I'm writing this from the comfort of a window seat on a train to Liverpool. The whole thing should take just over two hours. I'll be treated to all manner of lovely sights along the way as me and my fellow passengers head north. There are fewer fellow passengers than I would expect, but I suppose that's one of the perks to be had with escaping London on a Thursday at a routinely time of 18:07.
I was speaking to a friend recently who commented that any resemblance of routine from her life had been tossed out the window over the last month. I've gone through something similar but only over the last week. Sleeping in is pleasant, but not at the expense of a more comfortable Tube journey. I hate that thing.
Much like any major form public transport, The tube has its own series of automated public announcements. Usually, I find this humorous because of the intonation of the robot lady speaking. It always sounds like she's combining the adjective 'good' to the noun 'service' to make the super noun 'good service'. Yes, I am aware this isn't funny at all, but hey, neither is Family Guy, Michael McIntyre, Mock the Week, My Family, the Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Knocked Up, American Dad, Kevin James, ... or ... but that doesn't stop them from making a living related to comedy.
Recently, a new public service announcement has appeared over the Underground's tannoys. It involves the Mayor of London proudly announcing that the Mayor of London is addressing his subjects. Then he goes on to inform of some do-it-yourself attitude bullshit regarding the completely inadequate nature of TfL (that's Transport for London for any of those reading this from foreign shores). Being a frequent traveller on the Underground at some ridiculous hours (both early and late), I completely shocked by this attitude. Currently, the Government's attitude to public transport during the Olympics is to tell those living in London 'maybe you don't want to be on public transport for two weeks'. I'm lucky enough to be gifted the opportunity to work at home during this time (so looking forward to it), but for those who aren't, I hypothesise either one of two things will happen.
1) It actually won't be so bad and no one will have any problems.
2) It will drive people who are working to travel earlier all at once, causing two segregated rush hours of 'Olympics tourists' and 'workers'.
Given that London Bridge station already has to close off the Jubilee and Northern Line platforms every morning from 8am onwards to stagger entrance in an attempt to reduce congestion, I wonder which of those two options I find more likely...
I know several people who won Olympics tickets. I always get them to try and name five participants of the sports they're watching. This is especially fun for anyone with tickets to the 100m or any other those rock n' roll, prestigious track and field events. They are so excited to tell you they're going to see the 100m. I couldn't name five 100m runners, but then, it doesn't excite me in the slightest.
I'm listening a record by Air. I wish it were instrumental. That would be more exciting. Less is more.
I have more exam passes under my belt now. I received my results last week. Two passes and an FA (95-99% of the pass mark). How infuriating. I wish they'd tell me my mark, because I can guarantee that my mark for the one I failed is higher than one of my passes. Lots of variation in pass marks there.
My music habits have become more varied lately. I've always maintained that anyone who has a "favourite band" is a bit odd and even more so if said band is signed to a major label. Music has such scope for imagination and as we see the production costs decline, they'll be a spate of absolutely stunning bands self-distributing their records. It's almost like a mathematical theory. As the number of records of a certain quality tends to infinity, you'll always find another band/record that speaks to you more. This is way more likely to happen when trawling through Bandcamp. What a wonderful website. I've been listening to all manners of genres on that. Today was a bit of emo/math-rock, a few jazz-tinged hip hop instrumentals and Ozark spoken word.
So this is what would twitter would be like with beyond 140 characters. Pretty similar, but way less likely to cause any arguments because no one would be bothered to wade through all of this sort of nonsense regularly. Thank you for helping me waste 35 minutes of my train journey.
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Other musings
Yeah, phoning this one in. I admit it. My excuses? Busy at work, busy writing for a very prestigious publication, drinking too much at exam result celebration drinks.
Been an odd week hockey-wise. The two best free agents on the market (Zach 'Sleaze-A' Parise & Ryan 'Cookie' Suter - those are not their actual nicknames, but I like them) both signed to the same team. Unlike when this happens in other sports, they have both moved to a defiantly average franchise. Hockey is different to other sports. Despite the lack of major interest from television markets (except in Canada), the players are held to very high levels of scrutiny. Both of these players have said the 'right things' about leaving their respective teams ('It was really difficult, I love playing in ... but the chance to play for...' 'It wasn't about the money' yadda yadda yadda), but some choice quotes have emerged suggesting these two have been conspiring for a couple of years for this aim. I think this is unfair to their former teams. Anyway, good luck to them, but considering how poorly managed Minnesota have been in the past, I'm not holding my breath for them to set the world on fire next season.
Heading home for my Nana's birthday this weekend. Asides from all the fun with the family, I'll be spending lots of time shooting the shit, chillaxing, drinking some Brieres with my brother.
Records I recommend from my Bandcamp - http://youblewit.bandcamp.com/album/grow-up-dude
http://wearetrees.bandcamp.com/album/girlfriend
Films of the last few weeks: Killer Joe, Friends with Kids, New York Stories, the Royal Tenenbaums.
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