End of the Line - Through the Medium of Interpretive Dance

There are days when the wonderful travelling public make you wonder how in God's name the human race has survived this long. Frankly on the performances I see so often I think we have until the end of the decade until the cats take over - this might be shorter if Trump ends up as president.

However the three separate instances of stupidity I am about to relate took place on just one trip from Salisbury to Waterloo and back to Salisbury.

The first one started as I pulled in to Andover when I saw two Asian (am I allowed to say that?) men staggering around the platform. Knowing full well that alcohol, humans and railways don't make a good combo I slowed down when one of them walked right to the edge of the platform to crane his neck out to look at the train. I blew the horn uttered some swear words from the Train Drivers Handbook and thanked every deity real or imagined that at least one part of his brain had not been pickled with booze and he got the hell out of the way.

These were not the first piss artist we'd let on the train as one had got on at the station before with a dog. My guard pointed this out to me as said person got out and my comment was 'I really hope no harm comes to the dog.'

We got to Waterloo without any further incident. I got out of the cab and walked to the other end of the train only to find my guard now trying to rouse these two drunks. I decided to help as my guard was a young woman and I didn't want to see any harm come to her. I walked into the coach and asked her whether she wanted me to help, she did - I shook the first one with a genial 'Excuse me sir we've reached the end of the line, you need to get off.' He stirred grunted a few words, shook his fellow sot and prepared to get up. Job done or so I thought and I went down the other end.

After sorting the cab out the other end I decided to spend a penny (yes I am not afraid to use the toilets on a train - it's either that or go in bottle or cup). I walked back only to find this pair of ambassadors for the effects of Tiger Beer sparko again. So I wake the first one again, he comes to again. I think he wants to know where he is - as it transpires that he does not speak a word of English, my knowledge of dialects of the Sub-Continent are limited to the contents of a Balti House menu and I think that shouting Gobi Aloo repeatedly is going to do much for the Commonwealth! We both are at a loss, then he mutters 'End of line?' He must understand English to some degree - he must have ordered at least one round of drinks to get him like this?

OK I'll go for that old tried and tested method of communicating with foreigners that we the British have made famous the world over - SHOUT!!! 'YES! END OF LINE - YOU (pointing) OFF!!!!!!  It worked, he grabs his hoppo and they stumble the hell off my train out to cause more mayhem on the concourse at Waterloo (like it needs any more help in that area.)

So now we trot off back to Salisbury where the train terminates. I do the decent think and walk through the train to help the platform staff. I walk into the carriage to find a pair of legs draped across the aisle. Here we go again - there he is slumped across the seat dead to the world. I go through the usual routine only to get the blank stare of a junkie - 'You need to get off mate' He shuts his eyes. 'Oi!!! Thicky McThickface! Get off this train!' Not a glimmer! 'Oh sod, you!' I go an tell our platform attendant about this (a true gentle giant if ever there was one). He was then persuading another sot that he needed to get off.

In the end these pillocks were got off the train and pointed to the taxi-rank as they had missed their stations, namely Basingstoke and Woking - oh how I laughed as this was the last train!!!!!

Southwest Trains BIG Weekend For The Stupid.

It all began on the morning of Friday 19th at Earlsfield when a member of the public got down onto the track to retrieve her phone. She was then hit by a train. Earlsfield is between Wimbledon and Clapham Junction, as you can imagine being here and at peak time it was busier than it would be at 3am.

Thankfully for her the train was slowing down for the station and she was not rent asunder and now has the rest of her life to be thankful that she got her phone back whilst she sits/lays paralysed, now being fed by a straw and having tubes up her unmentionables to deal with the other end of the operation. Sadly her condition now stops her from taking selfies from her hospital bed, but at least she might get somebody to show her all those friends on Facebook who have posted sad emoji's on her wall.

Also she was denied the misery that hundreds of thousands of other passengers had to undergo that day for the ten hours that trains were disrupted whilst the police investigated the incident and made a pile of overtime on the side - every cloud and all that!!!! She could have read about it all on Twitter on her phone, now she is #EarlsfieldTrainVegetable.

Then along came Saturday, all was quiet across the SWT network, Salisbury was it's usual charming self up until about 6:30pm when an escaped psychiatric patient climbed onto the roof of at train at the east end of the station and refused to come down, the police were called. Now I have been told that in a situation like this the people you should not ask to deal with this are the police - I was told this by a policeman, the reason for this was to become all too apparent. They would have been better advised to call Sooty & Sweep, the police were beyond inept, the got the Network Rail people who brought some ladders and we all waited for somebody to climb up and speak to the man on the roof. Nope! These ladders were for display purposes only and were left against the wall, we were not even treated to the clueless comedy cops doing the old 'Turn round with the ladder over your shoulder whilst everyone ducks routine.' All we got was some modern performance art that involved a lot of hi-viz clothing and pointing at things until we became part of the act and were moved back down the platform.

To add a bit of further drama a train was allowed into the station (as all trains were stopped) with all six coaches full of drunk Portsmouth football supporters with a grand total of one diminutive female officer to deal with this lot - the phrase 'Pissing in the wind' sprang to mind. Thankfully they sent her reinforcements in the form of an officer who was just hanging on for his pension, so presumably the plan was for her to hold the drunken horde off whilst he trundled off on his police mobility scooter (complete with flashing light and siren) for help. As three of this six coaches came out of service I was the lucky driver who had to uncouple it and take it away. I have never seen a train in such a foul mess, drink and goodness knows what everywhere and it ponged like a urinal in summer. Now am a biased as I hate football and everything to do with it, but after walking through that train I reached previously undiscovered dimensions of hatred that would make the Third Reich look a bit lame and liberal.

Needless to say this part of the train did not move as I had to take my break (as enshrined in law BTW following the Clapham crash) and duly got the hell away from this.

Within half an hour the man had been talked down off the roof of the train. This is now where truth is stranger than fantasy and highlights for me that the police are nothing more than security guards in fancy dress. He was talked down by one of our drivers, who brought him a coffee and with a few well chosen words diffused the situation. I have no idea what those words were - they could have been anything from 'Have you ever seen a grown man naked' to 'You think you've got problems, you should see the meds I'm on and they still let me drive a train!!!' The laughable part is that the police mistook him for a member of Network Rail staff and just waved him through to do it. Thankfully it worked, I shudder to think what would have happened if it hadn't.

So the trains got running again, albeit delayed. However three hours later people from the psychiatric unit he had escaped from came to the station asking if we had seen him - where in Salisbury is this institution? Adjacent to the railway station!

Well, the weekend is not yet over so we have yet to see what unalloyed pile of shite today is going to drop on us!

Things Not To Put On Toilet Paper.

For some of us of a certain vintage there were only two type of toilet paper when we were growing up, firstly there was the stuff we had at home which came in various colours depending on the colour of your bathroom and was soft to the touch. Then there was the stuff that was the favourite of institutions such as schools (they probably had it in internment camps, prisons and the like) - yes it was IZAL - a substance so hideous that we called it 'Slip & Rip' because that seems to be its main function, the primary purpose of toilet paper seemed to have passed its inventors by (heaven knows what they used, if indeed they used the bog at all). Believe it or not this stuff actually contained bitumen, which is fine for covering a flat-roof but pretty damaging when wiping your arse!

Needless to say that there are some of you who indeed recall a time when sheets of newspaper were hung on a nail in a whitewashed outside karzi that ponged of Jeyes Fluid, but I am going on my life-experiences.

I digress. Yes we all know that toilet paper has its primary function (IZAL could also be used as tracing paper if you recall). Now like a whole load of other things the product has been developed to something with the texture of a soft quilt, which is for me the zenith of bog roll and it should end there and we should be content with that. No, the human race just cannot leave things alone can it? So what do we have now - toilet paper with artwork printed on it. It all started as a bit of a novelty when some wag put a cross-word puzzle on a few sheets and now it has got out of hand and this time of year is the worst.

Allow me to explain. When we go to the IL's for the annual ordeal of festive moaning with a chance of a Yuletide hospital visit from FIL and MIL making mountains of seasonal leftovers, we have in the smallest room the 'special' Christmas toilet paper. I have to admit that the artwork is quite nice with frolicking snowmen and teddy-bears wrapped up in scarves etc. For me it just feels so wrong that I have to do with it what we all do with toilet paper. I mean somebody, somewhere has put time and creative energy into drawing what is on the paper, yes you might think it is twee, but I really get hung-up about it. I know it is not the original artwork you are using - the times I have been asked to leave the Tate Modern for doing just that has now resulted in an ASBO.

Look here is a suggestion if anyone wants to print anything on toilet paper, at least make it something that we aren't going to mind using - might I suggest Donald Trump's face or the ISIS flag for a start?

Memory Lane The Diversionary Route

As most of you might know Sunday is the favoured day on the railway for doing maintenance, just as on road Bank Holidays are the favourite time for spreading millions of cones along every patch of available road, dumping a few token items of heavy plant and the buggering off for a six week foreign holiday!

Last Sunday I was working and had two trips to Waterloo. The first being the very first train from Salisbury to Waterloo. I got into work and read my work schedule where I saw the word 'Piloted' alongside Woking where I was to pick up the said Pilotman. The reason for this being that we Salisbury drivers do not take services (also known as 'signing a route') to Clapham via Egham, Staines, Isleworth etc.

I got to Woking and picked up the driver who was to pilot me and we went along the ling to Byfleet and New Haw where we were route off and along the Byfleet Curve to Addlestone. This is where Memory Lane began, my first job after graduating was in Addlestone where I worked for Runnymede Borough Council, my first project was to oversee the building of new toilets in Victory Park, which the line runs along on one side. Then we went onto Chertsey, I designed a wall for a school and a surface water culvert under the railway line. Now we crossed the M25 bridge and to Virginia Water, where I had lived for a time and had even done some spotting at the station. Next to Egham, yet another public toilet I designed, a car parking survey and some survey works for a few drainage projects in the grounds of Royal Holloway College.

To think that all this was over 20yrs ago. We now left the borough and came to Staines (yes it is still a dump!) where I had taken my young nephew to see Jurassic Park, then Ashford where he and my aunt and uncle had lived. Next Feltham, still rough as a badgers arse and very glad that we were not stopping until Clapham - I had also done a survey in 1997 at Feltham of some offices owned by ICL. That was more or less the end of the reminiscences.

We got to Waterloo and on departure were sent by our normal route and didn't need a pilotman again. However we were crossed from the down fast line to the down slow line from Surbiton to Woking. Passing through Weybridge I was reminded of the very last architects office I worked in three years ago. To think that since 1991 I started in Addlestone (a few miles from Weybridge) worked in Swansea, London, Kingston on Thames, Guildford, Aldershot, Bristol and Cardiff - and even lived in Woking. I am now doing what I always wanted to do, what I did in the interim was just a diversion route until I got on the right line - Never thought of it like that really.

Wiltshire Council's Farcical Recycling Methods

Today we put out all the shredded paper (which I hasten to add they have collected on previous occasions). It was not collected, instead we get the dustman spending the time he could have put the paper in the paper recycling sticking an officious missive informing us that as 'I am just obeying orders' they do not collect paper that is shredded - this is despite the fact it is paper, the same stuff that is made from trees like the stuff we have not shredded because they were mainly takeaway leaflets and did not have out personal information on them.
This leads me to the following conclusions:

1. The person who drew up Wiltshire Council's recycling policy is a complete moron who spends the time he is either not sitting in his only bodily waste or trying to feed himself wondering just why his bank account details have been hacked for the umpteenth time every year.

2. Somebody at the paper recyclers obviously wants all your sensitive data in an easy to read format - not shredded!

3. Dustman are of the same mind-set as the sort of people who turn up at war-crimes trials and believe that the defence 'I was only obeying orders' will excuse them from anything.

As a result the shredded paper has now gone in the bin - in fact why don't we just put every damn thing in the same bin and then dump the whole lot on the front of Wiltshire's newly refurbished offices in Trowbridge and they can sort it out just the way they like it - peasants!

On Behalf of Bald Men

Today I went to have my occasional trip to the barbers - I say barbers because that is what I have always called them, hairdressers are for women. Words like stylist, gel and mousse are not something I use ever, neither is a comb to be honest - not since my wedding day nearly sixteen years ago. Grooming products are something I will never use either, soap and a flannel - if I am really dirty its swarfega or a pumice-stone. To be frank I cannot understand why any bloke would spend more than the time it takes to shave five days growth off in front of a mirror.

Back to the trip to the barbers. Needless to say cutting my hair does not take long and I usually have to preplan any conversation to deal with this type of brevity. The usual exchange of 'Grade two all round. Yes do the eyebrows and that looks fine to me' all have to be taken into the conversation equation, so the meaning of life is right out along with the old favourite of 'What the hell is wrong with the world.' Also I have no football related chat to speak of.

I went in and there was already one person in the chair and nobody else. Now it looked as if he was coming to the end of the his time - this is by my standards so I was very wide of the mark on that score. Then it dawned on me why don't barbers offer the same sort of service as you get in the supermarkets? No, not carry to the car - it would be a five items or less type of arrangement for bald men, no chat, a quick once-over with the clippers, wave the mirror around, something for the weekend? Then pay and home and it could be done cheaper because you would get through more people in the same time as you would when dealing with somebody who looked like Cousin It from the Addams Family.

The Misery Vampire.

One of the first things I made a point of doing when I joined the railway was to join the union ASLEF. Having been a student I had been automatically a member of the NUS and to be frank up to then I had never met such a bigger bunch of tossers - mainly rich kids playing lefty politics to annoy their parents. However having worked for nearly three decades where unions were a no, no and management did just what the hell they liked I saw why unions came about thanks to the Tolpuddle Martyrs in the first place. However I have realised that there seems to be no middle ground with unions and working against management, government and anyone else in authority seems to be a given instead of working together, as lets face it compromise is the best way of all parties getting their own way. Sadly in work the prevailing attitude of the union is 'Two legs bad' as far as management in concerned and if moaning were an Olympic sport then train drivers would be able to put a world beating team together just by pulling names out of a hat. 

That's the background. Over the past few months there have been niggles in the way of the union allowing our overtime rate to be negotiated down from time and a half to a flat rate and they allowed our roster to be fiddled with to a point where we all work six weekends on the trot, despite them telling us we would be getting more weekends off. The last stitch up prompted a response whereby unofficial action of not working freedays was insisted upon. When one of the union bully-boys tried to get me to fall in line I asked whether this had been officially sanctioned by ASLEF and if so why hadn't I been balloted - that went down well. So I wrapped up this more than a bit flawed argument by saying 'So this is unofficial action to get ASLEF out of the hole they've dropped us in?' It went a bit quiet followed by leftie bluster. So I decided that there was no way I was going to cut my nose off to spite my face and work my freedays, along with others and - wait for it several members of the local ASLEF committee.

So to the person I refer to as the Misery Vampire (MV). He is one of the institutionalised drivers who have never done a days work outside the railway (consequently if you can imagine a very ugly version of Keith Richards that is what this whining oaf looks like). Anyway some weeks ago MV was spouting in the messroom that all the drivers that work their freedays are nothing more than back-stabbing bastards blah, blah, blah. I decided not to enter into it as getting into a blazing row and then taking a train full of passengers was not something we are encouraged to do as it is not safe, so I kept silent.
Fast forward a few weeks and I make a passing comment that to somebody that 'I am one of those back-stabbing bastards that work their freedays.' The very next day MV comes into the messroom at 4am and the following discussion takes place:

MV: Can you explain to me the comment you made the other day as I have taken exception to it.
Me: What comment was that then?
MV: The one about being a back stabbing bastard.
Me: Well you made it first a few weeks ago in front of me.
MV: Why didn't you say something to me then?
Me: What, and potentially start an argument that could potentially lead to somebody having a incident on track by making a bad situation worse.
MV: Well things are bad here as it is.
Me: So you are advocating making a bad situation worse - that's not very bright is it? Now let me explain a few things. One, I am not a bastard as per the dictionary definition and if you want to see my birth certificate as proof I am more than happy to do so. Two I have never wilfully stabbed anyone in the back, however I have been recipient of such treatment on more than one occasion. Finally with regard to ASLEF and it's diktats official or otherwise I would like to know why seeing that they have allowed us to be stitched up in my time in the job on our overtime rate and our rosters and no doubt will allow us to be stitched up on our paydeal. Bearing this in mind why should they have the temerity to demand that I cut my nose off to spite my face to get them out of the hole they, yes they, have dropped us in especially seeing as this is my sole form of income (knowing full well he has other sidelines) and I unlike a lot of others enjoy my job. I refuse flatly to do so as they are behaving no better than the bankers in asking innocent bystanders to sort out their problems to make them feel better! In addition to this I can not tolerate the hypocrisy of being told by ASLEF not to work my freedays when representatives of this branch are not leading by example by not working theirs.

MV then started waffling leftie gibberish that was the most feeble attempt to justify the unjustifiable I have ever heard. By now I had had more than enough and walked over to him proffered my hand and said 'Lets just leave it at that shall we, we both have opposing views and any further discussion will do neither of us any good.' We shook hands and I left - never argue with an idiot, they drag you down to their level and beat you by experience.
Unfortunately that was not the end of it, since then there have been more than a few snide comments from MV and on the day I went back to work I had to listen to him spouting even more drivel in my direction as he derided new drivers. I'll be honest when he isn't creating misery he is scuttling around the depot feeding off other people's irrespective of whether the poor individual concerned has had an incident or big-toe ache. Frankly he should know better as he a few years ago he was suspended after allegedly pushing a female driver (who he is know to hate) down the stairs, now both are not entirely blameless and the truth of what happened is inconclusive, but the more I have to work with him the more I think that it is highly likely that he did it despite his cronies putting it about that it was all the other drivers fault.

As you can imagine being exposed to that bombardment of negativity, blatant hypocrisy and dystopian leftie dogma when you go into work has been somewhat wearing and in addition to the other two problems was the last straw. Consequently I have now left ASLEF as I no longer wish to be associated with such leftie bullshit, I have however joined the RMT (Regularly Making Trouble) I know they are even more looney left than ASLEF, but I see union membership as nothing more than a work based insurance policy, but hopefully as they are predominantly a union for other rail workers I won't be expected to support their activities.