Trains! Hooray!

[shark_hat]

I was on a train yesterday (in fact, two trains, there and back again.) And was in a good mood, and noticed all the nice bits about trains. Trains are great. You glide through towns looking at peoples' back gardens, and seeing random things like Wimbledon Traincare Depot- they've got two massive train-washes there, you know. In fact a lot of the things you see from trains are cool; the backs of things are usually interesting, and there's a lot of greenery in towns that you don't really see from roads, and railway architecture is mostly better than road-related stuff. (One specific really cool thing yesterday was seeing the London Eye through the girders of Waterloo station- lots of horizontals and verticals, and then the gleaming ferris wheel outside.) And trains're really jolly fast, I think I've been delayed by traffic jams to a much greater degree than by leaves on the line, or whatever. And you don't get carsick in trains. The things that are wrong with trains are all, I think, to do with underfunding of public transport, because they themselves are really nifty. In fact thinking about them has made me happy all over again. Trains! Yay!
(Of course, I don't have to regularly commute by train. If I did, I might snarl about them as much as I do about the Tube.)

Went to the 99 Club in a basement in Leicester Square last night. Patrick Monaghan, Isy Suttie, Spencer Brown, Paul Foot; the audience seemed very dead and it was only Spencer Brown who got any energy from them- I thought he, Suttie and Foot were all good. Suttie skipped about a lot in her material- Dido down a well, drug problems in Matlock, song in the style of Avril Lavigne. Foot interacted a bit more with the audience than I've seen, resulting in my favourite bit, about arresting big cat impersonators. I can't remember any specific line of Brown's- his persona seems to be a parody of a redcoat-style standup, but he was funny. M'colleague thought that Monaghan was the best one; all I can say is tastes vary, but anyway, it was fun, and cheap to get in (expensive booze, though.)

Comments

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

You don't count the tube as a train?

I commute on a train and love it as well! They're quiet and steady and good to read on, plus all the interesting backyards and so on as you say.

[shark-hat.livejournal.com]

The within-London bits of the Tube aren't really trainish, I think- both the "being down a hole" aspect and the "no timetable, just wait for the next one" aspect are against it. The farflung suburban ends of lines are pretty much trains, but I'm rarely on those.

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

I can see what you're saying!