Sunday, March 28, 2004

I have a Terribly Important Meeting tomorrow.

It’s been arranged for 10.30am, in Surrey. Which might seem reasonable to some, but from my point of view it may as well be taking place on Mars.

I have two options as to how to get there.

Get in the car, drive down through the Fens praying not to encounter any beet lorry convoys or eighty year-old caravanners, skirt the Cambridge rush hour, down onto the M25 to hit the traffic, brave the bridge at Dartford then motor round the stockbroker belt with an AA street atlas balanced on my knees whilst simultaneously trying to scan for street names, talk on the hands-free and change CDs on the stereo.

Remortgage the house and send the LTLP out to work the streets. This would enable me to buy a train ticket. Then I could drive twenty miles to the nearest station, and trust that the long BR journey/two tubes/short BR journey will pass with no problems whatsoever. Get a cab. Then reverse the process, but in the evening rush hour.

There is nothing – nothing – more boring than listen to peoples’ detailed moans about their travel nightmares. Therefore, in anticipation, I suggest you skip Tuesday’s post, and we’ll return to amusing anecdotes and stuff on Wednesday.

A final word of clarification on the last post, following on from a couple of emails:

‘Chippy’ = place where they sell pre-prepared meals, for immediate consumption. Still open, thank goodness.

‘Fish Shop’ = place where you source raw ingredients to cook yourself. Like a greengrocer’s. But with fish.