Are you taking the piss?

Just missed my train. I arrived with time to spare, and joined a short queue. The amount of people seemed to give little indication as to how long they were going to spend at the window. How hard could it be? You say your destination and pay your money. When I was dealt with, I took all of thirty seconds before I was moved on. Why was everyone taking so long? They all seemed to spend a great deal of time in embarrassed silence, apparently unaware of the procedure, or indeed unaware of what a train actually is. I thought some form of counselling was taking place.

These people were so oblivious of the hurry I was in, which I wouldn’t have been in if they had all been in a hurry themselves. The people seemed to think it was a general enquiry desk, not because they had anything to ask, just because they had so much time to kill in their dull and lethargic lives. I wondered if they were doing this on purpose, that these people’s only pleasure was in delaying innocent passengers. I was probably imagining it, but I could have sworn I saw secret and cruel smiles that disappeared whenever I looked at the conspirators.

The equipment for Southampton Central seemed entirely out of date as well, they had no self-service machines, and I ended up spending half my time waiting for my single ticket to be printed. It was so slow I suspected that their ‘printer’ wasn’t a printer at all, but in fact an underpaid man in a box with good handwriting. In London, they print your tickets before you’ve even finished your sentence. You’ll ask them where it is and they’ll assure you it is already safely in your pocket. The ticket itself is an artistic masterpiece, and can be redeemed on ebay for over four times its initial worth.

The staff are no great help either, apparently it was ‘Bring your retard to work and let them do your work’ day, because the cretins that served me seemed entirely unprepared for my very reasonable demands. They probably would have felt more at ease if I told them I wanted to take the grey-tube machine when the big hand meets twelve, and the little hand rests on two.

I am now on the train and it has been difficult writing because I am constantly distracted by the mumblings of the train driver, the only discernible words being the destinations, “mumble-mumble…Romsey…mumble…Salisbury… mumble-mumble…Cardiff…mumble.” For all I know this could be a compelling narrative with vital information, “Frodo finally found the ring under a park bench in Romsey, but he didn’t know the town has a train station, so he’s rung ahead, and we’re picking him up at Salisbury, I hope you’ll all welcome him aboard. He’s convinced that Snowdon is in fact Mount Doom, so we'll be taking him through Mordor, more commonly known as Wales, and drop him off at Minas Morgul, or Cardiff if you like. Let’s wish him the best of luck.”

Why is it that we still have to put up with these unclear messages? Are they afraid that if they installed Dolby Surround Sound and stopped using a cup as a microphone that the perfect clarity would scare us into believing that they were transmitting these messages telepathically? Would we misinterpret this noise as the voice of God? “Go to Bradford, for it is your home. Take the East line, for it is faster, and crisps are only 40p.”

There really should be more done in the form of entertainment for train journeys. At the moment we are limited to stealing newspapers and smelling each other. I understand it might not be in their interest to install 8” LCD screens on the back of every chair, but perhaps the staff could read over the intercom. “Our Barry is now going to read one of his charming prose poems that he’s been working on. He’s a bit of an up and coming talent, and has been posting his work on writing forums across the Internet. He’s received such comments as ‘Roflcopter’ from ‘yahooslut’ and ‘keep it up’ from ‘fatwallet77’ and is hoping you’ll be able to give him some creative feedback when he comes by with the food-trolley.”