Overheard

Ah how long I have waited for the days of my return. Through the snow and the wind, the language barrier and the Netto food, I have wallowed in my languid pit of hope and frustration for months. Finally, this winter, I’m back in business.

Before Christmas I took a tidy little jaunt out to Buxton for one solitary mystery shop. It was a pleasant if not chilly winters morning as I sat at a desk, buried in a book, on a relatively empty train carriage. Life was great.

Ah, more passengers! Well, please do come and sit down opposite and share with me the sight of the mid-morning mist rising gently from the peaks of the landscape before us, as we sit huddled behind a lens that shields us from the slight flick of occasional rain drops.

No? You want to talk about a potential tattoo, the taste of deodorant, and your soon-to-come wedding instead? Oh, well OK then I suppose. But please, can you keep your voices dow– oh, I see.

Their conversation lasted the entire journey. Two 17-year-old girls fresh out of college and living up the Christmas holiday experience, in Buxton. I never learnt their names, so Brown-hair and Lipstick is what I shall refer to them as. Brown-hair was evidently the boss. She was describing how she wanted a tattoo that travelled ‘like a grape vine’ from here (jabbing at her elbow) all the way up, along and then down again to here (a prod in the cleavage). Lipstick’s reply – a common trait when one is utterly bored of the subject matter – was to heighten her feigned interest with “no way, really?” Thus, Lipstick prolonged a conversation she had no interest in, out of pure obligation.

Lipstick managed to pry the conversation away by dumping her enormous bag on the desk in front of me and searching around inside. She got out a can of deodorant and sprayed over her jumper. She must have been sweating a hell of a lot to warrant 24-hour clothes protection. The pair descended into a full-blown discussion over the taste of deodorant. Riveting.

Luckily the train pulled in to Buxton station before the details of Brown-hair’s impending wedding could come out, and I skipped off down the hill to find my mystery shop. Shop done, it was time for home.

Stuck in Manchester station waiting for my connection, I decided a jaunt around the city would be a useful waste of my time. I did a cheeky little lap of the centre; took in the sights and all that. I stood on my route back to the station at a road crossing and overheard this little ditty. Two lads with heavy Manc-Asian accents were stood next to me. All I heard was:

“Yeah, yeah. Well, Home Alone One was alright. Home Alone Two was better. But Home Alone Three, well I just try and think it never happened.”

Yes! Thank you! Finally someone who is willing to discuss the merits and dissatisfaction of the Home Alone series instead of simply saying it’s shit.

Anyway, this was all pre-Christmas. Yesterday I went to Bradford for another single shop that took me far longer than it should have done. This is a picture of a boat I saw not 200 yards from my front door. What an earth a boat is doing in Honley I have absolutely no idea. There’s no chance that’s getting down the mild dribble of a river we have in the village.

I also saw this across the village station platform. The picture is a bit blurry, but I can confirm the sign reads: ‘Warning. Ancient Mine Shaft. Keep Out.’ Jinkies! If there’s anything more tempting to a gang of mystery solving hippies and a freakishly large dog it’s an ancient mine shaft. This goes for the youth of today as well, who will no doubt be drawn to the sign. In doing so, they will cross the tracks and could get run over. Disgraceful. It’s like putting a lump of cheese on a mousetrap, and in front of that laying some razor wire. The mouse is still gonna try and get the bloody cheese!

Overheard a woman on the train to Leeds talking business: “Okay, they’re nice people, but they’re not going to change the world.” Oh, and you are, are you? Mrs I talk loudly on the train about supply side costs so everyone thinks I’m smart. Mrs I’m boring the expensive shirt and tie combo off my colleagues neck with my anodyne business ‘strategy’. You’re not that big and clever. You’re on a crammed rush-hour train like everybody else. Not even in First Class. Go watch Home Alone and cheer up.

As I walked through Bradford I suddenly felt a tinkle of liquid on one side of my face. ‘Surely this cannot be rain’ I thought, and of course it wasn’t. A bus had sprayed its windscreen at the exact moment it surged past, leaving me with a delightful – yet odd tasting – pattering of anti-freeze over my face.

The Frivolity of Words

As an English student and wannabe journalist, I quite like words. They can be crafted in such intricate ways to portray innumerous ideas, viewpoints and arguments. Words are amazingly flexible in this case. We can even, when the elasticity of words is still just too rigid; make up new words (such as innumerous) in an attempt to convey what we mean. However, what is best about ‘words’ is the context behind which they are used.

For example, two days ago I was sitting on a train heading to Chesterfield for a mystery shop. It was one of those old trains that probably will be scrapped in five years or so, but lucky for everyone on the coach, this meant hoards of graffiti on the backs of seats, the windows, etc…

Now, as I was saying, it is the context – the motive for writing – of words that fascinates me most. So, on the train, graffiti such as ‘Damo 08’ and ‘Vinnie 2009’ holds within them a certain context, a certain mood. Why did Damo and Vinnie decide to brand their names and date their artwork on their respective train journeys to Sheffield or Huddersfield? (And why did Vinnie’s poor parents settle on the name Vinnie?)

The sad irony of it, as I starred at the seat in front of me where the graffiti was lovingly etched, was that one poor sod had evidently not understood the art of graffiti: ‘Danny Whitfield’. Now Danny, I’m afraid merely putting your name in enormous block capitals over the entirety of the back seat may not be the smartest thing to do. As I’m sure everyone would agree, your first problem is that you haven’t dated it. Second, you need a cooler name – or at least something that combines the two – such a ‘D Whitey’ or ‘Dwight’. This is was I love about words, the fact that when ‘Danny Whitfield’ was being written down, the hand that wrote it probably thought he was the coolest kid in the carriage. Imagine being out-cooled by a guy called Vinnie…

Anyway I made it to Sheffield station and sat down on a bench to await my next train. Stood in front of me was my next blob (and I mean that sincerely) of amusement. I’ll be blunt – an enormous woman was stood about 5 yards away from me with an Innocent Smoothie strapped to her gob. The best thing – apart from the fact she’d just called her friend a moron for forgetting to answer her phone – was that, stretched across the base of her neck, was the word ‘Dave’.

Poor Dave I suppose. That branding ain’t going away. A tattoo with your partner’s name on it is like an invisible one-way leash. The tattooed now has to fight to keep the relationship, while the named can hold their other half up for ransom:

“If you don’t make me a cup of tea sharpish, I’m going to leave you. And then you’ll be embarrassed by that ridiculous piece of shit on your back, rather than vulgarly proud. So go on – mush!”

The actual shop in Chesterfield went swimmingly, mainly because I had my ipod and was on my bike, so practically shut off the outside world. The journey back offered a little amusement however, and again involved an overweight member of our society.

I boarded the train home behind such a large bloke, who took up most of the remaining pair of seats in the carriage, so that I stood in the doorway bit. Looking at him, he had some bagging tracksuit pants on and trainers with the word ‘AIRWALK’ on the side. To be honest he was dressed like an amateur athlete, and yet I know it had been a while since compulsory P.E lessons.

What amused me though was the ‘AIRWALK’ branding on the trainers. The big thinkers at the trainer company obviously wanted a brand that would capture the consumer, to make them think THIS trainer is so light that running is like walking on air. Now, if you can convince a 28-year-old whale to buy them, you’ve struck marketing gold.

The only other thing I saw was the word ‘NEDLES’ graffitied on the side of a tunnel. I don’t know if this was a name, or an advertisement for a tramp’s new entrepreneurial business idea, but it was spelt wrong all the same… Probably didn’t have enough paint for an extra ‘E’.

Day Skipper

For the first time in a very long time, I actually made a day of it when doing a mystery shop. The other day I visited Skipton, just desperate to get out of the house, to earn very little money. I was expecting the usual ‘train journey – shop – train home’ routine, but with a glorious stoke of luck, it turned out to be quite a good day.

Due to my internet being cut off at home, I was forced in the morning to head to the university library to enquire about potential shops to do that day. Since the end of exams, I had promised myself never to set foot in the libraries at Leeds for 18 months, so I felt rather dishonoured breaking my Lent so early on.

Success! I bagged a visit to Skipton, and off I went. Nothing much really happened on the way there, as I was buried in a volume of light reading. However, three things did amuse me once in the supermarket during my shop. The first one concluded an idea I’ve had for a while: that people are happy to make acquaintances, but only when it suits them. As I walked down the frozen food aisle, two old women passed each other, going in opposite directions. A hasty “Hi” protruded from both mouths, and one of the women stopped in order to transform this greeting into a proper conversation. In return, the other woman just walked on by, head held high. Chatting in a supermarket to this particular lady just didn’t suit her mood. The poor other woman was left to recollect her rejection, and move on into the tinned goods aisle.

The second and third interesting things happened when I was queuing to pay for my food. In front of me were an elderly couple. I looked at what they had on the conveyor belt: six packs of jelly and two litres of UHT milk. They were up for a right night. I was about to ponder further into what this lethal combination of consumables could amount to, when I heard a shriek that echoed throughout the store: “Come on Graham!” I don’t know why, but it amused me…

What made this visit particularly special was the coincidence that three friends (that again cannot be named for complicated legal reasons) also happened to be in Skipton that day. After half an hour trying to find them, I met them outside the local Oxfam in the town centre. I noticed on the window of the Oxfam a sign: ‘All clothes – half price sale’. Now, at what point does anyone think ‘well, I would shop at Oxfam, but it’s a little bit too pricey for my liking’? The price of the goods surely isn’t the reason why they’re not selling. In my opinion, they should get some better quality stock in…

The four of us, after finally meeting up, went for lunch by the canal. While sitting there mauling a four-pack of chocolate muffins, a beautiful event in nature was occurring. I am talking, of course, about… duck foreplay. A lady duck was perched on the edge of the canal. A man duck had noticed this, and thought he had a chance. The little pecker jumped out of the water, and began grooming himself near the female. When her head was turned, he actually slowly waddled sideways in her direction, to get near to her without her noticing. I was so sweet to see this guy trying his hardest to look cool but not too pushy. As we left, they swam away together on the canal. I suppose it does pay to be the nice guy.

Nothing much really happened after this. We went for a gander round the town and saw in a shop a bucket branded ‘The Invincible Bucket’. There was a picture on the front with a massive car on top of four buckets, as though this is meant to prove to you that this bucket is the manliest, most indestructible bucket in the world. So what do you put in a bucket? Paint, soil, and maybe water to wash the car. They should have called it ‘The Most Unnecessarily Branded Bucket Ever’.

Grapes of Annoyance

Two days ago I was talking to a friend about finally doing another mystery shop. Stood at traffic lights, he jokingly suggested going to Tesco for lunch. “Nah” I said, “I’ll get my hit later today. Although I’m almost clean now”. As I said this we walked past two girls waiting at the crossing. I’m pretty sure they would have understood I was referring to mystery shopping…

Having left my friend (who shall remain nameless for legal reasons beyond my control) I sauntered down to the train station, sweltering in the glorious Leeds sunshine. My first point of call was Ilkley. I think I’ve been to Ilkley more times this year than… well than a really regular occurrence. Indeed, this visit was no different to the 15 or so I have done over the last two years to the town, and the ride back home was to be the same demure affair. However, the glories of personal stupidity struck as per usual.

A man sat next to me on the train as I was tucking into a bag of grapes. At this point I must say, they were bloody good grapes. The man – about middle-aged – had clearly had a long day at work, and was grumbling through the sports section of the Metro. He saw me eating the grapes, so I offered him one. He accepted, probably in surprise more than anything else; that a youth in this age were to offer him fruit and not a pill of some kind. I turned back to my book, and carried on reading and chopping, as a girl with creamy coloured tights sat opposite me. Now I must mention here that the colour of her tights, and the fact I noticed them at all, are important to the story, and NOT just a purvey appreciation of a 25-year-old’s undergarments.

About two minutes after the girl sat down, I grappled with an enormous red grape to pluck it from its stalk. This grape was the king of the packet. Much like the biggest crisp its respective bag, the grape was just bulging with mass. Rather nonchalantly I popped it between my two front teeth, and bit slowly but surely into it. The result: half a grape fell in my mouth, as the juice from the other half cascaded over my lap and discreetly onto the thigh of the lady in front, who was reading a stimulating celeb mag by this point. She didn’t notice, but I bloody well did: as did the man next to me, who was shaking slightly as he tried to suppress his laughter.

I quickly put my grapes back in my bag before the woman could see, and buried my head in my book, seriously hoping she shopped at Primark and not somewhere expensive, like George.

After alighting (whatever the hell that REALLY means) the train, I meandered through the busy crowd to a platform for the train to Bradford. Standing there waiting, I couldn’t help observe a rather short woman, nursing the potbelly of a balding, taller man. It looked like he was pregnant, and she was feeling for kicks. To be honest, it just looked weird.

On the train to Bradford I definitely saw an Asian Colin Murray, as well as a very skinny Chico (and I hereby express my embarrassment at having even heard of that name). I was pretty damn pleased with my celeb spotting for the day.

However, my annoyance grew on the way back from Bradford, when a guy came up to me and asked if I had “a fag”. Naturally I did the “sorry mate” routine, which basically just means: “please fuck off”, and went to cross the road. However, something hit me when I did this: why should I be sorry that I don’t possess something that basically makes you look and smell like the trampy state you’re in? Why should I concede to looking like the one at fault? It just pissed me off to realise the automatic reaction when being asked if you have a cigarette is to apologise for NOT screwing up your body.

Anyway, he then went over to two 12-year old girls and asked them. They of course said no. The guy was clearly an idiot.

Finally

It’s been two months now since my last mystery shop. I remember that day as if it was but yesterday. The crisp bite of early February air, off the back of a freezing winter, tormenting my lungs as I jogged out of Huddersfield.

Today I got back on the road, with a shop to York. This morning I had come to the conclusion that the most exciting thing that was going to happen to me today was seeing if the red team in ‘To Buy or not to Buy’ would make a steady profit at today’s auction. Imagine my sheer distress and utmost anger when my boss rang up, asking if I could do a mystery shop instead.

So, how to get to York… Well, I had the car for once, so printed off a map and got into third gear (mental, I know!). I encountered my first problem however at the bottom of the road, with a queue of cars stretching up into Honley village reminding me I was about to set off on a 100-mile-round trip… in rush hour. They said on the radio that ‘rush hour’ doesn’t really exist any more. I’d have to agree; no one can move fast enough to ‘rush’, and the whole thing takes longer than an hour. My journey was to take five.

Anyway, I eventually broke into some vague momentum and managed to get up to 30mph in Dewsbury! I was getting bored however, and so, realising there was a fast-looking car in my rear mirror, decided to amuse myself a bit. The road was long, with a huge queue of cars. We weren’t going anywhere soon, and yet this car (I think it was a Jag) was trying to overtake me. I can’t remember the number plate, but am sure it read something like: PR1CK.

So, what to do with an impatient tosser behind you, with nowhere to go, and nothing to do but go 30mph? Well, slow down of course. I didn’t act quickly, but ever so slowly reduced my speed, to about 25mph, to see if he’d notice. He did, and I could tell he did. So, I went down to 23mph, making sure to let any car from adjoining roads in front of me whenever I could. The guy did not seem happy, but, as he angrily sped away at a junction further down, I decided I didn’t care. I’d happily pissed off a rich angry bloke. Adopting the phrase ‘time is money’, looking at his car, suggests he has too much spare money, and therefore too much spare time. So why does he need such a fast car?

Anyway, I got past Leeds and was heading to York when possibly one of the greatest spectacles ever seen on the roadside introduced itself to me. It was on old bloke on one of those mobility scooters you get along with your bus pass, pension and stair lift when you reach 65. The guy was bombing along the pavement, but what was special was that his wife was sat behind. I thought giving your mate a backie died out when you were about 14? It was funny though: to see this old woman clutching on to her husband as he traversed unruly potholes and meandered round pedestrians, a walking stick tucked under her right arm. They looked like they were having fun at any rate.

The shop in York took no time at all, and so off I went back home. On the way back I thought I’d stop off in Leeds to check the house; you know, to make sure it was still standing. Thankfully it was, and, after picking up some stuff I naturally forgot to take home with me for the Easter break, I jumped back into the car to head for Honley.

I was happy with the day’s exploits. The drive back past Hyde Park however, filled me with slight remorse. You see, in the spring, for about two weeks, flowers emerge all over the park, giving the place a more vibrant colour scheme than the graffiti on a skate park. It signifies the coming of summer and the pissing off of winter. Sadly, this Dulux delight only lasts about a fortnight, for, as I drove past, I noticed the daffodils and weeds have already begun to take over. They’re nice, but just not as strikingly beautiful. Wordsworth had it all wrong…

Small talk

You know when you see a person in the street who you don’t really know, have never had a conversation with (really) and actually kind of just think they’re a bit of a knob? Well, that happened to me today.

I arose this morning fully expecting to pile on the hours in the library in one massive reading session. After applying to do a mystery shop by 8:30, my plan for the day had gone slightly askew. Instead of reading for five solid hours, I reckon I managed about one and a half today. Must do better tomorrow!

The problem is with my ‘job’ is that the benefits of doing uni work while on the go is evident when you’re stuck on a train for three hours to Morecambe. But, when the train only takes 25 minutes to get to Huddersfield – my destination of choice for the day – it’s hard to find the incentive a settle down with a book and get a good read in. The ipod was beckoning.

Anyway, I was walking down into Leeds to get the train when I saw someone in front of me who I just could not be arsed to talk to. It’s not that they weren’t necessarily a nice person, or that they were a knob; it was the fact that I couldn’t be bothered with the suffering of small talk.

Small talk is an arduous task that can ware down even the most patient of people. There’s a limit to the amount of times you can tell someone you’re tired, how you don’t like mornings, and how much fun last night was. So to save me the hassle, I walked slowly down to the station, making sure this person (a guy off my course) didn’t turn round.

My run around Huddersfield was fairly unremarkable to be honest. It snowed, which made me wonder if February could just hurry up and get out of the way. I love spring, it’s just you have to get through shitty February for it to even be close.

Observe, don't meddle

Over the last nine days I have done ten mystery shops. I have scaled the heights of Skipton, delved into the depths of Sowerby, and wandered fairly absentmindedly through the pit of Bramley.

In fact, I’ve done just so many shops and had so little time to do much else, that I have decided to condense my experiences of the last week into one lovely, manageable, single blog post.

So, I suppose I begin last Monday, with a trip to a local fastfood outlet (which shall not be named in the risk of free advertising for the international franchise to my vast array of readers…). Here, sat on my own watching the other Huddersfieldians munch of their food, my external monologue grew like Wakefield rhubarb… fast.

My observations were hooked by a couple sat across the restaurant from me. The girl was sat chewing on a cob of sweetcorn. I was impressed by this: a healthy meal in a less-than-healthy store, until I realised this was only a small starter in preparation to her main course: two burger meals.

As I gaped at the amount of food piled in front of her, and the fat globules of butter dripping off her sweetcorn, I turned towards the male sitting next to her. I refer to him as a male as this is what he was. He wasn’t a man, he couldn’t be. His gender was established due to the enormous bald cranium shining at me from a distance. However, I would stop short in saying this guy was human. He was at the time gnashing his way through a double burger of some kind, and this is where I realised his jaw was wider than his head. No man’s jaw should be wider than his head. It either means his brain didn’t develop enough to achieve minimum capacity, or he’s eaten so much meat over the years his jaw muscles could enter a strongman contest on their own. This meat-eater was no man, he was a beast, and his stomach proved as much.

Anyway, that pretty much summed up Monday. It wasn’t until later on in the week that I found my next ‘observation’. I had to hurry to get a train to Bradford, and only just got it. I sat down with relief on the train, and looked up to feel my relief turn to utter joy. A man was sat in front of me that looked exactly like Pierce Brosnan. Now, I’m not saying his eyes were similar, or his mouth was, rather his entire face was James Bond. He was reading a book in a smarmy yet cool sort of way. Out of ten (ten being Pierce and zero being an alien) I’d give him a solid nine. The only way I knew it wasn’t 007 was that there was no way in hell Pierce Brosnan would be using a clattery old train, in commoner class, to travel from Leeds to Bradford. Still, I put it up there with when I thought I saw Chris Martin in Nando’s, Huddersfield.

I got off the train and was walking through Bradford when I strolled past Topman. In the window was a range of manikins, wearing a variety of, well, clothes. The clothes didn’t really capture my attention however; it was the manikins. Imagine holding a dead frog, with a large, round belly, from its neck. The belly protrudes forwards while the legs flop back at a strange angle. This is what the manikins looked like. The hip, like the frog’s belly, was a pivot for the body and legs to skew off in two freakish and impossible angles. It was simply thrust forward about half a foot. Now one stands with their crotch protruding 15cm from their body. This annoyed me a little bit to be honest. Although what annoyed me more was the fact I was annoyed by it, as is often the case.

On the bus back from Bradford I was stood near three people of about my age. One guy had a ludicrously strong West Yorkshire / Asian accent. I could barely understand a word he was saying. However, through the garbled dialect I heard one phrase: “Shut up you fanny crack”. This rather took me aback. I looked at the guy who had said such a base thing and found it remarkable a 20-year-old would use such adolescent language. The girl he said it to didn’t even flutter an eyelid. But what really got me was the context he said it in. The guy had earrings, new coat, clean trainers and new gloves. He clearly cared about his appearance, so why didn’t he care about how he spoke? I suppose he just found it normal. I was confused.

I can’t really remember much more, other than today, walking back from Leeds, I passed the Student Union. As I walked past, I heard a guy talking to his mates. All I heard was “I was literally killed six times”. Now, I’m fairly sure that’s an overstatement. Saying you’ve been killed once is hyperbolic enough, literally or otherwise. His mates looked impressed anyway, so I decided to let him revel in his glory uninterrupted.

Quiet Christmas

I awoke yesterday morning in Paul’s bed. Paul wasn’t there I’ll have you know, but seeing as I’m the only one in the house at the moment and his radiator is the only one that can be arsed to work, I’ve decided that camping in his room for a few days is warranted.

So, sitting in my sleeping bag (don’t want to touch the sheets!) I checked on the BBC weather website to find out if my two mystery shops could actually be completed today. Well, high pressure and zero wind meant there’d be no more snow coming my way, so I gambled out of bed as quickly as I could and got myself down to the train station.

Guess what, it’s been snowing. In fact, I’m pretty sure everyone is aware that it’s been snowing for quite a while now. In fact, it’s getting to the point where the novelty has just about worn off and you just want to get on with your life. The snow’s been here so long now I’m beginning to think the world is enacting The Day After Tomorrow in slow motion. Checking on Yahoo News today, the headline simply reads ‘Britain’s Big Freeze to get worse’. How tragic.

Anyway, I successfully managed to get to the station without falling slap on my arse. While heading towards my first train, a rather aged, balding man with a heavy-looking suitcase sprinted past me, closely followed by a guy with one of those stupid grey hats that fold back and look a wee bit like a condom. They were running for my train! I looked up and realised the doors were about to shut. Now, I had a decision to make. Either a) run to the train, slip on the platform, embarrass myself and watch the carriage doors shut from my new lowly position on the floor, or b) walk normally towards the train, if it goes, it goes.

I walked. It went. I carried on walking as though I didn’t even want that train. I passed the condom guy, who hadn’t reached the train in time, and was hitching up his pants from below his knees.

So, instead of going to Halifax first I ended up on the train to Selby. I should have remembered this as the conductor came up to me and asked if I was going to York. My reply: “Erm… no. Sheffield”. She looked at me as though I was a moron. My brain itself was kicking me. For, at what point do you then go “Oh erm… sorry no this isn’t to Sheffield is it. Erm… Selby then I think”.

She walked on by with an expression on her face of ‘why did I pick a job that dealt with the general public?’ and I got nestled in to a meaty article in the Metro.

Selby was fairly unremarkable, as was my visit to Halifax. However, on my way back to Halifax station I overheard a conversation between two elderly ladies. It went:
“So did you have a good Christmas?”
“Oh yes. Although it was a quiet one this year.”
“Aye same. Nice… but quiet.”

Now, what were they expecting? We’re all fed on television and films this idea of the massive family intrusion on your doorstep descending the household into chaos for a day, but that doesn’t really happen. You’ve cooked a roast dinner hundreds of times before, so this one is as much as a doddle as the one you did last week. You sit there with people you live with, and only comment on how nice the turkey is and how repulsive the sprouts are because they only make an entrance to your dinner table once a year. The crackers are woefully disappointing and yet you lament over the crap standards of the jokes as though this were a surprise, and the television schedule is a bunch of hour-length specials telling you how great Christmas is, while you and everyone in the world are all in the knowledge they were filmed back in August. Of course you had a quiet Christmas.

Back at Halifax station I had another look around the Eureka grounds. Eureka, as I have mentioned before, is the best place in the world – when you are a kid at least. It looked great covered in snow, a proper fantasy.

Anyway, my journey home was dominated by an attempted conversation with a man who sounded like he was from Latvia or Armenia or somewhere like that. He was asking for 10p so he could upgrade his ticket from a single to a return. Sadly, it took rather a long time to explain this to me, as his English was not good, he was talking into my deaf ear, the carriage was exceptionally noisy, and I was more concerned with the pink magazine he was brandishing at me.

I eventually got the gist, that he would give me his magazine, that I had seen him pick up off the carriage floor about two minutes beforehand, if he could have 10p. I looked at the magazine. It was one of those celebrity ones, but sadly I didn’t recognise it. To be honest, if it’s not Hello Mag, I don’t want it. And to be honest, I would happily have paid the guy 10p to take such an illiterate clump of bilge off my hands.

Free texts and ringtones

You know it’s going to be a good day when you jump on the train at 11:30 in the morning to find a guy watching East is East on his laptop.

This set a precedent for my mystery shopping trip to Barrow in Furness yesterday, a place I’ve been to twice before and regretted it both times. This time, however, I was determined to make the most of it. So, armed with a wodge of John Donne religious poetry, I set off towards Manchester with a giggling 40-year-old staring at a laptop in the corner of my eye.

The god thing about getting a train around 11 o’clock is that the droll, 9am rush has scuttled away, leaving the freaks and the jobless to man the carriages until 5pm. Today was no different, with a plethora (I HATE that word!) of oddities smattered around me.

The train was clearly full of the popular side of the freak show, however, with a variety of text alerts sounding at regular intervals. My favourite was a Countdown noise from the Channel 4 program spearheaded by the mighty Jeff Sterling. The woman giggled every time it played.

(I have just looked up at the TV and there’s a shot of a man, watching cricket in South Africa, in a paddling pool – absolute genius!)

Along with the Countdown conundrum, a 40-something man with too many tattoos for anyone’s liking insisted on playing half the theme tune of the Godfather before answering his phone, while I heard a noise from down the carriage at one point that sounded like the generic background music of a really old Playstation game. As we pulled into Manchester Piccadilly, an old woman’s phone rang – it was a wolf whistle.

Wandering around Manchester waiting for my next train, I noticed one of the T-Mobile adverts currently doing the rounds that asks the question to a giddy little 15-year-old “What would you do with free texts for life?” This particular one said she would have a mass pillow fight in Manchester. Now luckily for me, O2 has just given me free texts for life (terms and conds. apply) and yet something tells me a Huddersfield-wide mud wrestle won’t be on the horizon. Sadly, I may have free texts but I don’t have the bloody Yellow Pages imprinted in my phone.

Back on another train to Lancaster I was lucky enough to sit down next to some posh schoolboys. They had all the credentials: smart blazer and tie done up, polished shoes, pronounced their ‘t’s. One went a little bit too far however, and brought out of his satchel a flask of coffee… I think I would have been disowned at school if I had done that.

These chums quickly left the train and I was once again alone until an old lady sat opposite me. She looked utterly delighted at being on a train. Her happiness took a slight turn however as the train stopped in a tunnel. The woman nervously looked out of the window: darkness. So what did she do? She looked out of the other window just to make sure. I don’t know what she was expecting to find. Tunnels are generally symmetrical in build.

(It’s just started snowing outside! On a side note – Yahoo! news today ran with the headline ‘Prepare for treacherous weather’. Clearly the guy who wrote it was from London, as the report went on to state how ‘10cm of snow could fall this weekend.’ No way! Ten entire centimetres? Get the snow tyres out Joan.)

Anyway, I got to Roose (just outside Barrow) at a decent time, did my shop, and realised I had two hours to burn. So, I headed off – like I did about three months ago – into Roose town centre. The centre consisted of a Co-op, car wash and Post Office. However, it also had a small independent pharmacy. I can just imagine this is the kind of place someone would go out of their way to, in order to buy condoms or pile cream. Avoid the embarrassment of being recognised by travelling to the corner of the known world – Roose.

My trip back was fairly uneventful. A woman was breast feeding her 4-year-old child, which was a bit disturbing, and a rather fat man boarded the train holding two boxes of 10x double chocolate fudge muffins (he’s gonna have a wild night I thought). That was it really. I got back to Huddersfield at 7:30 to find a drunk man talking to the statue of Harold Wilson. It wasn’t much of a conversation to be honest.

Needlessly Complicated

Very, very rarely, I manage to bag the car to do a mystery shop. Today was one of those days. I always think it will be less stressful when I drive to a store rather than jog, bike or train it, but thanks to the gorgeous vocal tones of a borrowed sat-nav, I reckon my hair’s cantered through at least 50 different Dulux shades of brown on a crash-course towards woodlouse silver.

The thing with a sat-nav is that it really is a brilliant thing. I wouldn’t have had a clue how to get to the arse end of Adel if it wasn’t for that machine. However, it’s my own human error that stresses me out and pisses me off.

I just can’t understand my own idiocy in misinterpreting simple commands of a computerised voice. ‘Turn left in 200 metres’ usually leads to me gormlessly searching for any sort of turning 500 metres later.

The fact that it gets dark seemingly before it gets light in December didn’t help either, and, coupled with a rain intensity Noah would be proud of, I got lost more times than I would have done than if a passer-by had given me a rough etching of Swindon high street on the back of a fag box and told me to take the nearest space shuttle.

Anyway, apart from me getting lost nothing much really happened today. Oh, although I did successfully manage to achieve ultimate boredom by sitting in a year’s worth of traffic jams listening to either crap radio music or a discussion about the deservedness of the new X-factor winner.

All I have to say it this: No one called Joe has ever made it big.

The Moon and the Tramp

Listening to my ipod as I jogged around south Leeds today in search of two mystery shop visits, I began to wonder if any of the scenes described in songs actually come true.

I bet loads of people have purposefully slipped on blue suede shoes before they jet down into west Tennessee just so they can walk through Memphis with a grin on their face. No doubt thousands of people have hailed a waiting cab in San Francisco, but made sure it was past Pier 39. And I know for a fact someone, somewhere in the world, will have danced in the dark just to make a bloody point.

Last night I had left my bag in the newspaper office, and so set out without a bag on my bag. Pockets were full, so I had to hold my wallet as I cantered on down to my shops via the uni. Wearing a fairly gubby hoody, tramp gloves (the one’s without fingers) and still visibly feeling the influences of the previous night, I must have looked like a desperate crack addict running off with someone else’s wallet.

As I passed the train station in the centre of Leeds, a group of lads walked by me. They looked about my age, and were probably uni students of a kind. As I passed, I heard a brief glimpse of conversation – as you do – which went as follows:

“So what are we doing later?”
“We may as well go and see New Moon. It’s meant to be better than the first.”
“Hmm… yeah I agree.”

Now, I haven’t watched any of the vampire films that are being released seemingly every 14 seconds at the moment, but I’m fairly sure New bloody Moon is not exactly a film seven university lads – who all looked like they play ‘rugger’ – should be going to see. But maybe that’s just me.

Not much really happened today apart from this. I ran past a car that had its number plate stuck on to the bonnet with plasters. I also noted the sick that was present sprawled all over a wheely bin in my last blog was still there – frozen. That was it really.

Dork

Just as I have begun typing my right foot has got cramp. It really hurts.

Anyway, today I’ve been cantering around Manchestooooor, on two mystery shops. The first was about two miles south of the city. The second, of course, was roughly two miles north of the city.

As usual my day started in the morning, just after I had woken up actually, and way before I will inevitably go to bed. I set off for a morning lecture on the delights of religion in the time of the Renaissance in a good mood. I had my running shoes on, a smelly hoody for vague warmth, and jeans that barely covered my ankles. I looked like a right dork.

Walking down to uni, pondering whether or not I should don some gawkish spectacles to round off my image, my attention was averted to a grotesquely enormous clump of sick, sprayed up against a wheely bin.

The poor bastard who had protruded it from his (or her) stomach must have been glad to get it out. He (or she (lest we forget)) had managed to spray about half of it on the side of the bin, and the rest of the glupey porridge-looking clod was nestled nicely on the floor.

I decided not to stick around to study it for too long, and so moseyed on off down towards my lecture. I passed a now-filled hole in the ground that I had complained about exactly a week ago. I was astonished the council had managed to organise road works to be completed in just one week! I mean, to do their job on time and everything…

Just before opening the heavy glass doors into my lecture hall I heard a group of girls talking behind me. One was complaining about the cold weather. Her words – and I quote – of “It’s freezing today. This is just ridiculous!” really got to me. I wanted to turn to the girl and politely remind her that yes, it will be cold now that it is winter, but I decided against it. She’s in one of my seminars and I don’t want to rock the boat.

After my stunning lecture I set off down to the train station – now eagerly becoming my third home behind the library and the newspaper office – and hopped on a train to Manchester. I bagged a table seat – which is grand when I need to do some work – and nestled into a bit of Restoration comedy.

About half way into the journey I looked up from my riveting book to find everyone on my table, and the table next to us, playing, texting or simply just gawping at their mobile phones. I felt so anti-social sat there with an actual book; so draconian; so… not cool.

I quickly whipped my phone out to find no one had texted me. There’s no point conforming.

I made it into Manchester exactly one hour from when I left Leeds. I don’t know why I noted, remembered, or am even now accounting this at all, I just thought it’d be a good segway into a new era in my day.

Walking into the city centre from Piccadilly station, I witnessed a rather cheeky looking chappy get a wee bit of what he deserves. He was walking half way into the road, ducking in between cars and busses, probably just to piss the drivers off rather than actually get anywhere. As he reached the corner of Piccadilly Gardens, a bus swerved quickly (or as quickly as a 14-ton hunk of metal can swerve) and he was forced to leap out the way.

He guffawed rather menacingly as he escaped death; as though he’d managed to out-wit the driver or something, but sadly for him didn’t see the ankle-deep puddle of swirling rain water that he stood in the admire the scene of his miraculous escape. All I can say about this is – what an idiot.

Manchester – of course – was raining. I don’t think there’s ever been a day in the history of the world that it hasn’t rained at least a smidgeon in Manchester. Today was quite a good day to be honest: it was only drizzling.

Anyway, after a cheeky meal with me father, I set off jogging down to my first shop in the twilight. When I accepted to do this visit, I thought I’d be going to a place called Hulme: just outside Manchester but nice enough. What I didn’t realise – and what my dad told and warned me before I left – was that I was about to amble into Moss Side: notorious as one of the worst council estates in Britain.

Well I’m pretty sure a mop-haired geek in short jeans and a terrible pant would attract no attention here. Luckily for me it didn’t – I only got a few looks as I sped in and out of the shop in a matter of seconds.

It is strange when you enter Moss Side though. There’s a road going across the north/south road out of Manchester that almost acts as a divide between the affluent city and the degraded estate; aptly named Moss Side Road. The contrast is quite astounding. OK it’s not like Pennsylvania Avenue and the surrounding suburbs of Washington DC, but it is clear where the regeneration programs in Manchester are focused.

I didn’t stick around in Moss Side long, and had quickly finished my second shop so that I was on the train back home fairly sharpish. The conductor on the train had clearly had a bad shift however. As he passed a girl who had put her bag on the seat next to her, he exploded in a torrent of gesticulations towards the poor sod about being selfish and not freeing up a seat for someone to sit down on.

As he continued down the aisle he called to some people standing up in the carriage “Hey! There’s a free seat, now that people have decided to shift their bags! Yeah that’s right – they’ve finally moved them!” and he glared straight at this girl.

Nice to know customer relations with Northern Rail staff members are held in such high esteem.

Back to business

It’s been two entire weeks since I did a mystery shop: so long I almost forgot what it felt like to brave the Yorkshire winter weather and set out on another laborious trip across multiple train lines.

Today I’ve been to Barnsley. That’s right, av bin down tarn to get some drink. And you know what? It’s bin grand!

My day began (as it usually does) in the morning as I was walking down to uni for a lecture on the superfluous cunning of Ben Johnson. It doesn’t exactly feel like November at the moment, and so I happily took off my hoody in the baking heat and strolled down in my t-shirt.

On my way, I came across a rather large hole in the ground where evidently some water works had leaked or something (I must admit at this point I am not an expert on the warranty standards of utility systems). I don’t know what it is but when you walk past a hole in the road you always look in it. I suppose it’s the same as when you see a drunken tramp walk past you; you’re intrigued by something utterly alien and unfamiliar, and so you stare.

The scene was a mess. It looked as though two kids had been going at the tarmac road with a pickaxe each for weeks on end. There was rubble sprawled over the rest of the road and the hole was slowly filling up with… leaking water from the exposed pipe. It’s good to know Yorkshire Water can be relied upon to instantly fix a problem.

Anyway, I left the bombsite and headed towards Hyde Park. As I got to the entrance, I was taken aback by a man standing in front of me, waiting to cross the road. He was wearing a cool, trendy pair of jeans with one of those stupid logo prints on the arse (I was NOT staring at his arse!) and tears in the legs. Evidently they were meant to look worn and tatty, which is why some areas were dyed with a bronzey, oxidised finish. Unfortunately, the huge streak of bronze up his arse hadn’t quite worked out (I was NOT staring at his arse!), and it basically looked like he’d just shat himself. Delightful.

I jogged rather clumsily from here until I got down to Millennium Square, in the centre of Leeds, where the Christmas market has just been erected. Of course, with any Christmas market, there are crepe stalls, wine stalls and pointlessly mass-produced souvenir stalls. However, there was also a garlic stall. It was plonked right on the edge of the market – probably because it stank so much – and was in the shape of a clove of garlic.

Now, at what point do you ask your friends “Hey! Does anyone want to go down the Christmas market to pick up some garlic?” I’m pretty sure you can get it in the supermarket all year round for no trouble at all. It’s hardly a festive delicacy you put on your Christmas pudding!

Nothing else really happened in Leeds apart from me passing a man who looked like a cross between the Joker and the Penguin of respective Batman films, so I boarded the train thinking about Renaissance literature rather than the oddities of society.

This was not to last long however as I looked out the window onto the Leeds platform. A man, who looked rather old, was stood next to a locked carriage, pressing the ‘open’ button on the door to try and get on board. His wife was stood next to him telling him clearly that the train was locked, and yet he persisted. I was sat on my train for a good eight minutes, and when I left he was still there, pressing the button, with his wife behind him nattering in his ear.

My first visit to north Barnsley went well, and I soon found myself in Elsecar, south of the tarn, jogging up towards my next shop. I began to feel the burn after about 700 yards, and as stopped, realising I had developed a vigorous stitch under my right lung. Now this is a problem for me; my right lung is still screwed from the acquisition of pneumonia in the summer, and so I almost had to lie down to get my breath back and wait for the pain that felt like intense acupuncture to subside.

As I sat on a wall regaining my life, a bald man walked out of a barbers shop across the road. He did what every other man does after coming out of a barbers; caressing his head as he happily strolled down the street. What got me was that he was completely bald. I wondered if he’d even had a hair cut. I can just imagine the conversation he must have had with the barber:

“So, what d’you want today then sir?”
“Eh ups, give us a shave. I want it all off.”
“Excellent sir. And shall I get the shammy leather out as well?”
“Aye, give it a good polish!”
“I’ll make a bowling ball out of you sir, don’t you worry.”

… Or something like that.

I have never had a completely bald head before. To be honest I’ve grown quite accustomed to my longish mop. I think the only time I was ever allowed a shaven head was back when I was about eight. I remember getting a no. 1 all over! It was great. I was well cool. What I didn’t know, and what I sadly realise looking back now, was that I looked like one of the statues still standing on Easter Island. If you don’t know what they look like, all you need to know is that it ain’t exactly charming.

Jogging back down towards the train station after a bountiful mystery shop, I past a road called Noble Street. However, some little rascals had taken down the ‘l’ and ‘e’ and had left it saying ‘Nob Street’. This amused me greatly, and I appreciatively took a photo.

The rest of my time in Barnsley went without anything at all happening of even vague interest, and I dolefully boarded the tiny train to head back to Leeds. One final thing that struck me on the way back was a baby that was crying just behind me. To be honest it wasn’t really crying, it was bellowing. Imagine a 50-year-old northern darts player with a toned beer belly having a red hot poker shoved up his arse: “weeeeeeeerrrrrhhhhhh!” I believe would be the noise made, like an air raid siren.

If you go down to Halifax today…

… you’re in for a strange surprise. For it seems the entirety of West Yorkshire takes some sort of hallucinogenic in the second weekend of November. Things are just odd.

So, where did I go for a day of mystery shopping yesterday? Oh yes, Halifax.

The day started off quite well. Kitted out in my running shoes I set off at a canter down to Leeds station. The air was clear and fine, no one was around, which is always a good thing when you’ve done no physical exercise for about three months and you start to feel the burn when you get to the bottom of your own road.

I managed to jog probably about a mile before I had to slow down to a walk. It was very tiring and thirsty work (as I’m sure anyone who has run a marathon can emphasise with this) and so I delved into my bag to get a swig of water. Of course, my water bottle wasn’t there. It was by the sink full of fresh tap water where I had left it to brush my teeth not 20 minutes earlier.

With annoyance I zipped up my bag and swung it back onto my shoulder. As I carried on walking, head down and panting, out in front of me developed a beautiful sight: two condoms slapped next to each other on the pavement.

Now, someone clearly had a wonderful Friday night. Sex on the street just behind Hyde Park Sainsbury’s must so oh so exciting. The fact that there were two condoms suggests either this guy got lucky twice in the same night, enjoyed the location of the first so much that he just had to do it again on the same piece of wall, or that there were two guys, two ladies, shagging at the same time, trying to warm up in the freezing November air.

Of course there is a whole plethora of possibilities as to how those two condoms became entwined on that evening, so I won’t speculate further. Luckily, I was soon distracted from this scene by a man walking on the other side of the road to me. A brisk Saturday morning stroll can be deemed a good thing; a brisk Saturday morning stroll holding a can of Stella cannot. He burped. I turned. I forgot about the condoms.

I began running again as I got into Hyde Park. The main problem with this is that you have to run up hill for the majority, which is hard work. So I stopped half way and walked.

I’m pretty glad I did slow down mind, as about two minutes later someone who was clearly an Olympic marathon runner practically sprinted past me. If I had been running, the overtake would have looked like an F1 car lapping a sweaty snail.

I finally got on the train and headed towards Sowerby Bridge for my first stop. I’ve done the Sowerby Tesco visit four times now, and have loved it every time simply because it’s massive and the choice of beer is endless! Unfortunately, unlike other times I have visited, the trains were cancelled from then on. I had no way to get to Halifax other than to bus it, which was vaguely annoying seeing as I didn’t have a clue where I was or where the busses would be heading, but I eventually found myself in Halifax centre.

Halifax of course is famed for the bank that holds its namesake, and that rampant football team Halifax Town. However, they also have possibly the best museum experience in the world, with Eureka. Dubbed ‘The National Children’s Museum’ (which may act as a magnet for some rather seedy middle-aged individuals), as a child Eureka was up there with going to an ice cream parlour or the Fun Factory. Science really can be fun at this fantasy land, with ‘100s of hands-on exhibits’ on display.

I felt somewhat remorseful walking through the grounds, examining all the new playground apparatus set up to keep the kids happy as the knackered parents had a sit down for the first time in hours. This place was part of a childhood that Time had slowly disintegrated. However, I ate a chocolate bar and everything was better again.

My next stop was Brighouse, a town just above Huddersfield. My journey took me on a train that was absolutely packed. It was crammed thanks to the cancellation of all other trains going through Halifax. So, I had to actually sit next to someone!

This may sound silly, but I have noticed that people are less inclined to sit next to a long-haired youth in running gear, probably not smelling too great, reading Titus Andronicus. However, some poor woman was forced to take probably the last seat on the train, and sat down next to me.

When I say she sat down next to me, what I really mean is she sat on me. She was – how shall I say – a rather portly woman. In order to socialise with her just-as-rotund friend across the aisle, she sat with her back to me, and with her arse on my leg. This was a massive arse. I’m pretty sure my leg had been attracted to its immense gravitational field.

What I didn’t realise was that she was also sitting on the phone in my pocket. About five minutes into the journey, I got a text. It was an innocent text from my chum Tom, something about boxing, but the result of the text was far from innocent. As with most phones now, mine vibrated when the text came through. As quick as a whippet the woman next to me shot up and screamed a little. This scared me a bit, as the potential of this vast hoard sitting on me in retaliation came into my mind. However, as she turned round, I detected a sly smile on her face. She had clearly enjoyed it. Tom is a very naughty boy.

Anyways, I got to Brighouse and was moping around the Tesco store when I was introduced to possibly the most depressingly unfortunate individual in the world. A small child was lost, calling his mother, and looking quite nervous. However, I can imagine he was upset about what his mother was saying. As I went into the next aisle I saw a frantic woman looking very worried, and here’s the bad thing, screaming “Sid! Where are you Sid?” at the top of her voice. Now, if you call your child Sid or Sidney, they’re going to want to run away! Who calls their kid Sidney?

“Wow you’ve had a child! Has he got a name yet?”
“Yes we’ve decided to call him Sid.”
“Oh really? That’s brave of you. Easier than putting him up for adoption I suppose.”

So I eventually found myself on the train home to Leeds. Stood looking out the window I turned to find a guy about my age in front of me, wearing what I can only explain as a blouse. It was a light, frilly shirt and looked utterly ridiculous on him. Poor bastard. He had clearly bought into the notion of poly-gender fashion a bit too easily.

I realise I have now written as many words as a standard length essay, but it is the reason that I have an essay to write which means I have spent almost two sporadic hours writing this in front of the telly. The technique of wasting a day through watching football, typing aimlessly and annoying Paul has been perfected.

Amble in the rain

It rained today. Actually it didn’t just rain, it absolutely lashed it down. Oh that British weather eh?

Why do we moan about the weather so much? This summer will be thought of as a wet, dreary one, due to a month of rain in August. We have forgotten that May, June and July felt like we had shifted a few million miles nearer the Sun.

I say this because today I want to moan about the weather. We’ve had about a month without any serious downpour or storm, and yet I still felt my luck was against me as I walked out the door into a wall of water.

So, today I visited Harrogate and Knaresborough, in the rain. It was quite a reasonable trip to be honest. I hadn’t listened to my ipod in a while so there was a variety of newly loaded stuff on there to get my ear into!

I’ll be honest I didn’t really get to see much of either town, simply because my hood (got to keeps those locks dry) is too big for my head, and so I was walking round with blinkers on the side of my face.

What I did see though is clear evidence of something living in the water of north Leeds, for there were a hell of a lot of runners.

I don’t just mean joggers, but simply normal people cantering around. There was a man walking towards me on the outskirts of Knaresborough, who suddenly set off on a very staggered amble, rather than a jog, that made him look like he was taking his part as an extra for 28 Days Later a bit too seriously.

He ran straight past me and continued the whole way down the street, head bobbing along like a pigeons, but with the stiff, straight arms of a gorilla. I’m pretty sure his mouth would have been frothing and eyes bulging by the time he reached his destination.

There was also a small, rough looking youth who was sprinting after his smaller, rougher, and more youthful looking brother, trying to stop the tyke crossing a dual carriageway.

In the centre of Harrogate I witnessed the delightful scene of a woman running to catch a bus. She missed it by seconds, and so threw up her arms and she came to a halt in that ‘ah shit how could that bastard of a driver set off without me?’

But Leeds has its own share of weirdoes. As I was walking through Hyde Park this morning, I passed the allotments. Stood there in the rain was a man, probably about 50 years old, who obviously loved the Yorkshire’s rainy season. He was in jogging bottoms and a t-shirt: it was freezing! Evidently he was waiting for his plants to grow. Poor codger.

The waiting game

Yep, it happened again! I’ve just experienced one of those days where public transport is not in your favour. Yesterday, on two mystery shop visits, I literally strolled from one train onto the other; such was my luck in the lottery that are timetables.

However, my luck decided to sway the opposite way. I did one visit in South Milford today (which equates to east Leeds) that took three hours of standing around and waiting to accomplish.

The problem is that it’s Sunday. Sunday seems to be the perfect day to do maintenance work on rail lines, which in effect meant that, for me, a journey that should have taken no less than one hour took four. I arrived in Leeds station at 12 noon, only to find out, thanks to maintenance on the lines, that my next train was at 1 pm. I arrived back at the station in South Milford at 1:30 pm, only to find out that the next train back to Leeds was at 3:00 pm.

I had a lot of time to kill, and instead of ruining my eardrums with my ipod or straining my eyes with my book, I instead went for a little jog. Now, this is highly out of character for me – I hate jogging as it is laborious, tiresome and my hair flops down in front of my face which makes me look (and feel) like Mark off Peep Show.

So, with two hours to kill I went for a canter around South Milford, lost in my own thoughts. It was an interesting mind path I went down, which saw me reflecting on some of the things I forgot to write about in yesterdays blog.

For instance, there was a man I passed in Leeds yesterday who looked like he was in training for Mr. Olympia, or whatever they call that bodybuilding championship. He was – as they say – ‘stacked’, and bulged out of his shirt. However, he had seemingly overdone it, as, moving my eyes up from the grotesquely titanic forearms to his face, I noticed that his eyebrow muscles, yes his eyebrow muscles, were bursting out of the skull. Obviously he had surpassed a vigorous training regime of eyebrow thrusts to pump those forehead features. Unfortunately, no matter how ‘ripped’ his head may have looked, it still looked like an arse. I was staring at an original butthead, and couldn’t draw my eyes away until he walked past.

I also saw possibly one of the gawkiest things ever yesterday, on the train towards Bradford. The train was fairly full and so I walked down the aisle of my carriage looking for a seat. I didn’t find one and so stood behind a guy sat down who looked like a nerdy computer geek, with milk bottle bottoms for spectacle lenses, 40-something bald patch, and an iphone. Pretty normal on a public train, but as I peered over his shoulder to see what he was doing on his iphone – he was being very vociferous about something – I saw he was on facebook, ogling at photos of himself.

I was fairly impressed that this guy had facebook, although he looked like one of the people that probably helped program it in the first place. Base social interaction was on his cards. However, all piddling dribbles of respect for this pot-bellied geek went out the window when his phone rang. There’s no greater shock than suddenly hearing “Wow! I feel good! I knew that I wou–” coming from the phone of a geek. The guy was fumbling to answer his phone in a ‘shit I’m so embarrassed by my ring tone it actually makes it more embarrassing’ kind of a way. For surely there’s nothing more embarrassing than someone knowing you’re embarrassed about something.

Anyway, back to today. I had decided to go jogging. I set off on a road out of South Milford (so that less people would see me trying to balance a heavy, slack rucksack on my back whilst on the run) and found myself on a nice quiet road. Unfortunately, due to a complete lack of fitness, I was knackered after about 500 yards and so had to sit down on a park bench, where I pulled a chocolate bar out of my bag, got out my book, and indulged in some serious renaissance literature study, waiting for the train home.

Bass

If you think, due to the title of this post, that I’ve been fishing rather than shopping then you’re very much mistaken.

Over the last two days I’ve done five mystery shops. They’ve included walking through possibly the largest council estate in the entirety of Yorkshire (if you don’t include Hull itself) and nearly got run over in the centre of Leeds.

However, I’ll be frank, these two days have been fairly dull. My ipod was still unwilling to negotiate terms by which I could start listening to it again, and so I threw my earphones away. However, upon arrival of a store in Crossgates, (somewhere east of Leeds) I found some for sale.

‘Fantastic’, I thought as I sifted through reams of earphones, differentiated on packaging but barely on product. For this is the odd thing about earphones, or paper, chewing gum or envelopes; it is that the product is basically the same across the board. Simply, the package should just say: “sounds great in your face”, because that’s what earphones are supposed to do. It’s the marketing and packaging on the front of the product that makes you gullibly go “oh I need ultra bass quality balance”. (I haven’t got a clue what I just said there)

So, looking at the earphones section of the store, I was confronted with basic, in-ear, hooked, clip-on, bass balanced, airflow-equal, crystal clear, and dynamic. All different packages selling basically the same product. What astounded me is that the price ranged from basic: £2.47, to ultra bass quality balance: £45.

How can earphones cost £45? And who would buy them? OK so I wouldn’t buy the flimsy £2.47 ones that look more like a cheese wire than an audio aid, but come on, there’s no way you can walk down the street with your £45 earphones and justifiably think ‘yeah, I can see where this extra £40 goes.’ Bass simply isn’t that important.

Anyway I went all-out and bought some £5.60 ones. They stood out from the rest of the field as they had ‘double air flow’. As the package says: ‘Extra bass – acoustic air-flow channelled to twin vents for balanced sound.’

Now, I have never, in all my laborious years of listening to my ipod, at any time thought: ‘oooh, this is a bit unbalanced.’ I have also never needed the help of ‘air-flow controlled vents’ for me to continue listening to those great George Formby tracks.

The reason I bought it was because of the price, and because it had ‘Philips’ on the front. Cheap, good quality, and of course, extra bass.

Down South – Day 2

Public transport is a wonderful thing. Today I travelled 230 miles in six moving hours. Unfortunately, a further three hours were added on thanks, of course, to public transport.

Getting up nice and early I left my B&B and strolled on down to the bus stop to get to my train. Next bus: 55 minutes. Now, 55 minutes could be an open window for a vast landscape of opportunity. However, on a cold Sunday morning in a small hamlet with no shops open and a heavy bag lashed to my back, I was pretty much redundant, resolved to sit and try to listen to a waning ipod next to an A-road.

I did manage to walk past a pub, on my single ramble of exploration, which had a sign outside: ‘Beer of the week: Bulmers, £2.90’. This lifted my spirits a meagre ounce or so. How can a ‘Beer of the week’ be a cider? And how can they charge such a price for one of the least ‘special’ drinks in the UK? Imports from Ireland must be rare in Hampshire.

I eventually got to Alton for my train, and delightedly only had to wait half an hour! The train was fairly nippy and I got into Guildford easy enough. This isn’t what I’ll remember it for however. There was a Korean man sat opposite me for most of the journey. As I bent down to sort my bag out at my feet, the man let slip a resounding fart. I don’t think he realised anyone had heard as he had his earphones in, but it was load and obtrusive. He looked very pleased with what he thought was an act of sheer stealth.

So far, I had only had to wait for an hour and a half. I was actually quite pleased with my own efficiency! All good spirit came to an end when I entered Waterloo from another train, and merged into the underground. The thing is with the underground is that it’s actually quite simple. Find your line, find your platform, get your train. My problem was that I couldn’t find a map to find my lie to find etc… The place was rammed! Hoards of burly football shirts clumping around blocking routes, passages and MAPS!

It seemed as though every London-based football team was playing today. West Ham shirts, Arsenal shirts, Chelsea shirts. Surprisingly no Fulham shirts (I can imagine they were all above ground in their limousines).

Every train was full to the point where people’s faces were almost pressed against the windows. I was beginning to suffer the effects of a Beijing-like atmosphere, and was delighted when I finally got on the third train up the Leicester Square, and then the fourth train to Kings Cross (X).

I practically embraced the clean air of the above ground with all the love and warmth possible, which then diluted away by annoyance as I looked at the departures board; Leeds: Departs at 14:10. The time was 13:20.

Great stuff. 50 minutes standing in the ‘QB’ queue in the station and I got on my train, read a book and a wee bit of poetry, and hopped into Leeds with a happy feeling of home.

Nine hours is a long journey. As I’ve often thought: never again.

Down South – Day 1

Last Easter I had a lovely 5-day trip to Scotland and the Shetlands doing mystery shops. I stayed overnight at a B&B, ate readily prepared supermarket meals, and became best friends with my ipod.

Today, a semi déjà vu kicked in, as I set off on my way to Hampshire (which is one of those places below London which isn’t Dover or France). I packed my big bag full of poetry, a pork pie, a laptop and a brand spanking new volume of Macbeth, and set off down to Leeds station to catch a speed demon down to London Kings Cross (spelt Kings X on the train timetable, which I took five minutes to realise).

I was heading to a town called Alton. When doing some B&B booking yesterday I googled (definitely a verb) ‘Alton B&Bs’, and clicked on the first link. At the top of this page, even before the list of possible Alton hotels, there was a flashing sign saying ‘THIS IS NOT ALTON TOWERS!’ This made me chuckle.

Anyway, to get to Alton you have to get a train from Waterloo Station. To get to Waterloo Station you have to wander around the labyrinth of the Underground looking for possible lines that aren’t under maintenance work. I thought I did quite well: only got lot twice!

Eventually I ended up at Alton train station, where a steam train was sat puffing away on the opposite platform. Crossing over to have a sneak peek at this noisy machine, I accidentally slipped back through time about 90 years. There I stood, staring at a green steam train, in a perfectly painted, maintained and flower-bedded platform. A hidden platform behind the usual dross concrete sties, this place was a picturesque idyll; the perfect scene for a woman with a handkerchief dabbing her eyes awaiting her hero from the train, with smoke billowing so that he walks out of seemingly nowhere in a terribly romantic scene from the 1940s that makes you wonder if the aisles of theatre halls of that era were fitted with vomit drainage systems.

I left the station, (handkerchief still in pocket) and set off for another town called Alresford. Here I made possibly one of the biggest cock-ups of my illustrious mystery shopping career. Having bought my selected items from my store, I left without picking up my receipt. I realised this 15 minutes after leaving the store, and so returned. I had the struggle of asking for my receipt, making up the excuse that I needed to keep track of my finances without letting loose that I was in fact a mystery shopper, and managed to convince one of the staff members to rummage through a bin of receipts until he found mine.

With that relief I left Alresford and headed to my final stop, a hamlet called Four Marks. Before this though, I was made to sit in a bus shelter next to two neanderthal girls who would have thought salad dressing was funny. They were sat, watching cars go past, saying if they would like the car or not. Not exactly annoying maybe, but when you take into account they were saying it in the ‘I want that one’ and ‘I don’t like it’ voice of Andy the wheelchair man off Little Britain, and giggling each time, it seriously got to me.

The giggling continued until I got on the bus, where my ipod decided that it didn’t want to be my friend anymore. For no reason whatsoever, my earplugs died. I changed plug (I can only use one ear obviously) and it worked, barely. So, sitting in silence on the bus, I turned to see the giggling mongoloids fixed on the road, looking for other cars.

Gladly I got off the bus, and now find myself sat in my room of a B&B looking at the pub menu. I think I need a pint…

Flat

I think I’m starting to become lazy. I used to write a blog as soon as I got off my bike, before shower or food. However, over the last few weeks, my entries have rather trickled in, instead of the flood of a bursting of a dam.

The visits I am referring to today happened two days ago. The reason I have taken a while to recount them is that I simply haven’t been bothered to click on the ‘W’ icon on my desktop and open up a Word document.

But now I’m here, sat by my computer, with a clear memory of my trip two days ago, and a clear understanding of the old Scouts motto ‘Be Prepared’.

So, two days ago was my first bout of mystery shops for my second year of uni. I hadn’t used my bike in four months, and had had it happily leant against the stable in my garden all summer. It felt strange being back on that bike. The tiny wheels, semi-disintegrated gears and low seat that made me look like a failed student in the artistry of clowns. What a beast!

Something was different though. I couldn’t figure it out as I peddled past Hyde Park. Nor could I understand what the problem was as I flew past the uni. It was only as I sat at traffic lights near the train station that I realised my back tyre was flatter than a gymnast’s stomach (excluding 1970s eastern European gymnasts, obviously).

I then looked at my front tyre; flat as well. Four months in the atrocious British summer had ruined my tyres. I’d like to expostulate on the possibility that the low pressure in the atmosphere was a contributing factor to the loss of pressure in my tyres, but that would be silly.

I decided to take my bike to Huddersfield (where my mystery shops were) anyway. Peddling up New Hey Road towards Marsh is a task with a perfect bike, but with my tyres, the uphill slog was as strenuous as whisking frozen custard. Every peddle was an intense push against the added friction my tyres were subjecting me to. But I finally got there.

After my first visit in Marsh, I began my descent back into Huddersfield and along to Wakefield Road. The majority of this is downhill, but because of my tyres, I still had to peddle most of it! Freewheeling on concrete was like slowly squelching through tar. The tyres would simply not budge.

I eventually got to my other store, and then back onto the train to Leeds. As I got in to Leeds, I decided it was pointless trying to bike any more, and so walked up to the university sports centre, to borrow a bike pump.

I asked for a bike pump. The lady in the sports centre gave me a pump. It was a football pump. I only realised this after I’d hoisted the bike onto a wall and screwed off the tyre cap. Useless.

I handed back the pump, and walked home.

Be Prepared.

Back up to speed

Well, over the last few days I’ve thankfully been able to get back to some good old shopping for booze. From the stunning shaven-headed streets of Bolton to the pleasant high street of Ilkley, I’ve covered more distance than Paula Radcliff’s pacemaker.

So, my stint began on Tuesday 8th September, last week in fact, with a trip to Manchester. Now I like Manchester. It’s a cool city with lots to do. The only problem is, is that it rains a lot. This has something to do with westerly winds and Pennine hills which shan’t be used as a tool or boredom right now, but basically it rains in Manchester.

So it was to my unexpected delight that, whence arriving in Manchester (and that is the first time I have ever used the word ‘whence’, but feel I should use it more often) that the sun was shining on a particularly muggy Lancastrian day.

My first point of call was Bolton, a town whose name originates from the word ‘bothel’, meaning a dwelling. I wonder how many ‘bothels’ there are in Bolton today… Both supermarket visits went well, even though I thought I had lost one of the stores. Whilst I was cycling along looking for my store, I stopped and asked someone who can only be described as an impersonation of a ‘lady of the night’ where Deane Street was. She said she didn’t know, and had never heard of it. I was about to cycle away when she went blurted “Do you mean Deane Road love? Cos yer on it.” Fantastic, it had taken her about three minutes to make the possible connection that I may not know the local area, and that I may have meant to say ‘road’ rather than ‘street’.

Anyway, two supermarket visits in Bolton were followed by two in Oldham, possibly one of the loveliest and most cultured towns I have visited; apparently I was lucky not to get stabbed on one of the visits. I eventually ended up in Irlam, a place of which I can remember nothing about, so I’ll leave it at that.

The next day I decided to go to Pontefract. I figured that if I went to Pontefract I could come back via Leeds and watch the England match with my chums in the pub. Lovely, so off I went to Pontefract. To get to Pontefract, you have to change at Wakefield Kirkgate, a knackered old station fallen into terrible disrepair. The train stood and waited for ten minutes at Kirkgate, and then finally worked it’s way to Wakefield Westgate. Excellent, I was on my way, unbeknownst that, of course, I had gotten confused and was heading for the wrong station.

My predicament got worse when, on realising that I had made a mistake and needed to get to Kirkgate, the free town bus was a ten minute wait with a load of school children shrieking around, eating sweets. Overall, it took 40 minutes to travel from West to Kirk gates, which would have taken ten minutes to walk, apparently.

On arriving at Kirkgate station, I realised I had 50 minutes to wait for my next train. A journey that should have taken one hour and 15 minutes took exactly two and a half hours, but I finally got to Pontefract. I’ll be honest, I didn’t see much of Pontefract as I ran to the supermarket for my mystery shop, and then ran to another station at the other side of town; my only chance of getting to the pub in time for the England game!

Luckily I got to the pub in time, watched a good match with my chums, and then went home. I got myself a day’s worth of rest, and then set out for a trip of central Yorkshire.

I’ve visited Garforth, Swillington and Rothwell on the same day three times now. For a single train fare and a bit of cardiovascular on the bike, I can earn a tasty amount of crisps, booze and money for trying to stay fit and healthy. And so that’s what I did last Friday, eventually arriving back in Leeds with a bag full of alcohol. A quick sneak up to Ilkley for a more regal shopping experience and I was done, with a hoard of six bottles on my back.

When I finally got around to counting my bounty of booze, I found that I had amounted, mostly from these recent visits, 26 bottles of beer, ale or cider, a bottle of whisky and a bottle of wine. Not bad to say I got them all for free… It’s good to be back!

It all started here…

Around about once a month, I get an email from the mystery shopping company I work for asking if I can do some ‘urgent visits’ around the country. Last weekend, ten visits covering most of Northern Ireland turned up. I volunteered to do them all, and would have enjoyed a lovely holiday, if it wasn’t for someone else quickly nipping in and stealing them from me.

It took me about four hours to plan an imaginary journey around Northern Ireland. I wasn’t happy. Luckily though, my manager informed me there were some visits down in the midlands. I thought I might as well take them, and so last Sunday I took a trip with the mother and the brother down to Iron Bridge, Telford.

Before we got to Telford we had to stop via Uttoxeter, a town just below Derby. I think we must have spent half the fuel allowance on this visit, wriggling through every back street in the entire town to find the tucked-away store.

Uttoexter doesn’t do itself many favours though. OK it was my fault we got lost for half an hour, but simply the amount of roundabouts in that place is staggering! Roundabouts leading onto other roundabouts leading onto mega roundabouts. We circled a mini one twice we were so lost!

After getting over the dizziness of Uttoxeter, we made it down to Iron Bridge. It’s very rare I go to the midlands, I think there’s a reason they call it ‘the black country’, and so we thought it would be good to see how it all started for Britain, by taking a trip down memory lane, to the iron age…… wait; the industrial revolution.

So, as all well-educated young chaps should know, the industrial production of iron was born in Telford. A mega bridge was built, which seemed to impress people, and so everyone decided that iron production should commence on a mass scale. The bridge is the main attraction today, and the town has built various attractions to support a ‘grand day out’ (rather than people just gorming at a bridge).

One of these attractions was the house that housed the man who built the bridge – I think. It showed some dining rooms and a mock kitchen, etc… but it also had a dressing up room. Now, as you can see from the above picture, I feel I rather suit a Stuarts hat.

Anyway, so we were at the place where the industrial revolution all started. This is why we are one of the most enriched nations today. A good bit of hard labour and intense factory work has propelled us forward into an era of relative affluency and sophistication. China – I suppose – is currently rushing through what we managed over 200 years.

So, there’s a bridge. A huge arm spanning a massive gorge, gouged right into the Shropshire countryside.

The thing that really confuses me with the bridge is that, there’s not really anything on the other side of it. There’s just lots of trees and a toll booth. It’s as though they built a bridge for the fun of it, or for ‘the challenge’. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a wicked feat of engineering, especially when the intellectual sophistication of the average 18th century labourer was equivalent to that of a modern tree stump. However, I do feel that it may have been for nothing. In all the museums and things I went to, there was nothing that said why they built the thing. All I wanted to know was that there was a layer of limestone across the other side, or maybe a road to London, or anything. I reckon they just went mental and smelted too much iron, so had to get rid of the surplus.

The best thing I saw though was a general estimate of costs for the whole project. The iron cost £3,600, the advertising and ‘paintings’ cost £15, and the celebratory beer cost £24! It’s good to know that the manufacturers spent little on advertising what they were doing, to save it for one big piss up at the end of it all!

So that was Iron Bridge. Not the most eventful of trips, but a nice day out of the house with mum and the rodent. I now know how iron is made, and love the word ‘molten slag’!

Battered West Coast

Finally, finally, after 5 weeks of being locked up in a bedroom smaller than Ravi Bopara’s batting average (miniscule!) I feel recovered enough to begin mystery shopping once again.

This time, instead of a nice local shop to break me back into the undented mould, I grabbed the chance of whisking off to the delightful Cumbrian coast. I’ve been twice before and thought it was a fairly miserable place, but nothing prepared me for the delights of two – how should I say – ‘unfortunate’ towns.

So, my mini adventure would take me to the towns of Workington and Whitehaven. One sounded like the shelter for the mutants formed by Sellafield radiation leaks with the nation’s turds washed up on the shore, whilst the other sounded like an idyllic seaside getaway, where butterflies would populate the brimming flowerbeds of each and every beautifully trimmed front garden.

To be frank, both were closer to the former. I arrived late in Workington after the train to Carlisle had to be stopped for half an hour whilst they figured out why the doors wouldn’t shut. Thankfully the driver told us over the tannoy that the staff had ‘successfully managed to override the safety system’ and the doors were shut. Relieving to know that when the train falls off the tracks at least the doors will be closed.

So, late in Workington, I rushed to my store and completed my visit. Strangely, there was a man behind me in the queue for the till who was clearly a coastal kind of guy. As I stood waiting, he uploaded 8 four-packs of tuna and salmon chunks onto the conveyor belt thingy. Now I like fish, can eat it with anything, but I seriously struggled to figure out what this sea dweller was going to do with 32 cans of fruits de mer. Maybe one massive toastie?

After my visit I began walking back to the station, when I realised I had 50 minutes to wait for my train. I gave up half of this time to sitting on a bench in the platform eating the spoils of my mystery shop, watching a podgy kid chase after a coin his sister was throwing to him; he looked like a pug dog, and not running much faster either.

This entertainment could only enthral me up to a point, whereby I went for a look around the centre of Workington. What I found was not too dissimilar to Market Rasen, a town in Lincolnshire I visited where all the shops were charity shops. This time, there was a newsagents or off license on every other street corner. They were everywhere! Advertising birthday cards, confectionary and tobacco. Most were next to very run-down pubs as well, maybe not surprisingly.

I also walked past a policewoman on my travels. After looking into the eighth DIY shop window in 200 yards, I noticed a young blonde lady in police uniform walking towards me. “Phwar! Get in!” I hear you say. However, this isn’t what I was thinking. She was walking like certain ladies do after just a couple of jugs of straight vodka, and texting vehemently on her phone. This got me thinking: ‘is this town policed by a staggering young lady more interested in the vanity of her social life than preventing crime?’ The non-tabloid part of my brain kicked in and thought: ‘probably not.’

Eventually I got the train down to Whitehaven. This is no ordinary train however. This single carriage golf buggy runs on a track so close to the sea that the sheer drop down to the crashing waves made me feel ill. We must have been going at a steady four miles per hour for at least 20 minutes to get past the cliff face. Luckily we had a safety system in place, so if we had of crashed into the sea, at least the doors would open.

Whitehaven was as similar to Workington as two pieces of white A4 from the same tree. The thing is with these towns on the west coast is that they need to be somewhat protected from the prevailing westerlies. Therefore, the visually evocative thing to do is to pebbledash every square inch of building, and use nothing but the most beautiful shades of grey to cover it up. Whitehaven looked like a large-scale model of a concrete pavement that’s been left alone so long, weeds are starting to grow out from underneath it.

Unfortunately for me the rain didn’t help either. Instead of sitting on a platform waiting for my train, I was forced to walk around to keep warm, ending up on the ‘beach’. I won’t comment on this beach, apart from the fact that I was the only person there and the ground was more dismal in colour than the buildings.

Happily my journey home was normal, and I arrived in Huddersfield station 12 hours and 10 minutes after I had set off. What a delightful way to spend the day.

Medieval 'artists'

The day when you have to pay off your rent is a terrible day. I haven’t even lived in my house for next year yet, and already have had to dish out £909 for it. Yesterday I had to suffer this excruciating loss to my bank account, and so how better to cheer me up than a cheeky mystery shop!

My visit was based in the swanky Clarence Docks area of Leeds. Beautifully renovated for all the posh people to live, shop and socialise. I bought a hefty amount of sushi and ate it lovingly by the canal. I was surprised I finished it due to the fact that I had already eaten an entire BHS breakfast just an hour before. (8 bloody items!!)

So, feeling rather bloated in the Leeds sunshine, I waddled on down to the Royal Armouries museum. Free entry to see a load of guns and weapons and shit? Yes please!

Having nursed my belly through the world wars, oriental imperialism and civil war exhibitions, I finally got to the medieval stuff. I have to say, they wore a hell of a lot of armour. It must have weighed a ton! Helmets, chained tunics, breastplates, shin guards, crotch boxes (maybe not) were all on display.

The medieval weaponry was also fairly cool. Swords and shields built in varying sizes but basic shapes told me that these guys knew how to manufacture stuff that was affective in battle and easy to use.

Unfortunately, the art scene at the time of the medieval period was clearly not up to the same standard. The picture above shows a delightful scene of a French siege, in which the battling forces are protected by what looks like metal tortoise shells. Now, this is either a fantastic representation of how the French used Troy-like customs to disguise themselves as giant souvenir tortoises to gain entry to the city, or medieval artists were simply shite at realism painting.

I reckon it was the latter. The people in the buildings are smiling, and one of the tortoises has his head on the side of his shell. The geezer who painted this really captured the emotional torment and physical struggle or war-torn France.

I left the museum wondering how on earth society had managed to represent itself so beautifully in the Greek and Roman times through art and architecture, only for it to degrade to a level of childish scribblings in the medieval period. What was wrong with those guys?

This question troubled me up until I had to pay my rent. A bigger annoyance (surprisingly worth £909) then took over.

The bike: the easiest way to the moral high ground

Well it’s been a while but I finally managed to get out on a mystery shop the other day, to the beautiful town of Rochdale.

This was a ‘spur of the moment’ visit that was assigned to me about 40 minutes before I was on my bike and heading into Huddersfield town centre. I was to make minimal profit, buy purely alcohol that I had little intention on drinking, and generally bike myself into a hayfever-filled daze.

So, a delightful June day was in full swing as I peddled along the side of the road towards Huddersfield. And if there is one piece of advice I can give about cycling into town, is that you have to keep aware. Car drivers are mentalists and have absolutely no recognition towards the safety of a cyclist, something that I discovered almost to my detriment as a cool, super groovy sports car sped past me, destabilising me due to the vacuum it left behind, and subsequently had to screech the breaks in order to slow for the speed cameras.

Actually, on speed cameras, I’m fairly sure I did over 30mph as I cruised down into town. I was overtaking cars as we went though the speed traps, so surely that means I was going over 30? I didn’t get flashed though, which was a disappointment.

Eventually I got the train and ended up in Victoria station, Manchester. There, something happened that semi restores faith in our policing system. Two Manchester scallies (not to delve into stereotype at all here) hadn’t paid their train fares, and had no way of doing so (naughty). So, some spectacle-adorned policeman came down with his big hat and fluorescent jacket and closed down the train so he could fine them. We were all stood on the platform looking in, having a right good snigger about it all.

I gladly showed my ticket to the inspector as I boarded the train, and within a few minutes was on a little platform somewhere near Rochdale. At this point I’d like to add that it was Rochdale that I wanted to go to, not Rotherham. Unfortunately, the ticket man at Huddersfield station didn’t realise this until he’d printed out the south Yorkshire tickets. I almost missed my train due to such incompetence!

So, biking around Rochdale. There is really nothing much to comment on. There are roads, and more roads, and massive junctions that connect roads and that are a right pain in the saddle for a cyclist to conquer.

There is something good in Rochdale however, and that’s the accent. A hard, proud accent straight from t’ factories. A real accent that immediately gives you a sense of place in the barren Lancashire Pennines. An accent that is far more understandable than the Kentish crap I had to put up with a week before.

The visit went well. I got lots of alcohol (still not drunk) and two pints of milk (drunk before I even got home). The way back was a bit of an eye opener though. There was an old man, who I’m not sure if he was drunk, mentally challenged, or simply very boisterous, who was talking to the other strangers on the train. He saw my bike, grinned inanely, and began a 20-minute one-way conversation about how youngsters like me should do more cycling and train riding than driving cars. I was a saint apparently, and I of course happily lapped up the morality of it all, agreeing with whatever he said. He addressed the problems of engine pollution on today’s streets, which, as he put is ever so perfectly, ‘Changes someone who is green, like you [he point’s to me], into someone who is black with sot and smog’.

I liked that analogy, shook the old codger’s hand, and quite briskly left the carriage at Victoria.