First Capital Connect

Dear Sir or Madman,

I’m not much of a complainer. Indeed, being rather stuffily British I tend, when faced with a customer service problem, to grit my teeth, try to cope, and, if pressed, will generally do little worse than make a sarcastic or faintly patronising comment or two under my breath before trying to forget the whole thing ever happened.

You, as a representative of a rail company, are presumably regularly inundated with complaints, and will take no pleasure in reading yet another one. But there are times when nothing short of a rant will assuage the frothing cauldron of irritation in your brain, so I ask you to indulge me, if you would.

If, however, you’d only like the pertinent part of this complaint, do skip to the last couple of paragraphs.

Rail travel is often annoying. Everyone knows this. Things go wrong, there are delays and cancellations, there are engineering works and rail replacement bus services: these are all things one has to accept. The one thing I don’t count on, however, is not being able to get a ticket in the first place.

My girlfriend bought two return tickets from King’s Cross to Huntingdon online using her credit card – one for her and one for me – for a Bank Holiday weekend visit to her parents. She travelled up on the Friday, I was to join her on the Saturday. All easy enough so far. Unfortunately, my tickets were lost in the post, and so, as advised to do in such an event, I telephoned the number given in the booking confirmation email. I spoke to a very pleasant and helpful woman who informed me that I’d be able to collect my tickets from the ticket office at King’s Cross if I had the booking number and some ID. Easy enough, I thought.

I was wrong.

At the ticket office at King’s Cross, the rude and aggressively unhelpful man behind the counter (who it must be said was the only unhelpful person I encountered that day and, funnily enough, was the only one not wearing a name badge, refused to tell me his name when I asked, and is otherwise unidentifiable and whom, for the sake of narrative clarity, I think I shall refer to as Arbuthnot) stared angrily at me when I asked to collect my replacement tickets. Not being the holder of the credit card on which the tickets were bought I was, according to him, not allowed to collect my tickets.

“I spoke to someone on the phone-” I began.

Arbuthnot cut me off and spoke to me slowly as if I were stupid. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“Which is why I’m trying to tell you,” I responded, foolishly thinking that explaining the problem might allow him to help me. He was unimpressed by this manoeuvre.

“If you don’t have the card you can’t get the tickets. You’ll have to go to the ticket office.” He then turned to the person behind me in the queue, ignoring my protestation that this actually was the ticket office.

I had by now missed my train so had more time on my hands. I called the booking line again. Again, a very helpful person told me that they’d faxed my booking confirmation to the ticket office so that I could collect the tickets. (Yes, faxed. I really do mean faxed. Staggering, isn’t it? Evidently as far as First Capital Connect is concerned, I mused, we are still in the early 1990s. If only their attitude towards ticket pricing were as backward-looking as that towards technology.)

If I could get the internal fax number of the machine in the ticket office, I was told on the phone, they’d send the document again, my tickets would be issued, and all would be well. Not trusting the intelligence of Arbuthnot – rightly, as it turned out – to grasp the complexities of this latest plan, I kept the man on the phone on hold as I approached the counter again. If there was no fax to confirm, could I have the fax number so that it could be re-sent? I asked. Alas not. He refused to give out the number because of – wait for it – ‘security issues’.

Now, I understand we live in sensitive times. The spectre of terrorism looms over us all, and ‘security’ is the word of the moment. I know that. Of course I do. We hear of little else from the government and the scare-mongering press nowadays. But the the thing is – and although I’m no expert I think I can be fairly confident about this – it just isn’t possible to fax a bomb to a train station. Documents yes. Bombs no. There is no way on earth that this can be done. What was the man worried about?

If he wouldn’t tell me the number, perhaps Arbuthnot would care to tell his colleague directly over the phone instead? Of course not. It could be anyone on the other end of the line. It could be a terrorist for pity’s sake! He could be being lured in to telling a terrorist a fax number who would then fax him a bomb and blow him up! That would never do, would it? No no no.

Arbuthnot was clearly getting angry with me for asking that he should do something so out of the ordinary as confer with people from the booking line of the very same company for which he worked, and I was getting frustrated with him for being so unhelpful. It was all rather a tiresome impasse.

Then inspiration struck him. In time-old tradition he dealt with this problem by passing the buck. “Go and talk to Gary the station supervisor,” he told me. “He’s on platform nine in an orange jacket.”

I went off to find Gary and started the process again. In a pleasant change, I found Gary to be very helpful, friendly, courteous and polite. He took me in to his office where we both sat by a fax machine as I called the booking line yet again, explained the situation yet again, this time was able to give them the coveted fax number and, some time later, was delighted as the fax finally turned up. I was ushered on to the platform where the next train was about to pull out of the station, an hour after my original, planned one, had departed.

What an absolutely unnecessary waste of everyone’s time it all was.

Interested readers may pick up the story here:

In the spirit of friendly suggestion then, here is something you might want to consider mentioning to those in charge of such things:

Please, please, please establish some form of system of communication between booking line and station. Not by a fax machine in a distant office, but a phone system, or if pushed an online system. This sort of thing must happen quite often and the provisions to deal with it are, frankly, useless. That is all. It seems fairly simple to me, but then what do I know?

“The horror, sir, the horror.”

“Really, Jeeves?”

“Indeed, sir, the fascination of the abomination.”

I’m not a fan of Conrad by any stretch and have always found him insufferably boring. Wodehouse, however, I love, and so I thought I could make an amusing story out of rather a grim one if under the influence of The Master. Naturally enough, I soon realised that I really didn’t have the talent or endurance to do anything of the sort and, as with so many pub-induced ideas, gave up on it very soon afterwards. In a spirit of self-indulgence here’s the beginning of it, supplied because, despite everything obviously at fault with it, I do still rather like the psittacine line.

AUNT OF DARKNESS

(A journey to the heart of Woostershire)

i

I was hacking in to a leisurely kipper when Jeeves shimmered in with the salver.

“A telegram, sir,” he remarked, with characteristic what’s-the-word.

“Well read it, Jeeves, read it,” I said with all the vigour of a chap who has enjoyed his full ten alloted hours of nourishing slumber.

“It’s from Mrs. Travers, sir. ‘Tom gone tonto stop. Urgent come Brinkley instanter. Love Travers.’”

“Rum, Jeeves.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The aged relation seems to indicate that my uncle Tom Travers has gone mad.”

“Indeed, sir, I had surmised as much.”

“I mean to say, Jeeves, old Uncle T., despite a certain thingummy – begins with a ‘Q’, Jeeves, you know, ill-humour and all that.”

“Querulousness, sir?”

“That’s the chap. Despite a certain querulousness when pondering the demands of the tax-man or Aunt Dahlia’s for Milady’s Boudoir, Tom Travers has never struck me as the sort of chap liable to go off his onion. I wonder what could have brought this on.”

“I could not say, sir.”

“Jeeves!”

“Sir?”

“You don’t suppose Anatole’s run off again?”

“It is of course a possibility, sir.”

“He is French, Jeeves. The Gallic race is noted for its over-excitability. He could have done a bunk, and Uncle Tom can’t cope without his cooking, we know that much.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Well then I suppose we should repair to Market Snodsbury with all speed.”

“I shall lay out our houndstooth suit for the journey, sir.”

“Thank you Jeeves.”

ii

I wasn’t exactly expecting to find Uncle Tom champing at the bit and frothing at the mouth, nor indeed lobbing flower pots at the under-gardener, but it was nevertheless a subdued Bertram Wooster who arrived at Brinkley Court that afternoon. Apprehensive, if you know what I mean. Aunt Dahlia’s icy reception to my cordial what-ho-ings only confirmed the worst.

“Don’t you ‘what-ho’ me, you foul young carbuncle,” she roared, with all the ferocity that had made her such a conspicuous presence with the Pytchley and the Quorn in her youth. (There are still occasions when I spy a nasty glint in her eye and expect her to come after me yelping ‘tantivy’ and brandishing a riding-crop. Stentorian, her voice was, as I think Jeeves once remarked with ref. to that other noisy, but decidedly less welcome, blot on the Wooster landscape, the abominable Roderick Spode.)

“What’s all this about Uncle Tom mislaying his marbles? Anatole hasn’t given notice again, surely?”

“It’s much more serious than that, Bertie.”

“More serious?” I goggled. In the grand scheme of things few things could be worse than the great chef chucking in the ladle.

“This isn’t the time for your asinine parrot impersonations, Bertie.”

“Psittacine, aged A.”

“Whatever can you mean?”

“Psittacine, not asinine. Jeeves told me once. Psittacine is the word for parrot-like. Asinine would be asses. At least I think it would.”

“Well don’t be an ass either. Ring for Jeeves at once and kindly keep quiet until he gets here. We need every ounce of that man’s brain-power to help us now, and you won’t help by burbling.”

A gentle cough, like that of a venerable librarian clearing his throat in the reading room of the British Museum after a particularly noisome morning pipe, but aware of the requirement for dignified silence which his position demanded, indicated the man’s presence in the room.

“You rang, madam?”

“Jeeves,” began the old flesh-and-blood, “this is a very delicate matter.”

“Indeed, madam. I can assure you that I have some experience of dealing with many forms of mental aberration.”

They both glanced briefly in my direction and exchanged what could only be described as a Knowing Look. I can’t be sure of this, for Aunt Dahlia emitted a small squeal or snort at this point.

“During my time in Lord Brancaster’s employ, he once-”

“Never mind all that now, Jeeves,” I said.

“Forgive me, sir, but the tale I was about to relate does have some bearing on the matter in hand. His Lordship suffered some form of nervous collapse following the demise of his favourite parrot, and was thereafter to be found at certain times of the day sitting atop the pianoforte nibbling at a seedcake in a fit of ungovernable distress. All manner of means were attempted in order to induce him to come down and to his senses, but to no avail. Eventually Sir Roderick Glossop, the noted nerve specialist, was called for, and his Lordship was taken away to recuperate.”

“Well we don’t want that, Jeeves,” groaned Aunt Dahlia.

“Indeed not madam.”

“I take it you know all about what has happened then, Jeeves?”

“I’m afraid the talk below stairs is of little else, madam. Mr. Seppings was kind enough to give me a reliable account of recent events, however. A most lamentable occurrence if I may say so. What I would suggest-”

“But dash it, Jeeves!” I ejaculated, unable to stand the suspense any longer. “What has happened? You seem to forget as you go dashing off with your schemes that I’m very much in the dark in re. the actual course of events. What, Jeeves, if you would be kind enough to tell me, has happened? Eh?”

Aunt Dahlia gave him the nod and he explained. “Mr. Travers has recently become involved with a sinister group of men calling themselves the Victoria League Club, in whose possession there rests a valuable silver statuette which Mr. Travers desires for his own collection, sir. In order to gain their confidence in order to encourage them to sell him the item, Mr. Travers was forced to join their society and masquerade as an adherent to their ignoble principles. It would seem that his will is not perhaps as strong as he had at first thought. Mr. Travers has, as I believe modern parlance has it, ‘gone native’. All attempts at communication have thus far been rebuffed. It would seem to me that the only course of action now would be for someone to locate Mr. Travers and bring him home.”

Aunt Dahlia shot me a menacing look. “You, Bertie, are that ‘someone’.”

I felt like some unfortunate young chap who has unexpectedly been biffed about the back of the bonce by a brick lobbed by the Bishop during his confirmation. I was powerless to resist…

To me, blogging generally seems the textural [1] equivalent of standing in a public place and staring fixedly at your reflection in a puddle as you abuse yourself. Some people may choose to watch as you grimace and twitch, most will ignore you – and rightly so – whilst you will feel an odd mixture of embarrassment and pleasure from the experience of becoming a public spectacle. (I assume so at any rate – it’s not a social experiment I’d care to conduct.) The point is, it’s self-indulgent wank of the highest order. I know that. Really I do. And it troubles me that I should be narcissistic enough to leap aboard Onan’s electric bandwagon and keep a blog of my own. Yet here I am doing exactly that. Why?

Well:

a) because I was very kindly given the domain phaude.com for Christmas 2008 with the instruction that I should start blogging, so it can hardly be my fault if I’m only following orders, can it? (Ah, the classic abnegation of personal responsibility…);

and:

b) because I can. Simple as that.

I have no agenda and no expectations. I may write often, I may not. I may be interesting, I may not. I may be funny, I may not. I will undoubtedly waste your time. But if you’ve ended up here in the first place then that’s probably what you wanted, wasn’t it?

Until!

[1] textural in this context as in Webby/Webular/whatever other ugly construct you may hear people employ (cf. Latin: textus, -us: a web, as you’ll remember). Why in the world wide web is this not in common usage?  Promulgate, do.