It’s another cold day in Glocamorra. I’ve just noticed that the heating switched itself off so I’ve changed it to “all day”. Today is one of those gentle no pressure days. I have some boxes of kids books to put up in the attic and Hannah to pick up from Newark Northgate train station and that’s the lot.
There is something romantic about a railway station. The start or the end of an adventure. Of course this is not always the case. You might be one of the entrapped majority, slavishly arriving for your regular commute, cursing a delay, the absence of a seat or the underperformance of the air-conditioning system.
The rules
Do not talk to anyone and avoid eye contact.
This was traditionally achieved by carrying
a copy of the Times newspaper and pretending to read it for the entire journey. The problem with this strategy was the fact everyone in the carriage employed the same method which lead to clashes of elbows thereby making it difficult not to break the rules.
The evolution to the tabloid format did help but the real breakthrough came with the advent of the smart telephone. This was not really a telephone although it could be used for that purpose. No the smart telephone was a device invented to allow commuters to efficiently avoid talking to others. It allowed heads to be firmly buried, eyes focussed and had the side benefit of letting people give the impression that they had important emails to read.
This step function in commuter technology did have a knock on effect on the Times newspaper which suffered a huge drop in sales as folk realised that they could still pretend to be reading it whilst playing Angry Birds and not having to pay the subscription to get past the firewall.
Anyway some railway journeys are exciting and romantic though if they are particularly long journeys as the exciting and romantic ones tend to be you had better think about taking a good book or two. The reality is that for every exciting moment there will be long periods of tedium, sitting around in waiting rooms or staring at what looks like the same bit of countryside for hours on end.
A smart telephone will not be of much use to you unless you have one with an enormous battery and an unlimited roaming budget. On that basis the good old fashioned notebook and pencil has to be the way forward. You may wish to consider the option of a biro instead of a pencil. A biro normally makes for clearer writing and doesn’t periodically need sharpening. The disadvantage is that mistakes cannot easily be rectified with a rubber.
The problems associated with sharpening pencils are vastly overstated. Cheap plastic pencil sharpeners that work well when new do cause problems when they go blunt. However the romantic and excitable traveller would be better off taking a penknife. The penknife is not only an indication that the user of the pencil is of a sophisticated demographic but it looks really cool and can also be used to open tin cans and extract stones from horses hooves. Always assuming you haven’t just gone for the basic model which is unlikely if you are going on an exciting and romantic adventure.
On balance I recommend the pencil and penknife method. I am happy to declare no commercial interest here. I have no association with any manufacturer of pencils or erasers. I did once visit a pencil museum in the Lake District and came home with a giant pencil whose only purpose in life has been to sit quietly on a bookshelf looking like a pencil. The pencil method does come with a health warning. Sharp knives can injure and will be confiscated if taken on a plane in your hand baggage. But you knew that didn’t you.
The point of all this, and yes pencils do have points, is that with the pencil and notebook you can write down observations on your journey, record interesting facts (prices charged by local pomegranate vendors etc) and generally make your adventure that much more memorable. This can be done in conjunction with the judicious use of a digital camera but take care not to wander round with the camera glued to your face or you will not see anything.
To round off this particular subject I will also say that you do have to get into training for the writing method. Not only can it hurt your hand but the stuff you put down on the page can often be illegible when revisited after the adventure is over. People rely far more on the computer keyboard nowadays and the art of handwriting, for yes it is an art, is in a state of neglect.
It won’t be long before we even stop using computer keyboards. Voice recognition software is getting so good these days that pretty soon we will be able to return to keeping our hands for the purposes they were invented: throwing spears at prey and playing rugby, cricket and golf. And of course there is also snooker.
We will never be able to become proficient at snooker without using our hands. Some of us of course will never be any good at snooker whatever we do with our hands but for the purpose of this narrative I leave that line of reasoning to one side.
The key to good use of hands at the snooker table is always to maintain a firm but light touch. This is the same whichever colour ball you are going for and is doubly important when nearing the end of a large break (147 say) or in the last game of an important final such as at the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield. Anne and I are off to the semi-finals of the 2013 World Snooker Championships this year as a special birthday treat for her. Anne is a huge snooker fan and will walk around the house with it streaming on her iPad whenever there is a tournament.
You might consider that darts is also a game of skill that uses hands as an important asset in its execution but on this occasion I have used my editorial discretion to contemptuously toss that subject aside without malice.
Exciting and romantic as a trip to the snooker in Sheffield will no doubt be we will likely be taking the car as opposed to the train as it will be a quicker and more convenient option. This coming summer I also have to decide on the best option for getting to Trent Bridge Cricket Ground in Nottingham with the kids. We are off to see the first day of the Ashes Test Match against the old Antipodean foe. Thereare two ways of watching the cricket. One is by taking a picnic with the kids and having an enjoyable family day out watching, hopefully, some top class international sport. The other way is to go with your mates in a mini bus and have an all day drinking session ending with a curry in the Indian restaurant over the road from the ground.
Both are great days out. The kids option is, believe it or not, by far the most expensive as I will have to pay for all the tickets. At Trent Bridge a kid becomes an adult quite early on and the four tickets for this summer cost me something like £260. That’s £260 before I pay for drinks and almost certainly, despite the presence of the picnic, some takeaway nosh. A round of four ice creams is a tenner. So we can call a day out at the cricket with the kids a £350 day out. The same boozy day out with the boys will run to maybe £200. The option of selling the tickets to some mates is not an option. I’m going with the kids and that’s that.
The tickets for this series ran out within hours of going on sale btw. Nobody else I know is going!
This particular bit of the 3rd law seems to be turning out to be very much a sporting episode doesn’t it. Perhaps not much good if you don’t like sport. I suspect that you are in a large minority. Most people like some kind of sport even if it is just sitting down in front of a screen and watching it, witness Anne’s snooker habit. Anne is the least sporty person going even though she played lacrosse for Leeds University in her day. They were apparently desperate and she had the requisite number of arms and legs. I note that I have by default included lacrosse in the list of activities requiring hands but I won’t dwell on it. I’ve never seen a game of lacrosse.
I did see my first handball match in 2012. The mens Olympic semi-final between Sweden and Hungary (Hun g aria). Not seen one before. I was invited by a supplier and a good day out was had by all. The London 2012 were great games. I had a terrific fortnight. Saw the football between GB and Uruguay, the mens kayaking slalom finals, womens high diving finals, the handball and the marathon.
The marathon was on the last day. We were down for the Blur gig in Hyde Park for which we had VIP tickets. I’ve never seen so many people at a gig in my life. The funny thing was that most people there were hardened Blur fans and knew every single word to every song. I on the other hand was down purely for the corporate hospitality freebie and didn’t know a single song! Hey…
The whole Olympic fortnight went by in a blur J and was followed by the paralympics which were very impressive and caught us all by surprise. The C4 coverage was not quite as good as the Beeb’s Olympic coverage but it did improve as the games went on. The big surprise was seeing Clare Balding on both the Beeb and C4.
Got to go. Daughter to pick up from Newark. C ya.
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