Archive for April 17th, 2007
“I’d like a return to Kings Cross please, coming back on Sunday.”, I said to the railway station ticket office operative (which is their full title).
I had just rushed to the station in the town where I work in order get the next fast train into London. A pre-paid return to the North was at stake should I be delayed by more than twenty minutes in my trek across the capital.
“Sure, that’ll be £22.80 please.”
I did some on-the-spot mental arithmetic (which I am good at – despite my inability to understand Salvadore’s diagrams. I even have an ‘A’ level in it) and quickly realised this was the same price as two singles.
“Err, hang on a second, that is the same price as two singles”, I pointed out, clearly illustrating that I am no-ones fool.
“Oh yes, we don’t do open returns you see.”
“What do you mean you don’t do returns?”
“Well, the only returns we do, are same-day returns.”
“But I want to come back on Sunday, not later today.”
“I know, which is why I am giving you two singles, the second one is for Sunday”
“So there is no financial benefit at all to me buying a return for Sunday at this precise moment, as the cost to me is the same whether I buy a ticket for my return journey now, or on Sunday?”
“That’s right.”
“In that case I’ll just have a single. It would be remiss of me to carry round an extra ticket all weekend when I do not need to. Imagine if I lost it? Or got knocked down by a Northern Bus? I would have wasted £11.40, which is not to be sneezed at. No, if I’m going to have a fatal accident this weekend then I want that money to stay in probate to be shared amongst the people I will leave behind, not lining the pockets of the railway fat cats who could not care less whether I made it back in one piece or not.”
“Okaaay, a single it is.”
Honestly, the Government goes on and on about getting the general public to make more use of the public transport system, and seem genuinely surprised people do not travel everywhere on trains, even though they make it as financial attractive as betting on the Grand National (unless you are the jammiest git in the world).
(It was twenty pounds more expensive to get the train than to drive by the way, but I wanted to do my bit for global warming, for once. Never again though, you and your children’s children can all fucking burn and drown for all I care.)
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