The high life (and other stories)
Jan. 21st, 2024 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustThe southbound journey went almost to plan. We did not, in fact, change trains at Sheffield, because our train was running late, only by a couple of minutes, but enough to scupper what was always going to be tight timing. But the train announcer was on the ball, and advised passengers wanting to catch the London train (which stops at Chesterfield) to hold on until Derby, when we would have overtaken it. So we did that, and it worked. We could have done with this kind of helpfulness the following day, but I'll come to that later: for the moment, we reached the party hotel (where we were staying overnight) and persuaded reception that yes, they really did have two separate bookings in the name Roger C. (different surnames, but this had apparently overwhelmed the booking system, which had amalgamated them into one person requiring two rooms). Our room was on the thirteenth floor, which delighted durham_rambler: "None of that superstitious 'Floor twelve-and-a-half' nonsense!" and gave us a view of the river - not as spectacular as the view from the party venue, on the 37th floor, but a view nonetheless. Time for a rest, and a shower, and then we were ready to party.
The party was absolutely spectacular. The venue, of course - that top floor restaurant (in the tallest all-hotel building in London, which is the tallest Novotel in the world, I love these carefully restricted superlatives) with its glass walls and panoramic views of London glittering all around us. But not just the venue: from the moment we arrived it was obvious, as I had anticipated, that everything had been thought out in detail: we were greeted with a glass of fizz, a name badge and an envelope which was half information pack, half party goody bag: that's the flavour of the evening right there, that assembly of pretty gift (a knitted square with your initial which we've been referring to 'coasters', but no way will I be placing a coffee cup on mine), name-badge (the pin decorated with strands of wool in the colours of your coaster), schedule (speech, dinner, ice-breaking games), quiz / game... Those ice-breakers were surely a safeguard against the risk of people not talking to each other: the only one that actually came into play was the quiz / game from the welcome pack, a list of the different ways guests might have methelenraven, two of which were lies. In theory, you could have drifted around asking everyone "And how do you know helenraven?" until you could strike out all but two possibilities; in practice, conversation seemed to flow easily enough that people settled down to chat, rather than moving on. I completed my list on the basis of informed guesswork. From the people with whom I talked at any length I could have crossed off 'family' (the other Roger C), 'SF' (fjm and E., who are old friends) and 'work', the group of people with whom we shared a table at dinner. No, we didn't talk about their - very technical - work; we talked about speaking French. and about Northumberland, and about the food, recommending to each other what to try next from the buffet (people raved about the lamb; I was drinking pouilly fumé, loved the subtle flavours of the paëlla and admired how unobtrusively intolerance-friendly the service was. I ate cheese and wasn't even tempted by dessert.) My own connection with helenraven came about through a shared (at the time) interest in comics, and she had told me that other friends from this period would be present, but I never ran into them. But I did, just as we were leaving, run into another comics acquaintance, the Man at the Crossroads himself: we had a very pleasant conversation, mostly about lifts. A quiet area was provided for anyone who needed a break from people, but I don't think it can have been very heavily used, because when we said our farewells (or our goodnights, since we met again at breakfast) to helenraven, she was showing someone the jigsaws with which those refugees could entertain themselves - this almost, but only almost, made me wish I had done that.
After breakfast, with views of the Uber boats on the Thames, and more farewells to fellow partygoers, we headed up to Euston, where we met the Bears for lunch at their favourite Indian buffet. We were too close to too much breakfast to do it justice, but the food was good and the company even better. This was the good bit of the day.
After coffee we set off for home, and things went downhill. We were at St Pancras in good time for our train, which should have allowed us to retrace our southbound journey.durham_rambler was receiving reassuring texts from LNER, telling him that his train was on time and his seats were reserved, so though we could have tried for an earlier train, we guessed the service would be busy, and thought we were better off waiting for the gour o' clock train on which we had booked seats. This was a mistake. It wasn't apparent until we went upstairs to the platform just how busy the station was: it looked as if St Pancras was expected simply to absorb all the extra passengers there because Kings Cross was closed. Staff were organising the crowd into a queue, but it was obvious that bookings would not be honoured, and that we would not be allowed onto our train: over the heads of the crowd, we saw it pulling out. The next train was cancelled. This did not look good: we began to remember the last time we queued for a train at St Pancras. A tannoy announcement recommended that northbound travellers take the next train to Corby, where they would find a replacement bus service for Grantham. Rightly or wrongly, we declined this offer: not only would a bus be slower than a train, we were sceptical about capacity. Instead, we took the next train to Somewhere-or-other-Parkway, and another from there to Sheffield. An hour's wait before the next cross-country train gave us time to buy sandwiches from M&S (none of the trains had buffet services) and to eat them on the chilly platform (no waiting room in sight): but the train was already packed when it arrived, and obviously couldn't accommodate the numbers waiting for it. Eventually staff appeared, and the train got away. We were advised to take the next - by now, the last - train to Doncaster: there, apparently, someone was legally advised to ensure we got home. This wasn't entirely reassuring, but it was the best offer we had, so we did as we were told. And to our relief, it worked: after a short wait on Dincaster station, an empty train turned up, destination Newcastle, and took us to Durham. We found a taxi at the station, and we were home not long after midnight.
The journey, which was scheduled to take just over four hours, had taken eight. This should entitle us to compensation, whichdurham_rambler is currently pursuing: East Midlands Raileays countered his initial claim with Our trains were on time, it isn't our fault if you weren't on them..., and he has appealed, explaining why this is indeed their fault, and now we wait to see what happens next. Since they can't actually give me my four hours back, I'm philosophical about this. We decided that the party would be worth the trip and the price thereof, and it absolutely was. My only regret is that we dismissed the idea of staying another day and travelling on Monday: I ought to have learned by now not to trust rail services on Sindays, even without the additional station closure.
The one thing that made this interminable journey tolerable was that I had a really good book to read. [N]o one is ever told what would have happened, says Aslan, but Francis Spufford's Light Perpetual disagrees. In the first chapter a V-2 bomb goes off, killing all the maon characters: the rest of the book recounts the lives they might have led. It's not strictly a counterfactual narrative, because - although a real V-2 did explode in the New Cross branch of Woolworths in 1944, killing 168 people, 15 of them aged 11 or under - this is a fictitious bomb, exploding in a fictitious area of South London, killing fictitious people. They are, as they grow up and grow older, completely believable, but in the way fictitious characters can be. The narrative pauses to think about time, and about how (or whether) people change, not heavy-handedly but enough to remind you that these lives do not have time as we know it, that these people do not change (or not change). Yet their lives are as real as those in any novel, and as absorbing. It's not a continuous narrative, but drops in on the five central characters at intervals of decades, which produces some surprises, believable but unexpected. It's the perspective of a god, I suppose, but it didn't bother me: within the fiction, the author is god.
durham_rambler: "None of that superstitious 'Floor twelve-and-a-half' nonsense!" and gave us a view of the river - not as spectacular as the view from the party venue, on the 37th floor, but a view nonetheless. Time for a rest, and a shower, and then we were ready to party.The party was absolutely spectacular. The venue, of course - that top floor restaurant (in the tallest all-hotel building in London, which is the tallest Novotel in the world, I love these carefully restricted superlatives) with its glass walls and panoramic views of London glittering all around us. But not just the venue: from the moment we arrived it was obvious, as I had anticipated, that everything had been thought out in detail: we were greeted with a glass of fizz, a name badge and an envelope which was half information pack, half party goody bag: that's the flavour of the evening right there, that assembly of pretty gift (a knitted square with your initial which we've been referring to 'coasters', but no way will I be placing a coffee cup on mine), name-badge (the pin decorated with strands of wool in the colours of your coaster), schedule (speech, dinner, ice-breaking games), quiz / game... Those ice-breakers were surely a safeguard against the risk of people not talking to each other: the only one that actually came into play was the quiz / game from the welcome pack, a list of the different ways guests might have met
helenraven, two of which were lies. In theory, you could have drifted around asking everyone "And how do you know helenraven?" until you could strike out all but two possibilities; in practice, conversation seemed to flow easily enough that people settled down to chat, rather than moving on. I completed my list on the basis of informed guesswork. From the people with whom I talked at any length I could have crossed off 'family' (the other Roger C), 'SF' (fjm and E., who are old friends) and 'work', the group of people with whom we shared a table at dinner. No, we didn't talk about their - very technical - work; we talked about speaking French. and about Northumberland, and about the food, recommending to each other what to try next from the buffet (people raved about the lamb; I was drinking pouilly fumé, loved the subtle flavours of the paëlla and admired how unobtrusively intolerance-friendly the service was. I ate cheese and wasn't even tempted by dessert.) My own connection with helenraven came about through a shared (at the time) interest in comics, and she had told me that other friends from this period would be present, but I never ran into them. But I did, just as we were leaving, run into another comics acquaintance, the Man at the Crossroads himself: we had a very pleasant conversation, mostly about lifts. A quiet area was provided for anyone who needed a break from people, but I don't think it can have been very heavily used, because when we said our farewells (or our goodnights, since we met again at breakfast) to helenraven, she was showing someone the jigsaws with which those refugees could entertain themselves - this almost, but only almost, made me wish I had done that.After breakfast, with views of the Uber boats on the Thames, and more farewells to fellow partygoers, we headed up to Euston, where we met the Bears for lunch at their favourite Indian buffet. We were too close to too much breakfast to do it justice, but the food was good and the company even better. This was the good bit of the day.
After coffee we set off for home, and things went downhill. We were at St Pancras in good time for our train, which should have allowed us to retrace our southbound journey.
durham_rambler was receiving reassuring texts from LNER, telling him that his train was on time and his seats were reserved, so though we could have tried for an earlier train, we guessed the service would be busy, and thought we were better off waiting for the gour o' clock train on which we had booked seats. This was a mistake. It wasn't apparent until we went upstairs to the platform just how busy the station was: it looked as if St Pancras was expected simply to absorb all the extra passengers there because Kings Cross was closed. Staff were organising the crowd into a queue, but it was obvious that bookings would not be honoured, and that we would not be allowed onto our train: over the heads of the crowd, we saw it pulling out. The next train was cancelled. This did not look good: we began to remember the last time we queued for a train at St Pancras. A tannoy announcement recommended that northbound travellers take the next train to Corby, where they would find a replacement bus service for Grantham. Rightly or wrongly, we declined this offer: not only would a bus be slower than a train, we were sceptical about capacity. Instead, we took the next train to Somewhere-or-other-Parkway, and another from there to Sheffield. An hour's wait before the next cross-country train gave us time to buy sandwiches from M&S (none of the trains had buffet services) and to eat them on the chilly platform (no waiting room in sight): but the train was already packed when it arrived, and obviously couldn't accommodate the numbers waiting for it. Eventually staff appeared, and the train got away. We were advised to take the next - by now, the last - train to Doncaster: there, apparently, someone was legally advised to ensure we got home. This wasn't entirely reassuring, but it was the best offer we had, so we did as we were told. And to our relief, it worked: after a short wait on Dincaster station, an empty train turned up, destination Newcastle, and took us to Durham. We found a taxi at the station, and we were home not long after midnight.The journey, which was scheduled to take just over four hours, had taken eight. This should entitle us to compensation, which
durham_rambler is currently pursuing: East Midlands Raileays countered his initial claim with Our trains were on time, it isn't our fault if you weren't on them..., and he has appealed, explaining why this is indeed their fault, and now we wait to see what happens next. Since they can't actually give me my four hours back, I'm philosophical about this. We decided that the party would be worth the trip and the price thereof, and it absolutely was. My only regret is that we dismissed the idea of staying another day and travelling on Monday: I ought to have learned by now not to trust rail services on Sindays, even without the additional station closure.The one thing that made this interminable journey tolerable was that I had a really good book to read. [N]o one is ever told what would have happened, says Aslan, but Francis Spufford's Light Perpetual disagrees. In the first chapter a V-2 bomb goes off, killing all the maon characters: the rest of the book recounts the lives they might have led. It's not strictly a counterfactual narrative, because - although a real V-2 did explode in the New Cross branch of Woolworths in 1944, killing 168 people, 15 of them aged 11 or under - this is a fictitious bomb, exploding in a fictitious area of South London, killing fictitious people. They are, as they grow up and grow older, completely believable, but in the way fictitious characters can be. The narrative pauses to think about time, and about how (or whether) people change, not heavy-handedly but enough to remind you that these lives do not have time as we know it, that these people do not change (or not change). Yet their lives are as real as those in any novel, and as absorbing. It's not a continuous narrative, but drops in on the five central characters at intervals of decades, which produces some surprises, believable but unexpected. It's the perspective of a god, I suppose, but it didn't bother me: within the fiction, the author is god.
