*Thumbs down*

At least I’m not taking it today.

I’ve been taking The Tube more often than usual over the past week or so and every time I’ve been on, there has always been something wrong with the Bakerloo line. The worst is when you’re at the platform waiting. Waiting without an announcement or notification on the iPhone about minor delays/severe delays/part suspensions*.

Sure, The Tube was once a pioneering marvel in rapid transit systems but over a hundred years on, you wonder whether parts of it are still stuck in the mid-1800′s. Plenty of cities have since surpassed it in speed and efficiency. As a life long Londoner and intrepid traveler, it does pain me to say that The Tube is among the worst metro system I have used, along with Paris Metro. Paris Metro might be marginally worse as you have to lift up a latch to exit the carriage, at least it’s automated on The Tube.

I’m trying to think of something positive to say about The Tube, but the best I can come up with is that once in a while, when you’re stuck between stations, the announcement can be quite entertaining.

*Delete as appropriate.

The initial thing that struck me was that this pair didn’t look like your stereotypical GPs. One looked in his early thirties, bearded, glasses, beanie hat (it wasn’t that cold), possibly of Indian or Pakistani descent. The other, a more elderly gentleman, perhaps in his seventies of smaller stature with a beard, wrinkles, a bit frail looking and dressed in traditional ethnic clothing, again maybe from somewhere in the Indian sub-continent. They both spoke with a bit of an accent, the younger one, with a bit of a rude boy twang while the elder one was much more heavily accented.

It just goes to show that even in a pool of ghettoness, there are still some intellectuals in amongst the mishmash. London’s quite interesting like that.

I had my phone when I’d left the car, checked my phone for a text when I was in the store by the veg section. It wasn’t until I’d returned to the car that I noticed I was an iPhone lighter. Went back in, retraced my steps asked Customer Service if anyone had handed it in but nada. I raced back home and was quickly on the computer to O2  to bar my SIM and phone. Just last week or so, I was thinking of leaving O2, it’s just as well I hesitated since my contract’s up and I’m due for an upgrade. It’s still pretty annoying though, I’m having to shell out for a new phone at a financially inconvenient time.

I’ve been without a smartphone for almost 24 hours now and it’s so bloody annoying. I can’t read my tweets or check Facebook conveniently when I’m in bed. Sometimes I like to check the weather when I can’t sleep or read the news, but I can’t! I wonder how on earth I survived without one before. At the moment I’m having to use my old dumb phone, it’s so small in comparison. While I have internet access on it, it’s not quite the same on a diddy, low res screen.

I hope my new iPhone 4 arrives soon. It’s suppose to be here today or tomorrow. I feel so naked without one.

Mind my money!

I am just unbelievebly, phenomenally pissed off to the extent that I’ll be writing an angry, disgruntled letter to TfL to complain like a grumpy elderly person with too much time on their hands.

On the way home from Cutty Sark, when I tapped in, the gates made that unapproving multiple beeping noise. On the Oyster terminal nearby, I checked my credit and it was -£1.10 which I thought was odd since I had £3.30 on the card the last time I tapped out of the DLR and given how much I’d travelled today, the ticket price should’ve been capped (I had almost £9 on my card this morning). So, I had a look at my Oyster history at the terminal nearby and found that the system had charged me full price for a single non-Oyster ticket due to two incomplete journeys- one starting from Euston Square (didn’t register that I had tapped out at Tower Bridge) and the other ended at Cutty Sark (didn’t register that I started that leg of the journey at Tower Gateway).

What was worse was that from Tower Gateway to Cutty Sark on the way out, my Oyster card was checked by a TfL ticket inspector man with his little reader device to make sure that I had tapped in and had a valid Oyster card. If there was something wrong, he would’ve said something and I could’ve been fined, but he didn’t. So one would assume that all was well. So obviously, somewhere along the lines of the whole Oyster card system, there’s a glitch.

Now I have to make a complaint to TfL to get my money back. I know it’s only a couple of quid, but it’s the principle that matters! In this age of austerity, I can’t be throwing money away like that. Especially as the trains are usually late. I had to suffer with “minor delays on the circle line”. Minor delays my arse.

Looks like I’m not the only one with Oyster woes.

TfL is definitely not winning.

One of the main ambitions of this year was the 12 hols in 12 months project, however, it had to be abandoned in November due to lack of time, and to some degree, funds. Instead of 12 hols in 12 months, it’s become 9 hols in 9 months. Not very catchy. It would’ve been better had it been 10 hols in 10 months, 10′s a nice and round number.

It seemed pretty appropriate to select snowy pics from Richmond Park to start and end 2010.

On most weekends, there’d be the usual series of part closures due to engineering works. This weekend, even if TfL didn’t strike, The Tube would still be pretty crappy with faulty trains, severe delays and part suspensions due to adverse weather conditions.

Joy.