Rhodri Marsden » walton on thames

24th Dec, 2003

walton on thames

Currently sitting on a train en route to Swansea. Count the carriages: one… two.. Two. A miniscule commuter type train that appears to call at all stations to the Irish Sea, via Llansamlet. It's rammed solid with people clutching carrier bags bulging with umpteen copies of “Eats, Shoots And Leaves”, and lots of elderly ladies wrestling with mobile phone technology to shriek at ear-splitting volume: “Hello? Hello! Yes! It's Nana! Nana! Nana? Nana! Yes!” We've been going half an hour. Four hours to go.

There's a woman sitting next to me who has, over the last 10 minutes, slowly and deliberately pushed a hot pie into her face. I don't think that contact has been broken between said pie and her lips. It's a grotesque spectacle. I hope she can't see the screen. I don't think she'd enjoy reading what I just wrote. Now a bottle of Fanta has been removed from her bag. Perhaps she'll be setting up some kind of drip feed. That I would like to see.

Lovely for so many people to make the hike to Tooting last night. Special thanks to for my weighty Xmas present. Post pub we came back to “my place” so I could give him a load of Free French CDs in return. I think I had the better deal. Ended up dozing off while slumped on my bedroom floor at about 1.30am with an unfinished glass of Ouzo in my hand. This was yet another attempt to make a small dent in the enormous collection of undrinkable alcohol which was bought for a Eurovision party earlier this year. The Croatian pear liqueur remains untouched. People must think I'm saving it for a special occasion. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I don't have a table seat, and thus using this laptop is horribly uncomfortable. The term “laptop” is a bit of a misnomer. To actually use it when it's balanced on your knees requires not inconsiderable neck-cricking. And it keeps slipping down my highly polished trousers. And the alternative is balancing the thing on the “table” attached to the back of the seat in front, but that is barely able to deal with a small cardboard cup of lukewarm tea, which, I should add, does not look to be forthcoming.