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So the first test of the commute from the countryside today and it proved to be an efficient and pleasant process. I am fortunate in that my commute will generally be in the afternoon or evening and my return generally late at night, which makes things a little less stressful and expensive (thanks to Nick Harris on Twitter I discovered that I can get an off peak rail card that should mean my return fare and an all one day travel card should come in at just £13). I was able to park for free on the street outside the station (parking restrictions are in place to stop the regular early morning commuters doing this, but I live by different rules) and the train took about half an hour to get me to Kings Cross. I realised that door to door this journey was quicker than coming from Shepherd’s Bush. And I had a seat and a table and could do some work. Hold on, this might be better than living in town.
Though it was scary to be coming to the big city with its terrorists and acid-chuckers on every corner, what with me being a country bumpkin without the street smarts of someone who has lived in London for 28 years. I hoped nothing bad would happen.
And luckily it didn’t. I had another entertaining and illuminating night hosting my podcast, with Robert Webb, Brendon Burns and Craig Quartermaine all on sparkling form. We discussed subjects like death, masculinity, imperialism, racism and attempted genocide. But there were some serious bits too. Brendon and Craig are an unusual double act, the former a veteran comedian, the latter much newer to the scene, Burns brash and outspoken, Quartermaine more softly spoken, but still capable of challenging his audience’s pre-conceptions and full of righteous anger. We talked for over an hour with no emergency questions and I think it will get a similar reaction to the one with other relative unknown Jess Thom. I love the fact that the podcasts can encompass discussing ideal death date and wanking at the Taj Mahal and what life is like as an indigenous Australian. I can highly recommend Robert’s book and Craig and Brendon’s show
Race Off.
We’re going to attempt to release the Burns/Quartermaine a bit out of order as I want to help publicise a show that I think is bound to be one of the hits of the Fringe.
Would the commute home be as easy? On the plus side I knew the time of the next train, on the negative side I was at the mercy of the tube system. Did I get off at King’s Cross and dash from tube to rail, or risk the longer trip to Finsbury Park and presumably less of a walk between platforms. I passed through the bigger station with about 7 minutes to departure time and decided that I might find it hard to make the train in time, so went to the smaller one, where I had to search around for the right platform, but quickly found it and had a good 4 minutes before the train arrived. Hooray!
And I was home by midnight, which was an amazing result. The countryside is awesome.
