Nottingham Part 3: Slack-Jawed Yokles

So here it is, Merry Christmas. Or so it would have been if it was actually Christmas and all had gone to plan. Which it didn't of course, as I am involved and I travelled on a train.

After spending the previous week drowning in fabric softener and trying to stop my grandmother from pointlessly ironing my underpants, I was glad to be heading back to a loving, caring, peaceful family back here in Liverpoolland. Unfortunately, I woke up to the truth after scoffing a large bowl of Weetabix. It was the size of a bucket but I still had my usual two biscuits.

Now, after having my fill of "100% whole grain wheat and absofuckinglutely nothing else OK", I headed off for the train station in Nottingham, following closely by my amiable grandfather. In actual fact he was beside me, but there you go.

Unsurprisingly however, the train did not go. Instead, after boarding a couple of minutes before launch, an announcement rang through the carriages:

"Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your conductor speaking. I am sorry to inform you that this train is unsuitable for travel as there are no working toilets on board. Please exit the train and wait for the replacement service that will depart shortly from platform 5B, directly behind this unit. I am also sorry to inform that I have just been sacked."

Central Trains trains are predominantly at a standstill, like this one which actually clearly isn't

Sighing with my indifference to the conductor's current employment status, but also with my anger at Central Trains for screwing up yet another bleedin' "Citylink" service, I de-boarded, if that is the correct expression, the first train and duly waited orderly for the next.

Unfortunately, a large family of slack-jawed yokels decided to allow their deranged and overweight children play 'tag' on the platform. This mainly involved trying to 'tag' each other hard enough so as to push the 'tagged' into the path of an approaching express train. One of the fatter ones almost became multiple portions of steak and kidney and brain pie, but his father somehow managed to drop his jaw in the way and the baby elephant was saved.

Now that I had boarded the second train of the day, we proceeded rather slowly along the Liverpool-Norwich line. After about fifteen minutes smooth running, the train came to a stop. A short five minutes wait later and we were on our way again. But then it happened again: ten minutes later we stopped again, this time for about 20 minutes. And so it continued. A short five minutes journey followed by an almost half-hour wait in the middle of no where.

To make matters worse, my iPod battery ran out of juice in the middle of 'Near Wild Heaven' by REM. Shit. This is gonna be one long hell of a journey.

After having apologetic announcement after apologetic announcement repeated at regular intervals, I started to wonder why the conductor was still bothering when no-one was actually paying him anymore.

Unfortunately this was not any of the six trains that I boarded that day

Finally, we arrived in Chesterfield: the cultural epicentre of Europe. Although I have never had the privilege of visiting Chesterfield (thank God!) I was relieved to get there, TWO HOURS LATE. And we had only reached the first station...

[OK fair enough, cramming seven hours into one post is downright impossible, especially given your attention span. To be continued sometime in the future]