Actually not a joke....yesterday it was my good fortune to be offered the opportunity to go see England play the West Indies at the Oval in London. Excellent, hold that thought, nerd that I am I checked the various travel websites and had worked out it would take me 114mins from leaving home to arriving at Vauxhall Station (where I was supposed to meet my crowd...and ticket!).Anyway, left at 2:40 pm, wanted to arrive about 5pm, so should arrive 4:34pm (114 mins), note I had some 26 mins of extra time built in for run of the mill transport issues. Arrived Stansted train station at 3:31pm, next train due at 3:45pm..no problem, cool, get some cash and cup of coffee. Go up to terminal building, swipe £50, back downstairs to trains, sign has changed to 4:05pm departure, still fine, then announcer comes on "blah blah delay..train..stuck", awesome, fucking typical...bollox. The train is not expected to depart until 4:20pm, so rang friend and advised 5pm was unlikely, maybe 5:15pm, not an issue he was not expecting party all together until 5:30pm. Fab, back on track, touch & go to catch start of match (due 5:30pm). Train got to London...fine, caught Victoria line direct to Vauxhall, no changes...smooth, should arrive about 5:15pm, fine, got to between Victoria and Pimlico...stopped in the fucking tunnel, with the trains heating still on, for 25mins...fuckers, apparently some train had broken down just ahead, we'd all have to get off at Pimlico...end of the line, not going to Vauxhall!! Got off train, ran upstairs, called friend...who was already in the ground, cricket just starting, it was 5:35pm, no buses, had to walk the rest of the way, arrived 6:10pm, had to find friend, get ticket, get beer, find seat, everyone shouting "sit down", eventually did sit down at 6:20pm, 9 overs gone!! Total inward journey time: 220mins!!
Watched cricket...it seemed OK, England won a fairly humdrum game, time to skedaddle back home, set off towards Vauxhall station at about 8:50pm, along with thousands of other eager tube travellers. Get to Vauxhall, strange..very big queue at the bus stop, oh well, big game I suppose, anyway I'm tubing it, no problem for me...poor fuckers. I walked past the bus stop and down the underpass to the Tube station, seems quiet? Get to the entrance...locked!!! "due to signal failure at Victoria there are no Victoria line trains between Victoria and Brixton"...FUCK! There was a small board declaring, via a couple of badly drawn arrows, no 87 bus, no 86 bus. So back out of the Station and on towards Victoria station, which should be OK? It was, one small detour behind someones private car park for a jimmy riddle, got tube, got train, arrived home 11:15pm. Total return journey time: 150 mins!
So travelled for 6 hours and 10 minutes for 2 1/2 hours cricket. I hate London transport, it is always the same, everyday there is at least one fuck up and I always seem affected.
Aah - Saturday today.
J
