Photo from Wikipedia
Today wasn't really the best day ever as I was travelling to Middlesbrough for my Granddad's funeral, as if travelling to Middlesbrough wasn't depressing enough eh? Eh? Is this thing on?
Although I started the morning in reasonably good spirits, things fell apart as soon as the journey began. I woke up early and took Jack for a walk and treated us both to a bacon cob from the sandwich shop at the end of the road before collecting everything up and getting on the tram. As soon as I sat down I heard a plinky-plonky version of 'Golden Brown' by The Stranglers, it sounded like a Nokia 3210 ringtone and nobody else seemed bothered. I on the other hand hate people thinking everyone else wants to share their music almost as much as I hate people talking at gigs so I felt I should do something, and stood up and shouted that someone's phone is ringing and it might be important. The whole carriage ignored me and the 'music' carried on. Eventually I located the noise and grabbed the phone off the offender and turned it off, shouting a sarcastic you're welcome to the other passengers. Weirdly I became the bad guy for my actions which goes to show you what is wrong with society, this wouldn't happen if we still had the stocks.
I already had my travel tickets which Mandi had arranged for me online, and I am always a little bit worried when travelling by train because of their unreliability. For every hour a train journey is supposed to take, I normally spent three times that on the actual train and today shaped up to be another shit experience that made me text Mandi to tell her that I would never use a train again. The train to Leeds was already on the platform, a platform right at the other end of the station, and as I was literally (correct use of the word) stepping on board I was told that the train wasn't running and a replacement bus was being used. Once I had walked all the way to the bus stop that the bus was supposed to be leaving from I was told by another employee of East Midland Trains that there wasn't a bus after all and that I could catch a train to Sheffield and change there. In total I spoke to about four people who all worked for the company and they all had a different version of events so I didn't know who to believe as they were all obviously just telling people whatever bollocks they thought people wanted to hear.
My nephew wants a cowboy outfit for Christmas so I'm going to buy @EMTrains for him.
— Steve Oliver (@SteveOliver76) August 25, 2015
,@EMTrains Save time on announcements by simply admitting to being a joke.
— Steve Oliver (@SteveOliver76) August 25, 2015
Funnily enough they didn't respond.
Once in Sheffield things got a little bit better although I was late getting to Leeds I somehow managed to catch up with myself and arrived at Middlesbrough on time, this was a massive shock as the train company that run along the line between Saltburn and Darlington is the most chaotic I have ever experienced. To give an example of how they even manage to make East Midlands Trains look professional, I recall a story from when I lived in Redcar and had to commute to Middlesbrough for work. The line ends in Saltburn, it actually ends and doesn't go any further. From Saltburn it hits does three stops before Middlesbrough, including Redcar and one morning I was told that the train was cancelled because it was in Saltburn without a driver. My enquiry about how the train got to Saltburn in the first place without a driver was met with a glazed expression.
To take my mind off how angry I was at the state of today I decided to spend the journey dicking about. I had read in the paper about the fact that inexplicably popular boy band Wand Erection had announced their split (after Simon Cowell has sent them on a money spinning arena tour) and couldn't really play along with the outpouring of emotion on social media because I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck. I started messing about by expressing my sadness that Wham! had split up and that Craig had left Bros (I Googled the name of the non-Goss brother) and then took it up a notch by trying to ruin Wand Erection's news by announcing that I had left Soft Silly. One by one the rest of the members of the band joined in and for some reason this didn't set the media on fire in the same way. You can see how the story unfolded here.
The Sunday Alternative #53 is available from here.
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August housekeeping
We are now in the eighth month of the year and at a standstill as far as work is concerned. In unrelated news, it is my birthday on the 27th of this month so a nice present would be a donation using the PayPal button. This would be spent on creating podcasts, documentaries, short films, comedy sketches and various other entertainments that I will make available to enjoy online for free.
The above t-shirt and bag is also available to buy, all the money goes to the same creative fund. They are on my shop page.
I'll play you a kazoo song request, find out how here.
Letter of complaint written for you for £2, here.
steveEoliver@gmail.com
