Mondays

So Southeastern have surpassed themselves to create a truly crap day of travel for me on Monday.
First off I had to buy a ticket for the week as I wasn't going to use a full month up there was a bit of a queue.
I thought I will use the ticket machine. Wrong that machine is so complicated that I lost my rag with it pretty quickly. If you want a day ticket no problem but a weekly you have to go through 10 steps only to be told there is no valid ticket for the area you selected. Sod it I will get in the queue. So I queue up with the rest of the poor souls who will have their wallet fleeced any second and buy my ticket.
I rush to the platform thinking I might just make it. As I run up the steps I cannot see the train WTF it should still be here but it's not. The just the train is half the size it usually is. I didn't get on that the trains are sweaty and crowded enough without it being half the size.
So i sat back in the cafe thing on the platform had my tea and waited for the next train. That will get me in on time if I hurry and it is on time. Guess what that didn't happen. 20 minutes late into Cannon street due to signalling problems. So got into work late but as everyone else commutes most were late anyway.

So I was about to leave when my mate Andy rang me to say don't bother coming to Cannon Street is closed but he didn't know why. Everyone was just stuck outside filling up the street and wondering what was going on. You have to love the communication from the rail companies. He wandered off to London Bridge to try his luck there. I had a look on the nationalrail.co.uk website and found that Cannon Street was closed due to a fire. How can a website be more up-to-date than the station itself.
I am pretty sure that the web site is an easily measurable way to inform without really doing it.
So the managers can say "well the trains were all ballsed up but the website told people within 2 seconds" like that is any help when you are standing outside the station wondering what the F%^k is going on, tossers.
I left work a bit later no point in rushing to the station to stand around I thought give them a hour to sort it out. I got to Cannon street and it was still closed people still just standing outside not a message on any board anywhere no staff visible we were just left to stand around. I was just about to slope off to London bridge muttering mother f%^kers not so quietly under my breath. When they opened the gates and everyone rushed in like there was a sale of iphone 4's.
I managed to barge my way in knocking nuns and old ladies over as I went to fin my train was at the platform already.
Result I thought its not as bad as it could be. I got on sat down and waited. In the heat (summer time its either minus 10 or + 30 sometimes even in the same carriage ). I was sitting there reading the paper when the driver announced "would the guard please contact the driver" never a good sign that. so 10 minutes past the leaving time of the train we were still sitting there. when the driver said the guard should be here soon he has been stuck at cannon street. Why oh why do we need a guard anyway, the doors shut on their own you either make it on the train or not the driver can stick his head out to make sure no muppets are stuck in the doors. Anyway the guard took 15 minutes to make it so we left late and got to Ashford even later.
SouthEastern fail again.