What a couple of days. I got home last night to find my laptop had died. not a big worry as it’s not mine, it’s work’s. But this is my only work machine. No laptop… no internet in the office all day. Scary.
Anyways, I sussed it’s just the power supply that’s died (£50 inc courier delivery for a knock-off, £120 for a genuine Sony part) so another has been ordered and should be there for me tomorrow with any luck. This will allow me to keep tabs on you lot.
An early start was necessary this morning as I was off to Tamworth for a nice, simple server migration. I had to go via the office to check that someone else’s power supply worked on my lapotop (it did – thus proving that it was my PSU), so I set off around 7:30. This is early for me, I know it isn’t for some of you. My heart bleeds.
Broom down the M1. Broom, I say. *screech*
OK, that was Sheffield. It’s always crap. Past Sheffield. *BROOM* once more. Then *screech*.
Arse. Once big sodding queue from junction 31 to junction 23a. I didn’t get about 30 mph for the entire stretch. I was hoping to be on site for 10:00. I arrived at 11:20. Feck. And do you know what caused the slowdown? No? Well neither do I.
Nothing at all was mentioned on the radio. Only the M6 and M62 had problems as far as the people in London were concerned. No crap on the carriageway, no burning wrecks, no spillages, on corpses, no rampaging herds of wildebeest. Nowt.
I have a theory. The Government are trying to convince everyone to use our shiny wonderful rail service as it’s good for The Environment. And they’ve sunk billions of quid into it and they feel a little silly that it’s still ****. So, what they do every rush hour is send out groups of cars onto every motorway. Their job is simple – drive side by side and at 7:27… STOP.
They slam on their anchors. Stop still for 5 minutes so that everything starts to concertina behind them, then they bugger off leaving no trace. Due to the weight of traffic, this causes a huge queue with no obvious reason for it being there.
If I catch them, I’ll kill them, I swear. My average speed getting to site was 33mph. My average on the way back was over 60, but that’s because I beat their rush hour trap.
Well, job done and I’m home. I think I’ll sit and watch more Quantum Leap. Spooks is on at 9, Monkey Dust and 2DTV after that. Then I may remove my eyeballs to give them a rest.
Actually, I may not have heard it because by that stage I’d given up on the radio (you can only hear about the blody queen’s speech for so long) and put a CD on to calm down.
Perhaps Supercharger wasn’t the best choice of “cool off” album…
Dunno what you’re talking about *whistles innocently*
Fly? Walk? All become self-employed and/or work from home?
I remember getting the train to/from work when I was temping in Pudsey. Over 2 weeks, there were something like 15 cancellations or major delays – and this was just after they’d put the prices up by roughly 50%.
One letter of complaint netted me a ten pound travel voucher. Not bad seeing as I only ever paid for Bradford to Pudsey and never the return leg.
Well, the station at Pudsey (at the time) closed at lunchtime and didn’t have a machine, so I couldn’t pay there. The conductor on the train couldn’t move down it to collect fares either, as it was too busy. I would have paid if I could have. Honest.
I guess it depends on how many people you can cram into a train, but I saw figures that show a train uses more fuel per person that the average family car.
just had to laff at this post honey, i think you may be right about the whole scandal.. the government may well have highway jackers.. what other reason do the roads become blocked for no apparent reason, however when i read Sharons comment, made me think you may not have actually heard the radio broadcast due to ‘steaming from clogs in brain syndrom’.. lol xx
lol you innocent! *giggles until back goes funny*
Return tickets? :p
I’m in the process of writing a very insulting complaints letter to arriva, I’ll mail you the finised one cause i know you like that kinda thing.
So pissed off though, the arriva employees on the platform arent much use either.
There was a whisper on the radio at about 11ish that there was a broken down truck around Junc 28 or so… but don’t quote me on that one!
LOL going to be a while before you beat 89mph on average again, me thinks 😉
Trains?? they can get more people to use them, they can’t fit them on. Last night I went to catch my normal 5.10 train – Cancelled, so I went for the next one, whcih was to full to get on. So I wait for the next one, only 2 carriages!, I just squeeze on that one but its then delayed by 2 guys that won’t take their foot out of the door having missed the previous train due to over-crowding, to be honest I dont blame them for being pissed off!!
So if the trains AND the roads are screwed, what we supposed to do?
Why pay for a return when I knew I’d get away with it? As it happens, with the price rise I mentioned, the single tickets weren’t much cheaper than the returns had been. I felt partially justified because of that.