Friday Needs Another Damned Nap
I used to love taking the train down to London. When GNER had the East Coast mainline Mrs. Toad and used to travel pretty regularly, in the days when I lived in London and we only saw one another every couple of weeks. As often as we could we would go and sit in the dining car and slowly get drunk all the way to the end of the line. Those were really rather romantic days.
Anyway, when GNER’s parent company got into trouble they were forced to sell off the East Coast mainline under some obscure rule of Capitalism which requires failing companies to get rid of the only bits of them which work – in other words the only parts of the company which might actually help them work through their problems and get back on their feet. Obviously if this doesn’t make perfect sense to you then you must be some sort of Communist, but it strikes me as some sort of ludicrous rule dreamt up by the vultures rather than the victims, but hey ho. If nationwide healthcare is too Communisty for you then what chance do sensible rules of business have?
Anyhow, that line went to National Express who have made an unspeakable balls up of the whole operation. Apart from running a previously healthy line into near-bankruptcy they have taken away the fucking dining cars, which now only operate on a fraction of the trains. So yes, making a service notably more shit and that service therefore becoming markedly less favourable with customers, who’d have thought those two were connected. Gosh the world can be a strange place sometimes.
So, this being Friday, please take the opportunity to de-lurk and fill in your Friday Five:
1. Favourite mode of long-distance transport.
2. Weirdest place you’ve had a surprisingly civillised meal.
3. Thing that just isn’t what it used to be.
4. Most boring everyday thing which actually turned out to be quite romantic.
5. Most annoying train habit.
Beck – Broken Train
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iLiKETRAiNS – The Beeching Report
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1. The train. Particularly in Europe.
2. Nottingham.
3. Trade Unions. 30% paycut for bin men in Leeds? Pay freeze for public sector staff nationwide? Royal Mail facing cutbacks? Twenty years ago we’d have all been out by now!
4. Scrambled eggs.
5. Stopping the trolley lady for tea every time she passes. And stealing the biscuits.
Ooh! Is it me this week?!
1. I do have a strange taste for long-distance driving, actually, but the train definitely still wins. I hate aeroplanes and I’ve never travelled very far by boat, so maybe I’m not the man to answer this question.
2. When Mrs. Toad and I were in the back of beyond in Madagascar (ie, mostly eating grilled packets of rice and mystery meat substance by the side of the road) we found the main train station in Andasibe (I think). In the middle of nowhere stood this amazing, crumbling brick building and inside a completely empty but immaculately turned-out bistro. The tables were set with starched white tablecloths and we were served most formally by waistcoated waiters. It was one of the most surreal dining experiences either of us has ever had.
3. The authority and aura of teachers. I remember when they were feared and revered in equal measure. Now I just pity them.
4. When Mrs. Toad and I first met, aged about fifteen, we shared a meal of tuna straight from the tin, sitting on upturned crates in the gutted kitchen of the house her family had just moved into in Vienna. Particularly in retrospect, that was very romantic indeed.
5. Other people even being on the train pisses me off. Never mind if they fail to make themselves entirely inconspicuous.
1. Long car trips – if I’m driving by myself. It makes me feel like a drifter and a rebel. Plus I get to listen to whatever I want and then sing to it without judgement.
2. A hotel restaurant in a small town in southern Colorado. It was my first experience with lamb and I never looked back…
3. Air travel for the obvious reasons. It used to be exciting, but now it’s just excruciating.
4. Going grocery shopping, which would turn into making a gigantic dinner.
5. When people sit next to you even though there are many completely open seats everywhere else.
Oh… do you mean the annoying train habits other people have?!
1. Portkey.
2. The International Space Station.
3. My libido.
4. Cooking bacon.
5. Derailment.
Have they changed C&B’s medication again?..
1. The ferry. When the crossing is a bit rough, you can stumble around like a drunken idiot and no one else will mind. It’s the only time I ever truly feel accepted.
2. I’ve yet to have a civilised meal. But I’ll let you know if it ever comes up.
3. Casual racism. You may have read this story about the outrage caused by a blacked-up tribute to the Jackson 5 on an Australian talent TV show. The article mentions they had also appeared on the show 20 years ago. What it fails to mention is that they were invited back because last time they won the contest.
4. I once made a pizza, and added a selection of ‘red’ toppings (pepper, sliced tomato, that kind of thing), placing them strategically to create a heart shape. She didn’t notice.
5. People that feel it necessary to include everyone else on the train carriage in their mobile phone conversation.
Also, can I be the first to say: PAAAAAVEMENT!
1. I still find planes exciting. I insist on taking a window seat and spend the rest of the time trying to work out which part of the world I’m looking at. Also, how the hell can they justify the price of train tickets these days? Seriously, if it costs that much to maintian a mode of transport that fails every time there’s some snow or a bit of wind then it’s time to get rid! With no dining cars to boot and a complete lack of reliablity they’re going to need to make it a lot cheaper before a skint flint like me gives it a go over buses or a flight.
2. I used to live on the island of Iona as a kid and we used to eat quite civilised meals on beaches quite regularly. I chewed my food and everything.
3. Engineering. You wouldn’t of seen Thomas Telford get away with this shit.
4. Google searches
5. Neds playing happy hardcore on shite mobile phones to their mates.
1. Car, in the back seat, with headphones on. If the driver can be persuaded to wear a chauffeur’s cap and call me sir, so much the better.
2. It’ll happen yet.
3. I used to enjoy whinging about how things aren’t what they used to be so much more a few years ago.
4. I can be counted on to utterly ruin any romantic moment. It’s my superpower.
5. Having only been on a train once, it’s hard to say. Being glared at by a morbidly obese policeman for twenty minutes wasn’t pleasant.
Is it fair to suggest that C&B’s libido has probably already won this thread.
That’ll be its most significant achievement in years!
Oh dear, kicking a man while he’s down. Shameful.
An old man too, even worse.
Pavement?
Ah right, ATP.
1. The train cos of the views.
2. A mud hut in Zimbabwe.
3. Zimbabwe and Empire magazine – I used to buy it religiously but either I grew up or it sold out and got sh*t, or both I suppose.
4. Bacon and Eggs and a beach pebble.
5. Farting – I was on the train last night and somebody cooked up a corker, it was a bit like a “stink bomb” from school, but organic. It truly stung the nostrils – I looked around accusingly in incredulous fashion which probably just served to implicate me.
1. Favourite mode of long-distance transport.
Has to be the train, the bit between Edinburgh and Newcastle is just beautiful
2. Weirdest place you’ve had a surprisingly civillised meal.
Not at Bart’s (cheeky bugger)
3. Thing that just isn’t what it used to be,
friends
4. Most boring everyday thing which actually turned out to be quite romantic.
The gf and I have just moved in together, so coming home from work everyday is still quite romantic!
5. Most annoying train habit.
People on a busy train who think it is ok for their bag to have a seat of it’s own….,
pavement seconded
1. I love the train – hurtling through the countryside whilst listening to music. It has to be the most chilled out way to travel right?
2. When I was in Turkey – we were staying in the centre of all things disco, garish and hen partyish. Lots of neon and topless men! But there was this one lovely restaurant which has to have served me the best lamb shish I have had ever, and the lady who owned it just gave stuff away for free… 54 lira? Just make it 30!
3. Cinemas – modern day cinemas are soulless places
4. Probably cooking too… I have a serious love affair going on with food!
5. Just because we are sharing a table does not mean I want to be your friend! See the wires coming from my ears? I CAN NOT HEAR YOU!!!
That’s right, laugh it up youngsters. Your day will come. Now, nap time!
Why’s everyone so excited about road topping?
Modern day cinemas really are shit actually, good call.
AnotherDave, Pavement are curating All Tomorrow’s Parties somewhere near here somewhere vaguely soon, I think. So something about that.
Has to be the train, the bit between Edinburgh and Newcastle is just beautiful
You must be getting better, Chutters, you’re starting to talk sense again!
Oh and I agree with your number three, too. It was never the same after Chandler and Monica got married.
1. Trains. You can’t beat staring out of a window watching the countryside slide by while listening to great music. Oslo to Bergen is a particularly good example.
2. Three Chimneys on Skye is remarkably civilised, given its lack of proximity to just about anything. Mind you, the biggest surprise is to the wallet.
3. The older generation. Seriously, old folk aren’t half as considerate as they used to be. The number of times I’ve been stood at a quiet bus stop and let some old codger/wifie shove in front, only to have them squint at the bus number and then wave the fucking thing on because they were waiting on a different service. Swines.
4. Walking.
5. Probably ignoring people, pointedly.
Walking is a fine answer. Especially when it ends in a nice restaurant and a bottle of wine. Or two.
I don’t think Yashin actually meant walking from the taxi, across the pavement and into the restaurant..
Walking anywhere, really.
I love walking!
One thing that annoys me in my crazy old head, is when some lazy bugger gets on a bus for all of 2 stops (which in Edinburgh is normally no more than 400 mtrs)….i mean what is the bloody point!
RCC – that’s something I could never figure out, even when LRT did two stop fares for 60p, it was still a waste of money.
The motion is “pavement”…..motion carried.
Madcow! Rules!
!
Madcow does rule
Pavement excitment is the ice cream flavour of the day!
Pavements excite me too. Almost indecently so.
1) I love them all. Planes are just comforting, and the boardum is really just the universe telling me I don’t sit down and read for four hours straight enough. There is no view like a train view and, there is not sleep like the sleep in a sleeper car. My wife and I drive down to Cape Cod to see her family a fair bit. We veer wildly between having really great car conversations and just sitting minding our own business and thinking. So to re-iterate: I love all travel.
2) When on tour a group of us chartered a fishing boat in an attempt to forget a particularly rough theatre stop. We all brought sandwiches from the supermarket. The captain of the boat took one look at them, wrinkled his nose and produced a table cloth, Spanish torta and supply of pastries.
3) Summer.
4) Getting fresh, local organic vegetables delivered. We cook more and are forced to find recipes for things like kale, okra and callaloo greens.
5) “Hellooo! Can you hear me. Yes? Okay. I’m on the train. Yes. I can’t e-mail that right now. Can you please find the latest version of the presentation and sent it to Pete. Great. No. Another two hours. Yeah. Boring Yes I know. It’s soo boring. Are you guys meeting at the hotel. Yeah? Great. I’ll be off the train in two hours so I”l see you then”.
1.
2.
3. { all my answers have been used. bugger.
4.
5.
So, Ben is shit at computers and Matthew is lazy. Come on, people, pull yourselves together.
Can Matthew have Ben’s spare one?
Or was Madcow there first?
Oh. Please delete first one moderator.
Done. It was the Eric Djemba-Djemba of comments – so good you made it twice.
There is a sickening feeling betweening hitting ’submit’ and the thought “I should go back and proof read this”.
Boutros Boutros Ghali always made me chuckle.
I can imagine his parents saying to each other, “You know, I really like the name Boutros…”
“Hmmm.. Me too…”
“Shall we?”
“Yeah.”
1. Driving. Not a passenger, but driving.
2. K-38 Baja, Mexico. The area looks like a bomb went off, but the torta stand kills it.
3. Myself. Don’t know if the current me or the old me is better.
4. When two of you enjoy the same TV show. The mutual focus makes you kind of feel connected.
5. Earpiece guy who has to yell over the train noise to use his phone.
Anyone with earpieces needs them shoved in a different orifice to the one they think it should be shoved into.
okay, okay, okay…
1. train (but only if I get the window seat.)
2. under my bed.
3. most things; fireworks, the size of sweeties, birthday presents, sitting at the back of the bus, popcorn, reality tv(whatever happened to gladiators?), my dad, showers, being so excited about something you’ve saved up to to buy you can’t concentrate on anything else, the smell of my kitchen, sitting having a meal with what is supposed to be your family, crossing the road, the vocabulary of 8 year olds, coco pops, mince and tatties, saturday afternoons, tolerance in general, knock knock jokes…there’s too many things
4. a beautiful girl once just smiled at me in passing on bath street. I don’t know why I think that was romantic, but it certainly felt that way.
5. the looks some people give you as you’re trying to find a seat is unbearable
happy now?
Amen to the orifice shoving. train, store, airplaine, etc… all rude as hell.
Matthew – done with flair and style, well played sir.
This got missed out earlier, but hating the ‘my bag deserves a seat all of it’s own’ crowd deserves some respect.
I feel incredibly yuck today.
oh, a suitable answer for 5 would be: the people who don’t offer their seat to those who need it ie. elderly folk, pregnant woman etc. why are people such selfish bastards? I once seen a woman who looked like she was about to go into labour at any moment and not one cunt looked at her twice standing there quite blatantly in distress. she was at the other end of the carriage from me so I got up and I was going along to say she could have my seat and what happened? yeah… some absolute twat sat down in my seat. I was something to behold in the subsequent few moments. I really don’t understand people. I really don’t.
Matthew
Has the size of sweeties changed in recent years?
Most definitely. The size of creme eggs and the like have shrunk, I’m telling you. And bags of sweets like m&ms hardly have anything in them anymore.
Gosh, I sound obsessed with sweets, I’m not really. well, sorta.
I want some Tooty Frooties now.
Matthew
Might you not just be bigger now you are not a child?
no.
evidence…
http://www.chocablog.com/news/cadbury-admits-creme-egg-shrinkage/
and…
http://www.cremeegg.co.uk/post/2009/04/15/Creme-Eggs-e28093-Not-all-egg-sactly-the-same-size.aspx (this one implies that they have been getting smaller, but that there won’t be any further reductions in size)
Bastards!
Let it out.
1. Favourite mode of long-distance transport.
I love flying. 15hrs+ at 35,000ft+ is a fucking doddle. I fucking hate transients/tourists who don’t understand the etiquette of airports & air travel, though. It’s NOT hard. There’s one VERY simple rule: prepare in advance. If you don’t know how airports work then find out before you leave for one. That’s one of the remarkable beauties of the internet & Google. Most, if not all, airlines have an online FAQ spoonfeed, or you can telephone them & ASK. As for airports, again, the rules are kinder-garden simple. You may not agree with some of the security guidelines, but they’re in place for everyone so there’s NO excuse for you & your fucking idiot family holding up the x-ray queue because you don’t want to lose your expensive over-sized bottle of perfume or sun tan lotion. If i hear one more Neanderthal say “what’s the point of restricting the size of liquids when you can buy the same thing in the restricted sizes on the other side of security” I will make that fucker drink whatever cosmetic they’re arguing the toss over.
Rarely, people, have I come across departure lounge Boots’ chemist stores selling the components of a liquid explosive, let alone a fully composed liquid explosive in a factor 35 sun tan lotion bottle. Fucking morons.
Apart from that, I LOVE flying.
2. Weirdest place you’ve had a surprisingly civillised meal.
The UN. Until you’ve been in the NY building you won’t understand how oddly civil service oppressive it is, but their canteens are fucking amazing.
3. Thing that just isn’t what it used to be.
UK Police uniforms. I liked the old ‘Bobby on the Beat’ tit on the head look; it reminded me of the God-fearing respect I had as a kid for the coppers – that & the curious cheap leather/man made fibre smell that their boots & smocks gave off, that you #could smell when they were actually on the beat & would call you over to check you weren’t skylarking or engaged in anti-social horseplay. It’s the smell of authority I feared as a kid when I was caught up to no good & got a clip ’round the lughole for my efforts. Now the UK police look like they’re extras from a Hollywood interpretation of some gamer’s dystopian fantasy wank.
4. Most boring everyday thing which actually turned out to be quite romantic.
TV in bed, on a weekend morning, with TWoTH, watching cookery programs.
5. Most annoying train habit.
People sitting in reserved seats they haven’t reserved & pleading ignorance OR pleading they were there first OR just aggressively British.
1. E-mail, because it helps people send other people artwork.
2. Ontario, they have a surprising amount of artwork.
3. The old artwork.
4. Giving someone artwork and having them choose.
5. People that show you their artwork.
You have to wonder about people who argue with airport security. It’s like “You’ve clearly bought an airline ticket, do you not want to use it?” Just shut up, do what they say and they’ll let you get on the flight! Fuck them about, spend the night in the airport detention rooms and see how the wife and kids like that instead of flying to Disney-fucking-land.
Apart from at Cardiff airport. The retarded fucking simians they have working there deserve as much shit as you can fling at them.
Little Beaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar…! Please read the above comment about artwork and get scribbling.
1. Flying – British Air, best tea ever in airline travel situation experience and a sweet upgrade to business section was simply and profoundly wonderful.
2. Roadside stop somewhere between Ephesus and Edirne, literally a petrol station where we thought we were grabbing a sandwich but got seated at a full restaurant, fed an entire meal of delicious lamb kebab and watched out the window as they washed our car top to bottom and vacuumed it as well – no charge for that last bit, comes with the meal, which cost about $4.00 per person (was 2000).
3. bathtubs, wtf? why are they all square, short and shallow? i might perhaps admit to displacing up a teensy bit more water these days but COMEON!!! can’t a girl soak anymore??
4. driving from NYC to LA with 5 dogs – no really, but maybe you have to be a dyke for that to work (?)
5. they don’t exist here anymore, mostly
1. Favourite mode of long-distance transport.
Train, definitely. I have trouble staying awake on the train, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Also you can do all sorts of other lovely things, read, listen to stuff, eat and drink, work if you absolutely can’t avoid it.
2. Weirdest place you’ve had a surprisingly civillised meal.
Home.
3. Thing that just isn’t what it used to be.
The bargain cheap takeaway. Everything seems to be hugely expensive all of a sudden – I’ve spent more on takeaway meals from a couple of places round here than I would have planned on spending in the place with drink as well.
4. Most boring everyday thing which actually turned out to be quite romantic.
Time zones. Alright, but I know what I’m talking about here.
5. Most annoying train habit.
I was on a journey recently opposite a bloke who (1) was a twat (2) was having a really really loud conversation on this mobile, with lots of shouted swearing and everything (3) had his bag on the seat and refused to move it ‘no, sorry, I can’t move it at all’ and (4) – as more detail is required to really let this one fly – the people he refused to give a seat to were clearly a hen party of thirty/fortysomethings who then stood all around him and his double seat pouring sarcasm on him until he escaped at the next stop (miraculously managing to take his ‘can’t move it’ bag with him.
Although, for all of that, I suspect that my own personal really bad train habit is snoring and dribbling and possibly suddenly waking up and shouting.
Tart, I don’t know about having to be a dyke, but you might just have to be a nutter.
Adam, with that many of them I am surprised no-one took direct action. 40-year-old women in large herds scare me.
To be fair to Tart, I think she made the Dyke point in question three too.
Adam, the waking up shouting thing is surprisingly more endearing than you might guess.
And Ben! I used to think you were the “good” one in the family *sob
‘The good one’ is a relative term, which is important to take into account when dealing with Toads…
1.There’s nothing better than a good bus, in my opinion. Moderately fast. Inexpensive. And they operate in a great deal more of Scotland than trains do.
2.Bed. Undoubtedly.
3.Modern Popular Music.
4.Primula cheese…
I’m only kidding, chaps.
I’d say flowers. There’s nothing extra-ordinary about flowers. (Conservative answer, I know. Boo.)
5. When obnoxious slugs listen to their music too loudly.