a heap of dirty slush, and we seem to be having rain rather than snow.

It makes a change.

The roads are full of potholes from frost damage, and no doubt we will all pay the price in Council Tax in due course.

I, as I mentioned in the last post, have been buying rail tickets. I'm going to London at the end of February to visit relatives, go to the theatre and see some exhibitions.

So, I needed to but train tickets. Which ought to be straight forward but isn't. Bouncing around from one website to another to find one which (a) admits the relevent train exisits (b) doesn't add on massive 'booking fees' (c) is working. At one point the ticket I was trying to buy disappered between my putting it in the basket and the site letting me move to the paying stage.

I decided to call South West Trains and buy over the phone instead. Except, it turns out that just because a ticket is shown for a certain train at a certain price on their wensite, doesn't mean you can by it off them if you phone. Apparently they are each allocated a certain number of tickets and they are not interchangeable between phone sales and online sales. And the ticket prices shown by National Rail enquiries are not the same as the ones shown by South West Trains are not the same as the ones shown by TheTrainLine.

Shopping around and faffing around I found 1st class return tickets for £34. (Bizarrly, 1st class was £1 more each way than standard, hence the 'luxury'. Although I think it will be a smallish, slow train so probably the only advantage will be a less crowded & therefore quiter carriage)

Had I bought the first "cheapest tickets available" offered me it would have been £56 standard class. (and How hard would it be just to have accurate, honest information up front? Oh well.

Irriatingly, as tickets are only available 12 weeks in advance, I couldn't buy tickets for the Amanda Palmer / Jason Webley / EvelynEvelyn show at the same time: I shall have to try to remember to book them as soon as we're within 12 weeks, to secure cheap tickets.

Which of course, reminds me of the exciting (if not unexpected) news that Ms Amanda Fucking Palmer, and Mr Neil Freaking Gaiman have announced their engagement!
I think that Non Birding Bill (here)

or maybe the Birdchick (here)

Have said it best... Lovely, happy news for a Friday evening.

What I Did on My Holidays: Part I

It did not begin well. Due to the cost of airport parking, and the not wanting to have to drive around (especially around Heathrow) when it was cold, and dark, and I was tired, I decided to start my journey by train. I was organised. I checked the time table and the connections. I re-checked, an hour before setting off. I checked the display boards when I got to the station. All were unanimous. The first train would come at 19.14, which would give me 8 minutes to change trains in Bath, en route for London. And it would have worked, I’m sure, if the train company had played there part by sending the train. So, with that, and with the next train being delayed, I didn’t get to Heathrow until Midnight, instead of arriving as planned at about 9.45. It’s just as well that I had planned to sleep at Heathrow (In a funky little Pod hotel), as I would have been very much more stressed had my flight been in the evening not the following morning.

The ‘Yotel’ Pod was rather sweet and the bed was very comfy. I slept, and arose refreshed for the first of many breakfasts.

My flight was on time, less than half full and therefore peaceful and comfortable. Changing planes in Istanbul slightly less so – the international and domestic terminals are quite a long walk from one another, and the domestic terminal was packed, as it was the Friday before the start of the Eid El Ulna festival on Monday (‘Feast of the Sacrifice’, which is festival, when everyone goes home to be with family, so my travelling was pretty much the equivalent of getting a flight on Christmas Eve…so the flight to Dalaman was absolutely packed. I felt quite fortunate in having actually got the flight to Dalaman, however, as due to various delays, cancellations and gate changes for a lot of flights, a very poor quality announcement system (poor sound quality; not even the Turkish passengers could make out what was being said) and an apparently arbitrary approach to buses I was half expecting to find myself on a flight to Antayla, or any one of a number of destinations…

It was therefore particularly nice to be met at the airport by my sister, Kat, and driven home (by one of her neighbours, who has a car) to a hot meal, drinks, and bed.

.