Last year I made the vow to end my rant ‘n’ rave style of writing that developed through the recording of the stressful process that was my Media Studies A Level. It is probably not a coincidence that as I attempted to make this change, my blogging became a lot less frequent. However, sometimes exceptions must be made, and I can honestly say that this seems like a suitable moment for an exception to occur. I’ve had some stressful and unpleasant evenings during my (nearly) twenty years on this planet, but last night took the biscuit, the cake and a fridge full of Muller Corners’!
Having finished my day, and therefore week, at university in Portsmouth, I was all set to go home for the weekend to free meals, unlimited central heating and a 50” TV to watch Manchester United’s crunch game away at Chelsea. I arrived at Fratton Station at 5.15 pm to catch the twenty-four minutes past train to London Waterloo to be greeted by two police officers doing very little and a bald man in a high-visibility jacket (which can never be a good sign). He then informed me that the station was being evacuated because of a ‘Massive Gas Leak’ and that I’d have to go to Southsea Station to get a train. Being only a twenty minute walk away, this on the face of it would seem to be an acceptable solution, but I was unconvinced because any train from Southsea would have to pass through Fratton to get to London.
A twenty minute walk in sub-zero temperatures later and I was proven right as I arrived at Southsea station to find a lot of electronic boards saying delayed and a crowd of confused civilians. With no visible staff presence in the foyer of the station I had little choice but to buy my ticket and wait for a train. £23.45 later I was on the platform and the bad omens continued as the train I wanted to get at Fratton at twenty-four minutes past was still at Southsea at 5.40. I finally found a member of staff that confirmed this was the train I wanted when it ‘eventually gets going’, so I boarded to avoid the cold.
Two chapters of Gary Neville’s autobiography, four tannoy messages without useful information and another thirty minutes later and the growing population of cold rail-travellers and I were informed that the issue could take ‘up to two hours to resolve’. Less than ten minutes after that announcement however, we were told the train would be going to Fratton. What?
Well whatever the justification of this, the train did duly move the one stop to Fratton Station, that had earlier been evacuated, and at this stage I was stuck at a different station. Having waited for more than five minutes for some kind of direction as to what I might do next, ‘Mr Tannoy’ informed the last few disgruntled travellers and I, that the train would now be going back to Southsea. Right…
However, if we wanted to travel on to Farnham (the next stop) and beyond to London Waterloo, we could catch a rail-replacement bus-service from outside the station. So we all gathered our belongings and trudged out to the front of the station, past the bald, high-visibility man who had evacuated the station over an hour previous and stood in the earlier mentioned sub-zero temperatures. Fifteen minutes after this, the high-visibility baldy gathered the fifty-plus commuters and told us he would attempt to organise taxis to Farnham for those with valid rail-tickets. At this stage though I was feeling like an extra from Frozen Planet and had very little faith in South-West Trains and their highly-visible and bald spokesman so decided to safely assume that he probably wasn’t able to arrange p*ss-up in a brewery, let alone a chain of taxis. Eventually, after my dad drove the ninety-odd miles to collect me, and the same distance home, I arrived in Essex just before half-past ten, and completely forgot to make this week’s changes, including making Robin Van Persie my captain, to my fantasy football team.
So to recap and conclude, I was refused entry to a station and badly advised by a brightly-lit and impressively bald man, had a sizeable delay and was again badly advised by a man on the end of a microphone, was then moved into an area that had previously been evacuated, before being badly advised again by another man with a microphone and the same bald guy from an hour previous. This has resulted in a wasted evening, a heavy cold, and an horrible fantasy league defeat. I’m not a happy bunny.
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