Either I was going round in circles, or Manchester is home to all the world’s caffeine addicts. At one point I looked around to find Starbucks to my left, Costa dead ahead and Café Nero right next to Costa! How many coffee shops can one city take? My spontaneous walking tour this morning tells me at least eight. You can tell this isn’t Yorkshire – if it was they’d all be tea shops!
Of course for the cost of a beverage in one of these shops you could probably get a taxi to the place you were supposed to be going when you realised you were lost.
The smell is so inviting but I must resist, I’ve already had a tea AND a coffee today, anymore and I’ll be lost but in desperate need of a toilet. Not a good combination I don’t think. Then again, maybe these up market coffee shops have toilets themselves? The last one I went in did, but it was locked. And I needed to be sick. But back then I wasn’t lost. And I wasn't in Manchester.
Being lost can actually be quite liberating, you can go where you want at your own pace because no one is expecting you to be in a certain place at a certain time. I was supposed to be in a certain place at a certain time, namely the GMEX centre at 8.45 for the TUC Conference, but that was many hours ago, before the trains let me down again…
….you know it’s going to be a bad day when you get up early, to get an early train, and you arrive at the station before the early train you intend to catch, and the board tells you, early, that the train isn’t coming. Neither is the one after it, just like the one before it and the one before that. But the man who operates the information boards is having fun this morning. He doesn’t put cancelled or delayed on all the trains; oh no, he puts a time on some of them just to make you think one will turn up. Then, and only then, when it gets to the allotted time, does he type in the magic words on his computer to tell you that it’s not coming at all.
The helpful fella from the course told me to turn up at the Conference anyway, whenever the train got in. And I intended to, I really wanted to. But then I got lost.
I was quite looking forward to Mervyn King’s speech this morning, I like this bloke. Mainly because he supported Labour’s economic plans before they were summarily kicked out of office. I was hoping he’d tear the Con-Dem-Ed administration apart when he got going. But it doesn't look like he did, in fact he did that most un-public of things, he apologised. You can tell he's not a politician.
I was quite looking forward to Mervyn King’s speech this morning, I like this bloke. Mainly because he supported Labour’s economic plans before they were summarily kicked out of office. I was hoping he’d tear the Con-Dem-Ed administration apart when he got going. But it doesn't look like he did, in fact he did that most un-public of things, he apologised. You can tell he's not a politician.
He really should have had a go and got his kicks in early because there won’t be much of this governement left to kick when the Unions have had their feed this Winter. I hope.
Anyway I missed the speech and the conference because of the trains. But this time it wasn’t the train companies fault. Some scroat nicked the cable at Batley – personally, I hope he got electrocuted. Lets face it, that would be more of a punishment than anything he would get from British Justice.
Ps: They're buying some fans! Just to rub it in a bit more the girl sat by the window today complained she was cold so that's why the window was shut. While 5 of us on the otherside sweltered like we were in the Sahara. The Doctor said he was concerned about my weight before I started this course - I daren't go back now!
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