It's been a while since I've blogged about the useless of East Midlands Trains (formally Central Trains owned by National Express, now the franchise is owned by Stagecoach) but today they prevented me getting to a meeting on time. The 0816 should get me into Manchester with time to get a banana and chatting to reception before arriving in the office 0850ish. Then I can get down to Didsbury fairly easily for an 0945 appointment. However, when the morons only put on 2 carriages this is still possible - but only if you can get on. Which 90% of the people waiting at the station can't.

It's not uncommon that this happens so I try and get the earlier stopper at 0749 instead (a stopper service gets me in at the same time). If I oversleep or have stuff to do that overruns, I end up trying for the 0816. If that isn't doable, the 0833 stopper service is usually overcrowded with about half the people who couldn't get on the 0816 so I get the express 0844 which gets in the same time - 0910ish.

So today I complained. And I shall continue to complain because the timetable says I should be able to use the service and I could have an extra twenty minutes in bed for christ sakes.

Probably didn't do them much good that this morning I gave myself on of those shaving cuts - the ones which pour pints of blood out from your face. The ones which eat their way through three toilet rolls with no compunction. The ones which leave your hands and face covered in dry blood. The ones that open up and repeat at the slightest provocation never mind the following day's shave. One of those shaving cuts.

So anyway, now I'm home, I just had a couple at the door asking about Wendy's chillie plant. The Bolivian Rainbow (or "Twilight somethingorother") which the guy was hoping to grow himself. He wanted to know if we had any spare seeds. It's one of the plants I have no interest in due to it being... well, a chillie plant.

Also, I've re-worked an old essay into a story on here. I may podcast it later.

Alex
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