Zach Beauvais Online

I have come to the conclusion, after being without a car for five years, that travel by rail in the UK is just about the most infuriating process you can undertake on a regular basis. Every day, one of my 6 train journeys to or from work will fail in some way or other. Either there will be a delay, a last-minute platform change, a cancellation… something goes wrong.

Looking at the complexity of the rail network, it’s not surprising that it doesn’t always run exactly right. However, since I can pretty much guarantee that my train journey to work or back will be compromised in some way, I’m starting to wonder. There is no ‘normal’ service, you see. It’s a myth that the trains usually make it on time. Perhaps it is more than 50% of each leg of any given journey… maybe. But at some stage in every multi-sectioned journey I’ve had, some aspect of the trip fails.

II’m beginning to wonder what could possibly fix this situation. I’m told daily by an electronic voice: “I’m extremely sorry for the severe delay to this service.” I wonder what rail executives hope to achieve by creating an automated apology system? It’s not exactly like it’s a good value for money trade-off either. Train travel is bloody expensive, and it doesn’t work the majority of the time.

Maybe executive heads need to roll, maybe a huge infusion of public money needs injecting into the system, maybe… they need a change of perspective. If they measure every individual step in a day, they might come to the conclusion that they’ve failed n number of times.

Well, I and the wife traveled to Limoges in France to Amsterdam over the last two weeks. In France, I had the misfortune of being almost completely without the ability to smell or taste anything thanks to a lingering cold which also incapacitated me on the final Friday of the trip. Our French hosts cooked us a wonderful (looking) local meal complete with regional wines, and every mouthful tasted exactly the same. According to Wendy, this stood me in good stead for Amsterdam, however, since I wasn’t as bothered by all the smoldering plant material hovering in the air.

Amsterdam, as previously mentioned, is a lovely city. It is very accessible and its scale lends itself to walking. It’s easy to find somewhere pleasant to drink coffee or eat from a huge variety of restaurants. It is slightly unhelpful, however, that nearly every place at which you can eat or drink is called a ‘cafe’. This includes bars, coffee houses, sandwitch shops, pubs… literally everything that doesn’t sell cannabis is a cafe. Many ‘cafes’ also sell an astonishing selection of lagers, which I could only imagine drinking on the continent.

The streets meander pleasantly, and it’s not too well-planned; so it’s possible to stumble across a brilliant cafe (of whatever description) nearly anywhere. The streets seem to be used almost like common land, however, by the walkers, cyclists and motorists in town. Cars seem to give way most of the time, and trams could appear just about everywhere, from any direction.

It’s the transition which hits you. From begging your interlocutor to understand you—to even bend a little in your direction—to being understood so effortlessly but still being in an unfamiliar place. This is traveling from France to Amsterdam.

In France, making an effort to speak French is mandatory; yet still everyone looks at you as if you’re asking them to donate a kidney when you ask a question in broken French. I freely admit, the extent of my French used to end not much farther than correcting cold-callers’ pronunciation of my surname. Now, after three days in France, I can say all sorts: but still can’t get a point across or ask for a baguette without goose-gizzard on.

I will, however, never pick up any Dutch by being in Amsterdam. As soon as you say ‘Halo’, in your best-imitation of Dutch pronunciation, the person behind the counter/hovering over your table/behind the glass will immediately ask you how you are doing in English. This is true 100% of the time—unless your accent was bad enough to give them the impression you’re French or Spanish, in which case, they’ll usually answer your question in that supposed language. Of course, I’ve always heard that the Dutch can all speak flawlessly in multiple languages even while being full of cannabis; but I’m still incredibly impressed.

Touching on that last point, I can’t help but feel it’s a horrible, international misconception about the Dutch. The overwhelming impression I have got while passing coffeeshops here, is that the vast majority of the ‘customers’ are anything but Dutch.

Yesterday, I had a nightmare journey. It was the kind you think is made up by travel writers to pad out the pages between interesting sights and ‘how-to’s of ticket management. It didn’t help that my reason for going was to have a chat with the JobCentre Plus (Plus benefits, I assume) about allocation of a National Insurance number.

The first leg of the journey was fine: train to Shrewsbury. I sat down to enjoy a book and baguette (brilliant combination until you take a bite out of your novel) and noticed that the notice on the gantry sign kept changing: next train-on time–next train-cancelled. Well, which one is it? Turns out, I just had to wait 25 minutes for the next one. No worries, I’m reading and drinking caffeine-containing hot stuff (It’s not coffee. This is coffee.)

So, I’m late into Telford, but I was going to be an hour early anyway. I have a Google Map printout, but I don’t want to risk it, so I jump in a Taxi, explaining that I’ll need cash first, then on to the Jobcentre Plus (Plus and Minus?). The Royal Bank of Scotland was just across the retail park which is Telford centre, so I tried to get cash out there… no luck. I shrug embarrassedly at the driver, who shakes his head as if to say: "Oh, bloody hell… I’m taking him to t’JobCentre Plus (Plus Jobs for foreigners, no doubt!) and he’s got no bloody money."

So, across to Asda, which looks more hopeful–there being three cash machines from different banks. Brilliant…but no.