Nottingham Part 4: 'Sex! and How To Get Some'

Right, I promise this is the last post: you're probably bored stiff by now. Here goes:

After a twenty minute wait after boarding the Transpennine express (I'm sure the officials on the other platform told me it was leaving now!), my third train of the day crept away noiselessly.

I glanced around the table where I was sat and noticed: an ugly middle-aged woman reading an bold red coloured book entitled 'Sex! and How To Get Some', a young male goth stabbing himself with a set of keys, and a smartly attired yet bearded business man sitting next to me reading the Financial Times. There was a piece of tuna on his stubble.

Not bothering not get out my copy of Northern Lights, I read the back page of the FT instead.

After a sweltering half-hour journey (did I mention it was hot?), we (me and my invisible friend Wharton) arrived in Manchester Piccadily. What a magnificent Victorian station building - at least I think it was 'cos it was completely smeared in a thick layer of pigeon shit.

Now, I had to get to Manchester Oxford Road in order to get a slow train home to my local station. The only way I could do this was by getting the same Citylink service that I had been on already, which was now cancelled.

Eventually, after paying 60p just to take a Goddamn piss (the machine broke so I had to pay twice: strewth! 30p is still a rip off anyway: I am a good railways customer: I have a season pass!), I managed to locate a platform with a train about to depart to Barrow-in-Furnace. Where this desolate valley town is I have no idea, but it was calling at Oxford Road, so I was thankful for that and promised myself to visit it someday.

Only three minutes later (I could have walked to Oxford Road actually) I arrived in the repeatedly aforementioned place. As I was departing my fourth train of the day, The train I needed next was just leaving at exactly the same time on the next platform. I missed it by a window length, and instead sat down to sob slowly into my sleeve.

By now I was starving like Nick after lunch (i.e. still ravenous) and dumped my bags in a locker and progressed to the station cafe. Unfortunately, it was not quite as inspiring as those American truck stop cafes, more like a very narrow Little Chef, but without the nice food. The decor was dated, the ground was grubby and the staff smelt like seawater.

Not quite the sandwich that I purchased. Mine contained more plastic, and I'm not talking about the wrapper

I reluctantly paid £3.50 for a stale and short dated ham and tomato sandwich. To tell the truth it tasted bloody amazing!

The next local train to Mossley Hill was not due for a whole other hour! Ah, a bit of Torquer detective work was in order. I wrenched open my local timetable and found that if I got a local-local train to Warrington, I could get another local-local train on the Liverpool end of the line to see me home.

Slightly pleased with myself, considering all, I boarded the penultimate train of the day and relaxed into the cigarette stained and unpadded seats.

I jumped off at Warrington and clutched my belongings tightly. This is not the place for an intrepid travelled at half past eight at night.

Finally, the final train arrived on time and perfectly positioned for myself to board through the leading side doors. It seems that the slowest, oldest and least-frequent services of the lot are always the most reliable.

After a brisk but awkward walk up the hill to me house (no buses for another 47 minutes dammit!), I collapsed over the familiar threshold and face first into the door mat. Tasted like old people.

My mothers' kind and friendly face beamed down and I was wrenched into the kitchen to explain why I was late: "I missed the train, OK, its all my fault," I lied, unwilling to begin my story for fatigue.

Nottingham Part 3 and 3/4: Chesterfield

It is begun: the final installment in this trilogy of four, amended to three and then extended back to four again.

The Citylink service ground into Chesterfield station two hours late. I was starting to get a little bit peckish now. The conductor's sacked voice came over the intercom one final time: "We have now arrived in Chesterfield. One again I am sorry for the delay. I am...cough...also very sorry to inform you that this service will terminate at Sheffield, the next station stop along this line. Passengers wishing to travel to Manchester and beyond should board a Pennine express service to Manchester Piccadily. Passengers can get connections from there and local trains onwards to their destinations. Those wishing to travel to Stockport...err...I have no idea what your gonna do, just...err...play it by ear."

"Groan!" groaned all the Stockport-bound passengers.

"Horray!" horrayed everyone else.

So after arriving in Sheffield a matter of a quarter of an hour later, the moment the doors opened, we were confronted by about a dozen railway officials waving clipboards and shouting: "Come on! Platform 4! Train for Manchester Piccadily leaving now! Move it, move it!" like those angry army-type bastards.

Shrieks of near-terror then issued from the train as people spilled out over and under me, whacking me with large bags containing dangerous and heavy articles (it felt).


I gathered my bearings and started moving quickly. Thats the last time I carry small metal balls in my outer pockets.

"Manchester Oxford Road?!" I questioned and exclaimed at a guard standing outside my next train.

"Piccadily only," he replied with an air of pride, like he would not have anything to do with the badly designed and decaying shit dump that is Manchester Oxford Road station.

"Fuck it," I thought silently - at least I hope I did - and leaped up the step and onto a sweltering and crowded rush-hour train.

[Whoops, looks like it will have to be FIVE posts to explain this. Think that's a lot? I've boarded more trains in a single day yano...]

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]

Nottingham Part 2: Even GP Taylor can't stop famine

After having become accustomed to having clothes washed so soft they felt like angel wings and silk and stuff, I now had to prepare to face a lots of old people in a charity shop surrounded by lots of old books and other-such junk based items. However, the Oxfam shop on Bridgeford Road Nottingham was nothing like what I expected.

"A keen eye for a priceless bargain, Torquer?" Well no, in fact. I was to be volunteering at this shop for the best part of two days, simply to add an extra row to the 'volunteer work' table of my CV. Ah, it was nothing, no need for any heartfelt applause readers.


I was to be assisting my perfectly able-bodied and communicative grandmother in this extortionate second-hand book and trinket shop. So, as I stepped through this ordinary looking shop frontage, it became clear that this was no traditional charity shop, full of other people's crap for 25p a time. Instead, there was a float to initialize, till to power up, lights to turn on (really!?) and an excruciatingly complicated banking system of record books, money bags, multi-columned paper and number writing.

For some reason, due to my obviously thieving nature, I was not allowed anywhere near the till, unless to wipe it with a dishcloth as grimy as Robin's hair after playing tennis with him. My generous pleas of "Let me help you with that dear Grandmother" where overruled by shouts of "Get in the back and sort them expired road atlases into equal piles!"

After being forced to purchase an over-date Fair-trade smoothie for one pound bleedin' thirty-nine, I was given the task of filling a box with books that had been out on display for more than 6 weeks. I duly took all the books marked 'Wk 4' (for it was now week 10 of their pointlessly complicated stock control system) and placed them gently into the dusty fruit box I had been thrown by an old man with a yellow shirt who smelled of cement and urinal cakes.


My Grandma then charged into the back of the shop when I told her that I had finished, scooped up the box, opened the fire exit door to the alley behind the shop and lobbed the crate into the dumpster.

Horrified, I stood and gawped as some books that I was going to buy at the end of the day where now mixed in with the remains of Monday night's kitchen waste from the trendy wine bar next door! Sigh, I could have fished them out nice and clean: if only it was still a Natwest.


The second day started even earlier than the first and we were the only people in the shop again. Thus I began the pointless task of selecting which books to dumpsterate, and which to keep, making sure that my personal pile was safely stowed away from slippery-fingered volunteers, behind I large mound of unsold GP Taylor novels.

After a frankly boring and fruitless day on the my mother's Penguin classics book collection expansion front, I followed my Grandmother home on the bus to the rare occasion when my Grandfather prepare the dinner. Sainsbury's really do make half-decent ready meals.

I have since established that Oxfam (and like probably many other 'charity shops' nowadays) is certainly not one of those small charity shops with a low turnover, shelves of battered old books and deserving local cause. It is instead a national organisation that just so happens to accept donations of strictly 'saleable' items, just so happens to be run mostly by volunteers (they were recruiting two paid full time staff for other branches in Nottingham) and just so happens to give some of its profits to famine stricken countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The rest it spends of wages, shop fittings and various sheets of coloured paper to remind people to turn things of when they leave and notices explaining that it is against conduct to attempt improvisation.

Furthermore, they insist on sticking f***ing sticky labels on everything! Any book that has a paper cover in any Oxfam shop across the country has now been completely ruined. I tried to remove some from my purchases and even a generous lashing of WD-40 failed to budge it or the slimy residue they leave behind. Strewth!! Dammit!!