North of the Stupid Line

I had a most pleasant journey home from London Paddington last night. The FGW train left more or less on time at 1745, and arrived at Bristol Parkway at, wait for it, 2315.

Yes, you read right, 2315. FOUR hours late. And that was only to BP, not Newport. I arranged for Rachel and my dad to come pick me up at BP as the train I was on terminated there, and I wasn’t going to risk waiting for another train to go the final hurdle to Newport. I got home eventually at 0035.

Why such massive delays? Well, about FIVE minutes before the 1745 train was due to arrive at BP, it stopped. Something wrong with the wheels, or the track. Could have been something to do with the sensors along the track that stop a train automatically (I didn’t know they could do that) if a fault with the train is detected. Well, a fault was detected with the train I was on, and it was stopped, and was not allowed to go above a certain speed. We had to wait for engineers to come and inspect the fault, and as we were in the middle of nowhere, in pitch blackness, they had to get the train to BP so that people could at least get off.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Three positive things about this fiasco:

1. I got a complimentary cup of tea and chocolate muffin;
2. I’ll be able to claim a refund of 50% of my ticket fare as the delays were more than one hour; and
3. I taught Natalie (the girl who was in the seat next to mine) the BSL alphabet.

Why does it always happen? We go months without anything decent on telly on a Saturday night, and then all of a sudden you have two good TV programmes on different channels, on more or less the exact same time!

I am of course talking about The X Factor vs. Strictly Come Dancing.

I will post more on this topic tomorrow. But for now, am going to bed. Night!

Update: Morning! Just wanted to add a few words about this whole The X Factor vs. Strictly Come Dancing thing. I fully acknowledge that they are both not top quality entertainment programmes, but they are good, harmless entertainment. They get everyone talking, so they can’t be that bad.

With Strictly Come Dancing, I enjoy the rare opportunity to watch ballroom and latin dancing on our TV screens, and it’s fun to see celebrities (albeit C-list celebrities) putting themselves on the line, both physically and publicly, to raise money for charity. I reckon either Colin Jackson or Zoe Ball will win, as they’re the ones who seem to have the most talent for dancing.

On the other hand, The X Factor is fun simply because we get to see people living the dream. I’m sure there’s something inside all of us that wishes we could become pop stars. I know I would love to be a pop star, but I can’t sing to save my life! We do have an interesting mix of finalists this year, and I think the strongest finalists are Sharon Osborne’s Brenda, Maria and Andy.

Out of Louis’ lot, Shayne is the best one, but I think he’s a bit boring. Chenai is too vulnerable in my view; she needs to toughen up if she wants to win the competition. She has been playing on the sympathy card a bit too much, and while I do sympathise, it is a little off-putting. Chico is too cheesy and doesn’t have the vocal ability (if he does, he needs to start singing instead of just strutting his stuff every week). Nicholas needs to vary his body language, as he seems to use the same gestures every week.

It’s all trashy nonsense, I know, but it’s fun! Isn’t that what Saturday nights are all about??

I experienced a first last night for the RAD Services Team Away Day – I went to watch greyhounds racing at Romford Stadium. We had a meal in the Chase Restaurant while watching the races.

The food wasn’t the best ever, but it was adequate, and the atmosphere (with RAD colleagues present) was great, and we all had a good night. I decided to do something I’ve never really done before and bet. I bet on three races in total, and amazingly, won all three! I won a total of approximately £25, which is not bad for a newbie.

P.S. For all you animal lovers out there, I want to clarify that the fact I went to watch greyhound racing is not in any way indicative of my support of the “sport”.

If any cruelty to animals has emerged as a result of this “sport”, either directly or indirectly, then I am of course totally against it. I am aware that there is a debate about the racing life of most greyhounds, and the tendency of owners to abandon them when they are retired. This is a problem because many greyhounds are left in dog homes simply because they are very fit dogs and require lots of exercise, which puts people off taking them on as pets.

The entire evening was a social event with work colleagues, and nothing more.

… is to see my family learn BSL and communicating with each other in BSL.

This is something that I probably never will see. My parents always say that they’re too old to learn and reckon that they would never practice enough as I’m in London etc. However, I feel that, as it’s very likely Rach and I will have Deaf kids (who we plan to bring up bilingually), my parents (and the rest of the family for that matter) need to learn BSL so that they can encourage the language development of the kids.

Why is it that hearing families with d/Deaf children are so reluctant to learn BSL? Does the medical model of deafness as portrayed by clueless audiologists really get to them that much? Why don’t they *listen* to what their kids are saying? Surely we know better than the doctors who don’t even know how to communicate effectively themselves.

Rachel was telling me this evening that Cardiff University (where she’s a student at) is now ranked the 20th best university in the UK according to The Guardian. The universities that I have had links with in some form or other are:

• Cambridge: 2nd – I was offered a place by Jesus College, Cambridge, and although this was my first choice university, I didn’t get the grades they wanted. I’ve always wondered what my life would be like now if I went to Cambridge.
• York: 8th – I applied to York and was offered an interview, but I’d already accepted offers from Cambridge and Swansea by this point.
• Warwick: 9th – I was offered a place, and a friend, Catherine Aveyard, went there.
• Durham: 24th – I was offered a place.
• Leicester: 34th – I was offered a place, and am currently doing my LLM by distance learning at this university.
• Swansea: 61st – my second choice, I did my History degree there.
• UWE: 84th – I did my Diploma in Law (CPE) there.

Anyway, I digress. The whole point of this post is to have a moan about the fact that I didn’t get the grades I needed to go to Cambridge. They offered me a place on the condition that I got AAB in my A Levels. I got BBC. This was particularly annoying because all through my A Levels, I consistently got As in English Literature and History, and Bs for German, but the final grades rested on the final exams, and two years of work were wasted because I didn’t get the grades I felt I deserved.

Perhaps I didn’t work hard enough for the exams, perhaps I was too cocky, perhaps I couldn’t do it. I don’t know. It’s always going to bug me.