Allocated seating, part 2 - East Coast Train

This happened to me a while ago now, but was probably one of the main reasons I decided to base my blog around things that drive me crazy. It stuck in my mind (and my best friend Charlotte's) for so long that I think it riled me up more than the hoard of women at the Palace Theatre. I think our trip to Norwich for our best friend's birthday was doomed from the start where transport is concerned. I could have made my journey much simpler, by getting a train directly from where I live in Manchester to Norwich, however what's a 4 hour journey without your best mate? Crap. That's what. So instead, I decided to firstly travel to Leeds, to meet Charl, where we would then get on a train to Peterborough, and once at Peterborough, change to the train to Norwich. The amount of tickets we had for this trip should have shown us something was going to go wrong, along with Charl's track record (she can't get on a train without there being a cow on the track or a fire in a tunnel.) Everything ran smoothly until Peterborough. The train was slowing into the station, we had a connection to make, we were bustling about grabbing our cases, throwing magazines around and shouting at the elderly. Stood at the door trying to get off is where some short, balding little shit on a power trip (who quite frankly looked like he'd found his outfit in the Early Learning Centre) decided not to let us off (he was a conductor, not just a horrible man.) The train set off again and panic set in. I could tell you all about how much we reacted when we realised we were going to have to go to LONDON, but to cut a long story short, the only living, nice conductor on this Earth put us in first class (good looking girls and a young conductor? He couldn't let us down), made sure our tickets were still valid and told us to get a train from King's Cross to Peterborough, which we did, then another to Norwich. We arrived at our destination about two and a half hours late. Instead of dwelling on it we grabbed a shower, donned our cavegirl outfits (that was the theme for the party, it's not how we choose to drown our sorrows) and got drunk. Very drunk.

The night out, thank god, was uncomplicated... and awesome. Apart from Lauren (birthday girl) getting completely wasted, telling us all she loved us 5000 times, throwing up copious amounts and repeatedly trying to call the police when I fell over on the dancefloor... it was great! After all, I'm sure there's a law that allows whoevers birthday it is to get well and truly off their trolley... isn't there?

Fast forward to the journey home. This journey, in terms of getting the correct trains etc, was fine. It was the absolute terrors on the train that made it one of those journeys that you'd sell your soul to the devil just to be over with. It didn't help that I had a hangover of the queasy kind and every time I turned my head I thought I was going to vomit up the panini I'd forced down. Now that WOULD have made it the journey from hell. Especially for the people around me... As we'd booked our tickets, we had our own seats and headed for them straight away, settling down to a nice, quiet, relaxing journey. That lasted all of 2 minutes. On scrambled what can only be described as 65 year old girl guides. What are they? The ones with the matching outfits who go on day trips and wear badges? I'll never know. Anyway, 5 I'd have been able to deal with. Maybe even ten. There were at least 15 or 20 of these guides - cardigans loosely tied around their necks like golfers, comfy loafers from Clarks, reading glasses hanging around their necks on chains. Where do these old aged pensioners get their energy from!? And why are they following me!?

They got on the train with bulging bags for life, and because of how many of them there were, they could have quickly worked out the threshold of the seats they had, which was practically the entire carriage minus two nauseated students with the remains of cavegirl mud smeared down their arms. Just like the debacle at the theatre, despite the sheer number of old women, they decided to get into the correct seats. Think about the limited space in the aisle and add twenty pensioners, complete with shopping and overcoats, scrambling to get into their seats, plus lots of "Where's my glasses, I can't see what seat I'm in... Ohh they're around your neck Mavis! HAHAHAHAHA". You could almost see the smoke coming out of my ears. I felt sick, I had a raging headache, I needed sleep. Yes it was self inflicted, but Mavis sure wasn't helping. She even had the cheek to podge down the aisle and peer at the number on Charlotte's seat, just above her head. Obviously a nineteen and twenty year old such as ourselves could NEVER book tickets of our own, so we must be in theirs! No. We should be out drinking cider from a plastic bottle on the street and hassling shop owners. I've got to admit, she was met with quite a steely glare off Charl. It was enough to reset her pacemaker anyway.
It took almost half the journey from Norwich to Peterborough for them to get into their seats and get settled. Then, to only make matters worse (for me, definately not for them!) they used the other half to not only get out, but swap packed lunches! Cue more wobbling up and down the carriage and the screaming of "Are you peckish Anne? Do you want a sandwich? Do you want a crisp?" ANNE HAD HER OWN CRISPS! I swear I saw someone throw an apple. It's not teenagers that need watching on public transport, it's the over 50's!

Allocated seating, part 1 - Palace Theatre

When you go see a show or a concert, or anywhere that requires a ticket for a seat, you will most likely be given a seat number. Then, when you get to the event, you go to the section you're sat in and look for the seat number. DON'T YOU!? That's what I thought, until I got to the Palace Theatre on Oxford Road. Now I've been to the Palace before and it's a theatre I absolutely love. I first saw Starlight Express here and later took my Mum to see Chicago - although getting seated was much simpler back then. Okay, back to the night in question. I had bought my sister tickets to see We Will Rock You for her birthday. We first saw the show in London when going to see Les Miserables (Jesus Christ... no not Superstar, although I am aware I'm plugging ALL musicals in this blog) and we loved it so much that when I heard it was touring I had to get tickets. Sarah (the big sis) was overjoyed. When do I ever use words like that in my blog? She was buzzing.

So we get to the show, have a pint (Yorkshire girls) and find our seats. Considering the show starts at around 7.30pm, I should have known that sitting down at 7pm, I'd have to endure half an hour of "WHAT SEAT NUMBER ARE YOU JUDITH!?" and "Oooooh look it's the tall one from Hear'say!" as they read their programmes. We were sat on row D, on the right hand side of the aisle, where there are about ten or twelves seats. In came Peter and Catherine (it's amazing how much you get to know about a person just from listening - Catherine had taken Peter to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert not so long back but oh my days was it smutty!) Peter then insisted on checking the letter of each row by bending over and placing his face an inch away from the side of the seat (and the side of my thigh) as Catherine followed shouting "E! E! E! We're in E!" She definately looked like she was on them. This continued until they realised they were on the wrong side of the theatre. Goodbye Peter and Catherine.

Enter Audrey and the entire bloody cast of Last of the Summer Wine. Now I don't know why We Will Rock You attracts a more... mature audience, maybe it's the fact they assume it to be a 'nice' collection of Queen classics, not a journey with Shagileo Gigolo to the place of living rock. (Audrey and her girl guides did admittedly shit themselves when the music kicked in and the strobe lighting started.) It's a case of simple mathematics. There were 12 women and only 12 seats on the right hand side. They were able to work out that they had the entire row. Problem solved? Not quite. Instead of letting me have an easy life, Audrey and her posse, instead of sitting down in the seats they KNEW they had, proceeded to check each and every ticket, ensuring they were sat in the exact seat in accordance to their own ticket. What can only be described as ten whole minutes of pandemonium broke out. They were in and out of that row more times than a Manchester doler at the job centre. My head was buffeted with more snakeskin handbags and waterproof anoraks than I've seen in Principles. The bedlam died down and I felt safe enough to turn around. There they were, waterproofs folded on laps, plastic cups of wine in hand (although Frances already looked like she'd had enough.) Happy. Subdued. As I turned back to face the front I heard one of the troops pipe up, "But I wanted to sit next to Edith." Commotion.

On a lighter note, the show was one of the best I've seen - better than the original West End cast. Noel Sullivan cast his 'Popstars' label aside (fantastic voice, great acting) in the lead role of Galileo (and damn he's got hot!) and Amanda Coutts as Scaramouche has one of the best voices I've heard in a long while. Leon Lopez played his part extremely well, and it's hard to take your eyes off him when he takes centre stage. (My sister will wholeheartedly agree, although I think his arms play a bigger part in this for her). Amazing show. So amazing we went three times. And God can those OAP's dance.

Unsocial Network

When you go out, you go out to have a good time... don't you? Say you go to a club, it's busy, it's noisy, you're with a big group of friends - you chat, maybe sit at a table for a while, you dance, you go to the bar, you post a new status. There. That last one. Why would you want to post a status!? I'm starting to see it more and more often and even though it shouldn't affect me whatsoever, it does. There's different levels of annoyance with these statuses. There's the tagged locations of where they are - bad enough. There's the boasting of 'so and so is havin an AMAZING nite out wit the girlz'. Then there's the 'I'm so wasted!' lot. First of all, if you're having such an amazing night, why take the time to get out your phone and let the internet know? Why does it even cross your mind? It's because you're sat there doing exactly the opposite of what your status says. You're bored, you have nobody interesting enough to talk to and you're not yet drunk enough to dance. (You're probably pissing off the people you're sat with too.) Secondly, if you were 'so wasted' you wouldn't feel the need to let everyone else know, you'd just enjoy it. You'd probably be dancing with the nearest middle-aged man or doing shots of sambuca because it's "such a good idea", despite knowing it always makes you sick (it's a possibilty I'm speaking from experience here.) Posting a status or updating their Twitter is either an act of boredom and a sign of a shit night out, a sign that their friend has gone to the toilet and left them alone, or an assertion of their social life: an attempt to show everyone they're fun, exciting, that they're not home on a friday night, that they're not a loser. Take it from me. You are. Get off Facebook and enjoy your night instead of trying to convince everyone else you are, because guys, it really isn't working.

Blogs

Instead of throwing myself in at the deep end and ranting about the (many) things I've listed over the past few weeks that have annoyed me enough to note down (shop assistants, hecklers, people who pick up on my dimples and call me 'cute') I decided to start on something that you'd think wouldn't annoy me. I'm sat at home on a Saturday night waiting for my best friend to arrive, and I choose writing a blog as a time consumer... why on earth would I not like the things? I'm going to tell you.

I wouldn't have dreamed of keeping a blog before University. It would have either 'interfered' with my College work or eaten into time where I could be out with friends, family, watching TV or admittedly, browsing Facebook. As for the times where I'd find myself at home with nothing to do and nobody to talk to, quite frankly I'd have rather played on The Sim's. In the first year of my University course I was forced to create a blog for an assignment in which we had to post ideas and research regarding an upcoming essay. It wasn't difficult or taxing but GOD, was it boring. Then I realised if I was to blog on something I myself found entertaining, it wouldn't be so bad. And here is the baby of that realisation. Don't get me started on templates and font colour and backgrounds (although I did choose a rather lovely bookcase as mine... not very realistic, however there is a couple of books that have fallen over just to the left there) - THAT is what pisses me off. I want to write down some of my thoughts, simply because each time I inflict my sister with my stories I leave her doubled up with silent laughter (painful) on the laminate flooring (dusty). If you don't find me interesting or funny... don't read it. I will give you a word of advice though: I'm funny. Read it. Laters.