I love to travel, in fact according to something called an 'app' (I think) on Facebook I've visited something like 47 countries in total. Having said that I also enjoy travelling within the UK, if Alex Salmond still allows us to refer to it as the UK. While I appreciate a certain level of comfort I'm not really arsed about sumptuous luxury. For example I drive an old Citroen Dispatch van. But I'm growing to despise public transport and the British road system.
Yesterday I went to Lancaster on the train. It was over 30 minutes late, and it was only a 9 minute journey. That journey cost me £3.10 single, it would have been 10p more return. If only my van used 8 gallons of fuel to London but only a pint to get home.
On Monday I went to Manchester for a family lunch, hence the train in the reasonable expectation of consuming alcohol. By the way, if you're looking for a wonderful lunchtime venue, or dinner for that matter, I can recommend Brown's Bar and Brasserie on York Street, wonderful. Anyway, all three trains I got were late. The first train I got on was so jam packed full that the RSPCA would have done an SAS style raid to release us if we'd been animals. It was so bad that they opened first class up to us lot with the promise of 'compensating' first class passengers. I presume the compensation will be for the psychological harm caused by having to travel with smelly plebs, with bad breath and body odour from standard class.
Yesterday I had to drive my beloved to Manchester to visit her poorly mother. At least no trains to delay us. Instead we had those bloody annoying matrix signs slowing us down to 50 there and back because of an 'incident'. On both occasions we all dutifully slowed down and crawled for about 25 miles before the signs miraculously cleared, leaving us guessing what the 'incident' had been. It's happened before when the signs have shown a lane closure. So we all slow down to a crawl getting out of the lane indicated to find no lane closure at all.
We also had to face delays because of the pillocks who sit in the middle lane (lane 2) causing huge tailbacks as they effectively reduce the motorway system to two lanes. They even sit in lane 3 for mile after mile near Preston where there are 4 lanes! If you are a prat who does that please tell me why because I lie awake at night trying to work it out. Just in case you are one of those but don't let me know please allow me to just say: "You're a bleeding arsehole, read the Highway Code or piss off and stop using the motorways you bloody cretin!"
Then you get to Manchester to find an ever increasing number of stupid bloody traffic lights seemingly set so that when the ones you have stopped at go green, it triggers the lights a quarter of mile ahead to go onto red just as you approach. Then you turn off the main road thinking that's it and you hit speed humps that seem designed to balls up your suspension. Then, for no obvious reason, you hit a sodding chicane which means that you have to stop because the driver coming your way has right of way, but it's not obvious why the hell the chicane is there in the first place.
Around where I live they have recently dropped all the speed limits, again for no apparent reason. Of course it coincides with a proliferation of mobile police speed traps, or Filth, as I refer to them. Funny that isn't it? It's happening in Manchester too and no doubt elsewhere in the country.
In Manchester I firmly belive the powers that be are intentionally screwing up the traffic system to punish the populace for having the good sense to vote against the introduction of a further road tax, also known as congestion charge. For the rest of the country I think it's just the powers that be, whether it be local or national government or the train companies, getting a huge sadistic thrill from making life more and more difficult for us and seeing how far they can push us until we finally rise up in revolt so that they can send in the riot police to shoot us all.
Actually, by then it'll probably be PCSOs they'll send in, so we'll be able to revolt without fear of effective restraint.
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