Welcome to the 06.58 train to Bangkok

Welcome to my inaugural posting. Ok. Right. Where do I start. I know, I'll start by shouting at my neighbour - he's fiddling with his car again and its playing havoc with my creative juices. The protective glasses he's wearing makes him look like Cato out of the Pink Panther films.

How dangerous can adjusting windscreen washers be?

After each adjustment he tries them out and then gets out to wipe down the screen with his hanky. I've watched at least 10 adjustments. I might just be looking at the most symmetrical pair of windscreen washers in England. Maybe I'll take a picture and post it on here. But then, someone else might come up with another set that are even more symmetrical. I'd then feel obliged to look for an even more symmetrical pair... No, no, that's the way of madness. I mustn't allow myself to get side-tracked. I must stay focussed - remember why I've started this Blog. Why did I start it?

Well, revenge really. That's what this blog is all about, revenge.

For many years I commuted into London by train. I worked out that, over the course of a year, I spent the equivalent of 22 days commuting. You get a lot of time to think on a train. That's nearly a whole February per year trying to fit two buttocks on a seat only designed for one and a half (if you're lucky enough to get a seat). All that effort to get to a job I didn't even enjoy doing...

Finally my buttocks made me give up - it took 6 months to get the feeling back - and do something else. So now I write for a living. The money isn't as good but the daily commute is down to 3 minutes, providing the dining room, which is on the way to my office, isn't busy with late breakfasters...

Problem solved, no more commute you're thinking. That's what I thought too, but I soon began to realise it wasn't. Nope, only revenge was going to satisfy me.

So I came up with something called Commuter's Revenge - anyone can do it - providing you've commuted to work that is. And if I inspire just one person to get off the commuting treadmill and do something completely different, for just a few weeks in their life, I will consider my first act of revenge as a triumph. 

So, what is my first act of revenge?

Welcome to the 06.58 train to Bangkok. After years of trains taking me to places I didn’t want to go, they’re going to take me to where I do want to go. Each day on the train will be a two-fingered salute to draughty stations, cancellations, enforced listening in on peoples' private lives acted out on a mobile phone, and the incessant buzzing of overly loud MP3 players in the quiet carriage.

Now, he's the clever bit. Starting from my old commuter station of Farnborough (UK), how long do you think this journey will take me? 22 days.

Don't you just love the symmetry? Which brings me nicely back to my neighbour and his meticulously appointed windscreen washers... perhaps I will take a picture...

PS - pop back to my blog regularly - I start my journey on the 22nd September but I need to fill you in on how I got this far... oh, and keep you up to date with my neighbours mechanical habits...