Ecological travel fail

OK so next weekend I have a birthday party to go to in the wild and forbidding land of Lancashire, my brother in law's 65th as it happens which is in a pub somewhere so I get to stand around with a whole load of people I don't know trying to get bladdered on some godawful nitrokeg crap.

I thought that rather than driving up on Saturday morning I could maybe take the train from London after work and then back to my place behind the water-pipes in Norfolk sometime on Sunday. Turns out I can so long as I fancy six hours on a train and changing at Hebden Bridge, Leeds, Peterborough, Ely and frigging Narnia Parkway on the way home but for the privilege of this they want to charge me over 160 quid. And that's second class. And gods help you if you miss one of those connections because you'll be well and truly screwed.

According to google maps it's 199 miles door to door and takes three and a half hours. So even if I take the 2 litre 210 BHP Saab I'm looking at 60 quid in fuel - everything else is sunk cost as I've paid the tax, insurance, maintenance etc. by just having the car.

So 100 quid cheaper than the train, I go and come back when I want, it's quicker, is door to door and I don't have to take a chance on sitting next to some pissed-up Glaswegian on the journey up.

Bit of a no brainer don't you think. Sorry planet, you're fucked.

Broken Doors

On the train to work this morning one of the doors is broken. If you push the button to open the door it just clicks and hisses at you like an irritated snake and refuses to budge.

How do I know this? Because at absolutely every bastard stop from King's Lynn to Cambridge some numpty, often several numpties, have pushed the door open button despite there being not one but two signs on the door with a pictogram depicting a train door with a big red line through it which even Slime Beasts of the Planet Zod could work out means "These doors are broken". Presumably it's this international wordless sign so we don't upset any uppity immigrants who would then sue for "distress and anxiety" because the train company didn't write "Out of Order" in their fucking language

OK so the brain dead trolls employed by National Distress East Anglia have stuck the signs on upside down but the meaning is still, I would posit, pretty clear.

Ah, another station, Whittlesford Parkway... Proper commuter belt now, maybe it was just the webbed fingered bog dwellers of the fens who are too dense to work out that when the sign says "Broken door" there is a fighting chance that said door won't open.

Click... Hisssssss... Click... Hisssssss....

Audley End maybe?

Click... Hisssssss... Click... Hisssssss....

Fucking hell I despair.

Liveblogging from the train.

19:17, Whittlesford.

I'm stuck on the train. We've just had an announcement that we're going to be delayed because of a fatality on the line.

"What did he say?" asks some dippy old woman with one of those faces that looks like your fingers look after a long soak in the bath.

"Someone's thrown themselves in front of a train further up the line" says your helpful scaly friend.

"Oh dear, how long are we going to be?"

"That depends on how many pieces he ended up in."

I think I managed to give her an extra wrinkle.

UPDATE: Eventually got thrown off the train which was moved to a siding, hung around the station for ages with the promise of a bus being summoned but which never arrived. Finally the trains started up again and I got home around 2 hours late. I really hope that being hit by a train really, really hurt the selfish cunt. I was inconvenienced (which always make a grumpy dragon even grumpier) but what about the poor fucking train driver who will now forever see your stupid face coming towards his cab and hearing that wet, squelchy thump as two hundred tons of locomotive impacted you at over 100kph every time he closes his eyes, not to mention the plod and ambulance crews who had to scrape the remains of your sorry arse off the permanent way.