Robert Leverington

Recently I have started travelling to London using the train on approximately a fortnightly basis. The journey is very long compared to what I am used to, and also fairly tiring.

My journey begins with a bus journey to Luton; I’m not sure why but this week it was packed, wheras two weeks ago there were only a couple of people on the bus. The bus is fairly unreliable, often being late, and there is no seating at the bus stop so I have to stand up. My bag is also quite heavy, due mostly to the laptop I like to take to my Dad’s (to stop myself going insane while my brother and sister are using the computer) - but hopefully I will be able to afford a new one at Christmas. Once on the bus, however, the journey isn’t long and I am soon at the station.

There are very long queues for train tickets, causing me to miss the train I wanted both times I’ve gone - however I plan on buying them in advanced online next time. The first time I travelled I kept being quizzed about my age, but yesterday this did not occur. While the second train isn’t too long after the first it is also delayed most of the time and the platform is very cool; I like watching the fast trains soar through the station though, it is very fascinating. Only twenty-five minutes is spent on the train which is fantastic, I could never have imagined being able to get in to London so quickly. St Pancras International is also a very nice station; much cleaner and spacious than Kings Cross which somewhat surprised me, although it is much newer so that is perhaps inevitable.

From St Pancras I then move to Kings Cross and get the tube, it is very packed so there is not very much room. I bought with me a book to read this time (Secrets and Lies, as recommended by HauntedUnix), it was hard back so while usable on the train and at the station, the tube was too crowded to make it worthwhile.

In total the journey is about two and a half hours, but hopefully I will be able to cut this down by booking in advanced - sadly they won’t do seat reservations so I’ll still have to stand up or sit on the floor.

Last weekend I rearranged my room, and sadly in the process I managed to put my desk in to a place which had ultra poor wireless signal quality so my internet was breaking up all last week. Last night this finally got to me so I threw together a small cable holding rig (see below, need to find some elastic bands to hold it together instead of the parcel tape and twist cables) and chucked my 30 meter network cable out the window. I’ll be having to do this every day until I can afford home plug (ethernet over mains) or persuade someone to drill a hole in to the extensions loft space and run the cable around there (since I’m not permitted to run a cable through the house itself).

I also managed to make a major error in positioning my wardrobe and will need to reconsider its position.

It would seam that we can recycle Apple Liquid Carton Board, but not Orange and Pineapple Liquid Carton Board.

A few of my friends have been commenting that I’ve been very unhappy and angry recently, and asking why this is the case, as such here is a comprehensive list of reasons - mostly stemming from frustration.

Much of my anger and sadness is due to school, I’m really not an ideas or design person and we’re being asked to do a lot of this at the moment. My product design final project, coming up for ideas of what to put in the questionnaire or how it should look is proving difficult; and this weekend we were given an essay in English. “Our thoughts on families, childhood, and maturity” this was very hard for me, I didn’t really know what to put - in the end I put it off and gave up at half a page of writing.

I’ve also been struggling with friendship at school, having drifted away from the group I was with since they began playing football I now spend most of my time alone in the library.  It’s a different story outside of school, but ever since the introduction of split lunches I’ve been separated from most of my friends at school. There has also been a lot of arguments within my group of friends recently, mostly spanning from comments left on MySpace; it really spoilt everything and just makes it difficult for everyone as it has been effectively split in two. Due to one of the persons involved who I’ve encountered before it also means I have to hold in a great deal of anger, which is quite difficult.

Another factor is all the girls I’m attracted to I either have no chance with or are already taken, this sucks very much. Mess is also everywhere, I try to keep the house clean and my room tidy - but no matter what I try there is an endless accumalation of clutter.

Last month it was the summer break at school and I went on holiday to Scotland and Ireland, but spent a lot of time at home too. On my travels I noticed a distinct difference between the budget airlines we travelled on - Ryanair and bmibaby. In fact, on a measure of customer service, I’d put them at opposite ends of the scale.

Quite frankly Ryanair were rude and quite poor in terms of quality; the queues very long, and they’d call you for flights stupidly too early. Another factor was the manner in which they spoke, treating paying consumers as if they were doing something bad “You must turn off your phones.” for example.

bmibaby on the other hand were very polite, and queues were virtually non-existent. While they did have similar policies to Ryanair they would be conveyed in a non-condescending way.

Overall I am still quite disappointed with airlines right now, after all we’re in the 21st century - it shouldn’t be necessary for all electronic equipment to be turned off on take off and landing, the ride shouldn’t be bumpy, there shouldn’t need to be queues. It’s probably going to be this way for a while, but we are overdue a change in the way air travel works.