5352/18272
I am enjoying the jeopardy of travelling into the capital on Network Rail. Previously having mainly travelled on buses and tubes I have been used to turning up and waiting for the next one to arrive, but with trains you get to plan your trip a bit, but also your life becomes an action movie as you have to traverse across town in the hope of getting there in time for the train. I mean you have to imagine the train is a bomb that you need to defuse to make it really exciting, although the prospect of sitting around in a train station for 30 minutes waiting for the next train is almost as bad.
After another solid preview in Angel, I checked my app to see that there was a train from Kings Cross in about 20 minutes time. As I exited the venue a 476 bus was pulling up. I ran and jumped on to it. I texted my wife to give my two possible times of arrival home, saying I was hopeful of making the early one.
But the bus driver announced we were being held at the next stop for a few minutes (at least he thought he did - his microphone wasn’t working, but I was sitting close enough to the front to hear him make the announcement that nobody else got to hear). Suddenly my dreams of being back for 7.15 (it had been an early gig) looked in tatters. This is an important detail to put in any movie about a man trying to catch his train. You need the audience to believe that he isn’t going to make it, so that then if he does it will be exciting and if he nearly does then they can be all Sliding Doors about it - imagine if they hadn’t had to wait at that bus stop. Hey, that’s not a bad idea for a film - show how different my life would have been if I had and I hadn’t made that train. Though in effect the only real difference would have been eating dinner with the family or alone. But to be fair, that’s about as good as Sliding Doors.
The bus pulled away after about four minutes. I looked at my watch. This was still possible, if God be willing in his Heaven above.
As we got close to the station the traffic got worse, but I jumped off at the stop just before King’s Cross with around 4 minutes to cross the road, find my platform and get to the train. I was in the station with two minutes to go. My platform was at the other side of the station. I ran across the concourse, dodging other travellers - didn’t they know I had a bomb to defuse/a dinner to eat? As I got near the ticket barrier I could see the train at the platform. But I must only have seconds left. The guard blew the whistle, as I put my ticket in the slot and got through the barrier. Some fucking idiots were standing in a group between me and the train, chatting. I barged past them. The whistle was blown again. I ran for the train, but heard a clatter - my kindle had fallen out of my coat pocket. I couldn’t leave that behind. I turned, and a kindly passerby picked it up and gave it to me. I had eye contact with the guy with the whistle. Was he going to be kind and wait til I was aboard or a punctilious cunt and send the train off on time…..?
To find out, tune into the next exciting instalment of “Man Trying To Get A Train.” Hold on, is it a TV show now? I thought it was a film. Or am I just setting up a sequel?
Oh OK, I made it on to the train and even found a seat and I got to eat dinner with my family.
You don’t get this kind of excitement when you live in the capital.
All being well the new batch of Emergency Questions books should be arriving on Monday and so will be available after all my upcoming gigs or at
gofasterstripe. We have approaching 1000 pre orders so if you’ve already ordered one it might take a couple of days for Chris Evans (not that one) to send them out. But please feel free to increase his work load and order yours now. We are also working on an app and the Christmas book is coming along well too).
It’s a week to my appearance at the Great Yorkshire Fringe on 29th August in York. You can see
my stand-up show at 4.30pm and a
special RHLSTP (EATGYF) at 7pm with guests comedian Rahul Kohl (not the guy from iZombie) and actor Martin Barrass
. Would love to see you at either or both Yorkies!
