way into my mind as I stand on the platform awaiting the now twenty-minute-late train that will take me to London, from where the Eurostar will whisk me to the Continent in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
Who needs a plane?
The journey time may be a fair bit longer doing it this way, but at least I won’t have to go through all the bother of negotiating a busy airport, and the security is far less onerous when you take the train. Also, none of that ear-popping stuff, or having to sit in other people’s farts.
No, the benefits of staying on the ground (or under it, in the case of the Channel Tunnel) are many – and that’s before we talk about how much better it is for the environment. I looked up the Eurostar’s emission figures, and when compared to flying, I might as well be spending my day planting an entire deciduous forest while simultaneously hand-feeding a baby seal.
The train to London arrives, which calms that stress-worm down magnificently. I’ve still got more than enough time to reach the Eurostar before it leaves. I am somewhat dismayed to find that the thing is packed more solid than a tin of sardines, but I’m on board now, and on my way.
I push through the carriage, searching for a seat. As I do, the reaction of my fellow passengers breaks down thusly: 87 per cent don’t look at me at all – as is right and proper on British public transport; 6 per cent of them give me a look of pity, because I am unable to find anywhere to sit; 2 per cent look guilty, which is an equally British response to seeing someone in such a situation; 3 per cent try to contain their smugness that they are seated and I am not; and the final 2 per cent look terrified that I’m about to try to throw them out of their hard-won seating.
All pretty much par for the course, then.
The only space I am able to find is outside the toilet, leaning against the window.
‘Why is it so busy?’ I ask a portly-looking man with a beard, whose thousand-yard stare isn’t as fixed as everybody else’s.
‘They cancelled two services this morning,’ he replies. ‘Something to do with electrical problems.’
‘Oh no,’ I respond, hoping that this train does not suffer from the same issue at any point.
The next hour or so of my life is not what you could call pleasant.
Unless of course you enjoy the waft of excrement assailing your nostrils every time the toilet door opens and closes. If you do, I suggest seeking some kind of help at your earliest convenience – no pun intended.
You inadvertently learn a lot about the toilet habits of the great British public when you are forced to stand stock-still in front of a busy toilet for sixty minutes. The amount of people who take a shit in public is quite phenomenal. I couldn’t do it if you paid me, especially not if the only thing between me and twenty other people was an automatic sliding door with a locking mechanism that is dubious in its efficiency, to say the least.
One poor lady discovers this about forty minutes into the journey, when she neglects to lock the door properly and is exposed to everyone else just as she is about to park her bottom on the toilet seat.
You see, the sliding doors on British trains are very precisely timed to open again just as you are parking your bottom on the toilet seat, if you don’t lock them properly. Thousands of man-hours went into providing this very important service in the cause of public humiliation. There are only two objects in this world that keep absolute, perfect time – that atomic clock in Greenwich, and the sliding doors on British trains when they aren’t locked properly.
By the time we approach London, my legs are killing me and my nose has gone on strike. I’ve also drained far too much of my phone’s battery idly flicking through Facebook and Twitter, just to while away the uncomfortable journey.
But at least we’re at Waterloo. I just have to jump on a second short train to St Pancras, and then the journey can begin proper.
Then, as we’re literally about a hundred yards away from the platform, the sodding train stops. For no apparent reason.
Here we sit for ten minutes. For no apparent reason.
Nobody comes on the tannoy to tell us why this is. For