Coming to Coventry

So, this morning (as I'm writing this particular blog) I got up obscenely early to visit my friend at Warwick* University (ironically situated in Coventry*). Right now I'm on the train. If you've never considered this type of transportation because you know what a bus is like, and after all a train is a bus that just moves faster and uses rails to move rather than the blood of a howling toddler I previously murdered for NOT SHUTTING THE FUCK UP; however, this train certainly is luxurious for public transport (for the record, I'm NOT in First Class, I'm sitting about ten metres from its doors....God damn bourgeoisie!).

You see, the advantage of living in a scummy little seaside resort is that the train station is the END OF THE LINE (sounds rather sinister, doesn't it?), thus the train you get on is EMPTY 80% of the time, every time! Hence why I dare to have my Macbook Pro out on display for all the little grimy plebs to marvel at (but not in a gay Superman way), and struggle to read what I'm typing, by using polysyllabic lexis, such as PLIRALITY, or TRANSPENNINE.

There's a suspicious looking businessman walking past. I say suspicious because his general demeanor is that of a businessman, however he has SHIFTY EYES, one might say EYES MADE OF WOOD, he didn't get onto the first class carrages. How very uncharacteristic of such a stereotype.

GOOD LORD. There's a building adjacent to my window labeled “railgourmet” (lol, indeed), and approximately ONE FUCKING BILLION train pilots (for lack of a better term) just burst out from in and around it and onto my train. I'm actually scared for my life.

“This town is from, Cleethorpes to Manchester Airport, stopping at....” I wasn't aware that GLaDOS was employed by the public transportation sector. “If you have any questions, please ask the conductor.” YOU ARE THE BLOODY CONDUCTOR. Computer intelligence is apparently an ironic term made up by some genius computer whiz who doesn't know his penis from his anus (after all, they do rhyme), although he takes it up both, presumably.

We're on the move now. I'm looking at the cars moving past in a symetrical order of “cut-me-off-and-you're-dead-ness” and feeling incredibly happy that I'm not driving there. Asides from it being a long journey, I just generally hate driving, especially when every other person is incessantly unpredictable.

Huzzah, refreshments! One coffee with sugar, but not just any sugar, Fairtrade certified “WHITE SUGAR”. How very ironic! It should be pointed out that I like my coffee as little like coffee as possible, so I've just added about 4 lumps of sugar and two pods of milk to it. I swear, it is necessary.

[UPDATE: Coffee is half way gone.]

Christ, it just keeps getting sunnier! I would say I hope it's even sunnier when I get to Coventry, but to be honest, it would be that hot that it would melt your face.

Just stopped at Barnetby. A man has joined me at my table. I'm THAT popular. He seems to want to keep to himself. He looks like a cross between Father Gregory from Half-Life 2 and someone from UFC. I smiled. He didn't share it.

Christ, he's so cool! Somebody just phoned him and his ringtone was from Thunderbirds. THUNDERBIRDS for crying out loud! Also, apparently he knows someone called fat boy. Don't we all...

“We will shortly be arriving in Scunthorpe.” Given that for the ten minutes prior to the announcement we'd been going past some kind of tarmac foundry place called “Scunthorpe works”, I'd not be wrong in assuming that the announcement is incredibly wrong.

Yet another individual has joined my party. This is all beginning to look disturbingly like Left 4 Dead. Fingers crossed we don't end up in a subway, I know there's a Tank spawn point somewhere in here and I don't think our team skills are anything short of IMMACULATELY bad IRL (ROFLCOPTERLOLLERSKATES).

The next stop is Doncaster. There I leave this train and board another heading in the direction of Reading. If there's a massive blank spot in the blog, that'll be the place it happens. Getting a seat on an already active train NOT at the end of the line is something like a miracle. Considering I'm not a religious man, I'd assume that if a miracle were to take place, I'd not be privy to it.

I just saw a man by a fishing spot with a sickle. I have no idea what he intends to catch with that. But do I want to know?

The train's going considerably slow now. About running speed. We're going past some kind of river, but there are visible lilypads. I don't think I've seen them outside of a book or a zoo. Quite extroadinary. [Train is now picking up speed like a bastard] This stretch of water reminds me of a trip I went on when I was at primary school. We went to a place called “Hubbard's Hills”, a few miles away from the town. We were measuring water levels or something, and it involved using a lolly stick and a metre long measuring stick. Somehow they were both dropped. I saved the lolly stick, in some quickly thought attempt to save the apparatus, leaving the measuring stick to the current of the water. Later I was punished for leaving the metre stick, be to be frank, they both had the same value to me.

Amazing, I've managed to find my own seat, complete with plug socket for my laptop! I'll be on FlatOut 2 until I reach my next stop in Birmingham New Street station. Good day!

[AFTER THOUGHT: FlatOut 2 is not the way to go on a long journey, video editing is preferable.]

I decided to spend this portion of the journey editing my coursework. It should be on my YouTube account soon enough. Right now it's almost eight minutes long! Full of gags, in-jokes and a poorly connected SLR cable (for the microphone, essentially) creating literally a buzz.

We're scheduled to arrive at Birmingham New Street station in six minutes, then I'll have twenty minutes to essentially find my platform. It's a maze in there, trust me.

So I've found my platform, a seat and the train (after all, that would follow). However, it's a miracle I did. I miss-read the route of the trains and thought the train went to just Coventry, however I needed toe train to London Euston, which I discovered my chance on a stroll down the massive station. It was like being in Shadow of the Colossus. The only way I found the appropriate train was by looking at thed televisions scattered throughout the station. It didn't help that the train't departure time was six minutes. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, and it isn't, but with regards to things I'm not hugely confident about, I prefer to have EXACT information.

Just got to get to Coventry now. The train departs about.....NOW!

*If you don't know where either of these places are, use Google Earth, or Google Maps.