Garmin

There are quite a few things I want to do this year, exploring new things is one of them. This entry is a first for me. The first time I’ve written a blog on a train. It’s a 442 pig as well. Yes I know that you thought that they had been withdrawn, but no about 5 of them are still around and if I don’t get my usual Virgin Voyager train home I will generally end up on a 442. Long may this continue.

I’ve got a friend who works for Garmin, you know the GPS people. We are having a meeting at work in February for all out GIS users and we’ve been asking companies that we know if they would send us some freebies to hand out to people at the meeting, give a good impression of us etc. Well I cheekily asked my Garmin friend. I haven’t had too much dealing with him of late, something I hope to correct in 2007 and he is such a good bloke. Anyway, yes he said he’d try and find us some things. You know pens, post-it notes etc. Well today the porters delivered a HUGE box to my desk full of sunglasses. I was totally gobsmaked. I know that Garmin was quite a customer friendly organisation but this was just incredible. Many thanks to them and to my mate for organising it. I owe you a beer (or many beers) my friend.

Hayley and Candice

Each morning I try and catch the same early train to work and. I’ve blogged about my fellow passengers before. It is amazing that when you travel with the same group of people each day and sit there having to listen to their conversations how much you can learn about them and their lives. Fuzzy woman* who always gets off at Southampton was chatting to her friend this morning, She’s normally alone and except for Airport man who always says hello to her before he gets off the train. Anyway, during the 5 min conversation that I was forced to overhear I found out that
a) Her name is Sue
b) She has two sisters
c) Her daughter is called Hayley
d) Hayley is getting married in three weeks time
e) Hayley’s friends Emma and Candice** are expecting to be bridesmaids, but Hayley might not ask them to be.

Still listening to all that keep me amused during the boring train journey. Can’t wait for the lighter mornings for that we can see stuff out of the window.

*she has fuzzy hair
**Not THE Candice shurely?? The one I know. Now wouldn’t that be a coincidence?

Stupid Kid

One disadvantage of getting the later train into work in the morning is that I have to put up with school kids from some school in Bournemouth. There is a whole group of them that get on the train from Brockenhurst onwards. Funny thing is that classroom rules as to seating still exist, even on a train. You know, good kids sit in the front and the bad kids sit at the back. Now I’m only basing whether the kids is good or bad on how they act and dress but there is a definite split with the good kids sitting in the front carriage and the bad ones the last but one (the last one being first class) . This doesn’t normally affect me as I always sit in the second carriage. However today my early train was well late, So much so that is was running just ahead of the later train. So the Brockenhurst kids managed to catch my train and were forced to sit in the same carriage as me. When it was announced that my train would run non-stop to Bournemouth one of the younger kids got a bit worried. How would her mates catch the train. Where would they all meet up? The older kids explained that her mates would just have to catch the train behind, and they would all meet up at Bournemouth Station. The little ones concern about her mates was kinda nice. At my school if we were on a train/bus etc that were going to wiz past our mates we’d just wave and laugh as we wizzed passed them.

442 End of the Line?

Well today was the last booked working of the Class 442 Wessex Electrics.(known as pigs) One unit was due to operate Waterloo-Fratton-Waterloo-Weymouth-Waterloo-Weymouth-Bournemouth. I travelled up to Woking to pick the train up to head down to Fratton. This train was well advertised on the South West Trains e-mail list and I was hoping that I would meet up with the guy who runs the list a chap by the name of Terry Wong-Ming. Sure enough it wasn’t difficult to spot him. Not many Chinese looking train spotters around. Down to Fratton, of to take pics of the buses that was working the rail replacement service down to Pompy and back up to Waterloo in the company of Terry. Really nice bloke, who knows his stuff. Was pointing out the different 455 units that were seen. They all look the same to me. Sat in the buffet car which I’ve never done in a pig, just to get the fully effect of the motors. They off to Weymouth, sat first class and was expecting the guard to charge us for the weekend first class upgrade but it was obvious that many SWT employees knew that it was an historic day and waved the charge. Despite being train mad and living in Bournemouth for 40 odd years have never done the line to Weymouth beyond Wareham. I’ve only done the Poole-Wareham section once, after a training course in Poole once. Quick dash around Weymouth. Took a few bus pictures, added another picture of a church to my collection. Got fish and chips and back on the train heading up to Waterloo. First class again. Was in some good company that day. Got back to Waterloo and the driver was letting people sit in the cab. I chance I wasn’t going to turn down. He even took a photo of me. Pity I didn’t smile. Then home on another PIG. Got off at Winchester and watch the train disappear into the distance. Good bye old friend..

Happy New Year (?)

I think I'm becoming more and more cynical and negative in my old age, so a New Year resolution is to get all that negativity out of my system now and them hopefully I can spend the year and a happy chappy, so here is my A-Z list of things that annoy me at the moment.

Auld Lang Syne

God I hate this song, which too many people insist that we sing it at midnight at New Year, even though weren’t not Scottish. Why????, its rubbish and all that crossing arms stuff just gets on my nerves. Glad New Year is only an annual event.

Bungee-jumping
Suicide for the indecisive

Clowns
I totally forget which site I got this picture from, as you can see this lady is obviously so full of joy from meeting someone calling themselves ‘Spark Plug’




Dentists
Charge far too much. I will need to go and see one at some point but I don’t fancy re-mortgage the house in order to get a check up done.

Ellis-Bextor, Sophie
Bad on so many levels - Avoid

Football Fanzines
They were good in the 90’s, but most that are still around now seem to have lost their way a bit. The Bournemouth one is particularly bad.

Gnomes
Someone somewhere is making money selling these tacky items.

Happy Eater
Remember them? And that stupid logo of a smiley face with his finger pointing into his mouth. Glad they have gone

Internal Emails
I get emails at work stating whether the lift in the extension is working or not. Sue gets them about dead mice in the freezer. The main problem being those that haven’t got the owners name tag on it, so they don’t know who it belongs to. Why can't I get interesting mails like that.

Jeans,
Well not jeans themselves and in the winter they are a lot warmer than normal trousers, especially when you have stood at the end of a runway for 5 hours. What annoys me about jeans are the pockets… I have big hands and I struggle to get my hands in and out of my pockets and its totally impossible to get anything out of my pockets whilst sat down. I guess that if I struggle to get things out of my pockets then a pick pocket would find it impossible, I hope. I’d still prefer decent pockets on them despite it not being ‘call and trendy’

Kenneth Williams
Was watching him as a kid on some science programme. They were talking about how the size and shapes of noses effects people voice. They had him walking out of a huge copy of his nose and when asked about how is was to see such a big version of his nose, he said it was wonderful. Less than a week later he was on a chat show. They got on to the subject of embarrassing moments. Williams said that the other day he was forced to walk out of a big nose and how much he hated it. What a two faced git.

Luxembourg
Luxembourg - Dutch Flag, British national anthem, Belgium money (before the Euro) Get you own identity Luxembourgers.

Monkeys
I have this irrational hatred of monkeys (the animals, not the band) which is totally irrational I know. But there you go.

Nina Nannar (pronounced Ni-Na Narn-Na)
You know her from ITV news. Did her parents really want her to have a name that sounded like a fire engine? The world is fully of examples of parents not thinking about the names of their children fully. I was nearly called Oliver, just image it, Oli Olding… Good stage name for a bad comedian but not for a rock god like myself. Peter is OK, except it was called Peter Pan at school, which to a 7 year old was an insult, but now I wish I was forever young.

Oscars
Well done USA, how wonderful it is that you produce films that are so good that they win Oscars. Now try winning a competition that you haven’t invented yourself.

Public Information films
Why did they stop showing them. I know the ones from the 60’s are showing their age, but why not do knew ones. Green Cross Man Rules!

Queen
Now I’ve nothing against Freddie Mercury, great singer with such a powerful voice. Pity they never did a decent song. Radio Ga-ga??? Yes truly ga-ga if you ask me. And don’t get me started on Bohemian Rhapsody.

Rude words in songs when there is no need for it.

Now I’m not prude. Whilst I hardly swear, I’m not objecting if other people utter the odd rude word. But what I think is pointless is when an artist records two versions of a song, one with a swear word in and the other without when there is no need for it. Best example I can think of is James Blunt and his song “You’re beautiful”. The ‘radio’ version he says that he’s Flying High, whereas the ‘adult version’ he ‘f*****g high’ Now what’s the point of the adult version? We got the message OK when you said that you were flying high. What are you trying to prove?

Squirrels

Now if they were to just eat the nuts then that is fine by me. They want to survive just as much as any other animal. However, what I object to is that fact that they will only eat a small amount of the nuts and then try and bury the rest as fast as they can, so that nothing else will get a look in. So I have to put out more, which the squirrels bury and so it goes on.

Thirty second rule.

All train companies now have a thirty second rule, That is they will close the doors on a train, up to 30 seconds before its departure time. So the O6:48 train which I catch will have its doors closed at 06:47 and 30 seconds and if you arrive at 06:47 and thirty-one seconds then its tough, even though that the train will probably then leave at 06:47 and 45 seconds, still before its published time of departure. They say that this is to ensure a punctual train service, i.e. to give the driver more time to drive the train to its destination on time. Which isn’t difficult as on my line we now have the slowest service since the abolition of steam. It really gets my goat that if you don’t arrive at the platform before 30 seconds before the train is timed to depart then tough, however if the train I late then that is tough as well. What’s tougher is at Euston, their barriers onto the platform close two minutes before the train is due to depart. Oh well train delays are on the fall, even if the passengers are still stuck on the platform not having got there before time.

U - When used instead of you

Birthday cards with U R 18 on them done in the style of a number plate. Pathetic

V
Did the inventor of the alphabet get really lazy at this point? All the other letters are unique up to this point. OK he did have a lazy one at I and just added a tail to it make the next letter J, and Q is just the letter before last with a tail as well, but now he gets really lazy.. U is OK, but then for the next letter, he just made U a bit more pointy to make V, then two V’s next to each other to make W, then the two V one on top of the other to make X, a single V with a tail and you’ve got Y, two V’s on their side and joined and you have Z. Perhaps he was in a rush to finish it, must have been a tight deadline. But that doesn’t matter, I still feel cheated

WH Smiths
Well I’ve nothing against the company it self. It just those people who stand all lunch time standing in WH Smith reading the magazines and won’t move when you are trying to grab a magazine, which you are going to buy, rather than treating the place as a library.

Yodelling
OK for the top of mountains in Switzerland, well out of the way so no-one can hear it.

Zebra Meat

Why doesn’t supermarkets sell Zebra meat – it should be cheaper than any other sort of meat as it’s already bar coded