Since leaving the academic world I haven’t had as much opportunity to pursue my research interests, especially in the geographic spheres I based my degree in. So I thought that, as an objective for 2012-13, I should find a topic of interest and frame a research question to investigate. No decisions yet but thinking that it’ll be somewhere in climatological studies.. although I’m very tempted to update and refocus the original paper on asteroid hazards into the practicalities of preventative measures to guard against impacts.

We’ll see.

Then WordPress dropped a little email to me the other day to share the stats of this blog over 2011 and I realised that nearly half a year had gone by since I last wrote anything on here.

My twitter account has been the mainstay for any social networking, aside from LinkedIn, recently but there’s nothing like a blog to allow me to ramble on incoherently without necessity

So, less reluctantly than I’d imagined, my only New Year’s Resolution for 2012 is to blog more frequently; every week as a minimum. You can look forward to more musings on political happenings, geoeconomical theory, and the mundaneness of life..

Tommy

(okay – and maybe I’ll resolve to finally join the gym but that goes without saying)

It felt very liberating

Anyway:

———–
To Whom It May Concern:

Dear Sir, Madam,

I am writing to you from my unreserved seat on the 16:35 Cross Country “service” from Stockport to Bournemouth via Reading (my destination).

My journey originated in Wilmslow today on the 16:17 service to Manchester Piccadilly via Stockport where I changed onto this train to Bournemouth via Reading.

My company had booked my train tickets for me as this is not something I would normally deal with and had placed me on the 19:35 from Stockport to Reading. A combination of factors had led me to arrive at Wilmslow train station in time for an earlier train and, aware how pernickety train companies can be about changing times, I asked a Rail Network employee (whom I believe to be the Station Manager) if it would cause a problem for me to catch the earlier train and if there would be a cost.

He assured me that I needn’t worry, to get on the train to Stockport and board the next train through Reading. Let me make the point: had he told me that there would be a problem and it would have cost me money I would have stayed in Wilmslow til my scheduled train and had a few drinks in the pub while I waited rather than getting involved in the circus your train company seems to keep.

Reassured by the employee of the Rail Network, I boarded the train to Stockport and then continued on my journey from there to Reading.

I had not been sat in a seat for more than ten minutes, having only just bought an overpriced sandwich and orange juice from the food trolley, before Frederic – the train’s ticket inspector – turned up. Not expecting any problem, I gave him my ticket, reservation, Young Person railcard, and photo ID.

Immediately he tells me I’m on the wrong train.

When I explain what I was told by the station master, Frederic’s response was “Oh, a platform guy. You shouldn’t listen to them – they don’t know what they’re talking about” and told me I had to either pay the difference or get off at the next station.

Pay or get off. No apology for the misunderstanding, no attempt to sympathise. Just pay or get off. If I were to speak to any of my clients like that I’d be out of a job quicker then you can say “customer relations” but obviously Cross Country are working from a different set of rules.

Well let me tell you that someone in the employment of the rail company doesn’t know what they’re talking about and has cost me an additional £52.05 in excess charges! On a ticket that cost £22.45 in the first place!

Absolutely ridiculous. Frederic’s attitude was rude, abrasive, and completely unhelpful and, further, made me feel like I had transgressed purposefully when I had actually gone out of my way to check that my journey would be okay with YOUR staff before boarding the train.

I am thoroughly annoyed at the outlay of money I have had to make; it would have been cheaper for me to drive to Wilmslow and back. You talk about encouraging people to use the trains to see the world but is it any wonder that there is such widespread apathy amongst the public towards the lot of you?

Further, I was supposed to be taking my girlfriend to see the midnight showing of Harry Potter in 3D tonight as a celebration of her new job but that plan has had to be shelved in the light of your company’s utter incompetence. Godknows how I’m going to fix that one but, thanks to your platform staff telling me something in direct opposition to the train staff, that responsibility falls on me to tell her we’re not going. Or eating out for dinner tonight.

I can assure you that I will not be using Cross Country again for work travel and will be speaking to our HR department to ensure that all colleagues are aware of the nefarious practices you employ to pull more money out of weary travellers. What a money-making scam you have going on – it’s incredulous! In all my years of travel I have never known such utter incompetency in a train company (and that is saying something in of itself); from GNER to Virgin to South-West Trains, all have a modicum of customer service that Cross Country seems to lack. Frederic not only blamed me for not reading the T&Cs (even though I explained the tickets were booked through and by work) but then went on to blame his poor colleague stood on the platform at Wilmslow. With such a severe lack of corporate responsibility and the ability to shift blame to others I’m surprised that Cross Country is not a subsidiary of News Corp.

I would to know what you would like to offer me in light of the horrendous experience I have had and am continuing to have on this journey. I was told on attempting to buy a bottle of wine to calm my nerves that my card may be declined because a transaction had already gone through – what?!

For your convenience:

£48.90 for the original return ticket;
£52.05 for the excess on the return journey;
£6.45 for a chicken & bacon sandwich and a bottle of orange juice;
£4.50 for a small glass of wine.

I would like to know what further compensation you would like to offer me for the sheer embarrassment of being made to look like a fare dodger in my suit in the middle of a crowded train carriage.

This whole situation and experience has been thoroughly unpleasant if not the most unpleasant train journey I have made in recent years. If this is the level of service that Cross Country provides as standard then it’s no wonder people dislike public transport.

It is very easy for you to make a simple gesture of goodwill to resolve this situation – I hope you take the opportunity to do so.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Tommy Gilchrist

Cc: Cllr Daisy Benson, Reading Borough Council

Sent from my iPhone

So I’ve arrived at Newquay with Ali

Okay so I guess I’m not too old or grown up yet to fully sack Newquay off

I’ve just come back from a second job interview with a great company – waiting to see how the other second interviews go later this week – but I’ve got a couple free days now. It’s such nice weather outside and at the coast today and tomorrow that Ali and I have decided to head down to SummerBreak this afternoon via Poole to pick Yassin up.

Very very excited for a night of partying – I think I deserve it I’ll blog a couple of photos from down there over the next day or so..

Tommy

Pretty awesome series, although I’m only catching the last episode which seems to be focusing on Ireland post-Civil War and the development of the Irish Free State. I don’t know too much about Irish history or how the Troubles really began so I’m very interested to find out some more about the background, especially from a Dubliner’s perspective.

Not massively conducive to me smashing this interview tomorrow but certainly fascinating stuff

Tommy

There was a time, not too long ago, when my thought process would have involved toying with the idea of not going for a couple of hours before deciding to sack that off, go out and go hard anyway, and then somehow struggle up in the morning and do my best at the interview.

But it seems that common sense, that attribute I’ve ignored for a while, has stepped up its game and I’ve made the decision not to go out. It didn’t take that much thought really – I’d already decided not to go to SummerBreak a couple of days ago because I want to be available for job interviews. I want to get one of these jobs and I can’t be messing around anymore; need to wow these guys like I wowed them at first interview so need to be at the top of my own game.

Weird thing this growing up malarky.

Tommy

Part of moving on is decluttering and clearing out. There has been a very large, very full, leather briefcase (that Eileen got me for my birthday) sat in my bedroom for godonlyknows how long – stuffed with paperwork and who knows what. It’s taken me forever to get around to emptying it but phew – finally done.

Most of it was the usual stuff I dealt with on a day-to-day basis: papers for committees, backdated copies of the Times Higher Education, papers and policies I had written, and emails from colleagues forming a vast majority of it.

But there was one that made me pause:

I found a postcard I wrote to myself whilst on NUS summer training. At the end of these week-long events, each of the delegates was encouraged to write a note to themselves about what they wanted to do that year and NUS would post them out later on in the year. Here’s what I wrote in July 2010:

Tommy,

By the time you read this, you need to have reformed both the Ed Rep and StAR schemes into faculty and course reps, extended library opening hours during the examination period, and taken over the Student Awards from the University.

Remember to slay lots of sacred cows this year in RUSU – nothing is fundamental except representation & democracy.

I’m very glad to say that I worked hard across my two years to achieve the above. Slaying sacred cows – e.g. whether bars and sports clubs should be subsidised – is a hard thing for a Union to have to do and thankfully we were never really placed into a position where we had to choose between ideologies of representation and practicalities of functionality. RUSU is weathering the waves of change better than its counterparts at other universities. We did have tough decisions to make though and we always managed to come to the right one but I enjoyed staying true to myself in that I looked at a problem from the perspective of “slaying those sacred cows” to rethink old answers. And that’s the best advice that I, and the NUS, can give to any new student sabbatical officer

Tommy

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.

So I’m watching NBA with D-mac and Harps at the moment (6th game in the Dallas-Miami series; the Mavericks have come back at the end of the 1st) and really enjoying it. They’ve started inviting me up to their yard whenever a big game is on and, although I’ve got to be up early in the morning for phonecalls re: interviews, I’m sat with a large mocha just starting the second quarter.

Although it’s only an hour long game, with all the stoppages it runs into a three hour affair. But I have D and Harps explaining everything to me as I’m going along so it makes it a lot more fun than it would be for me. I do still occasionally get distracted though and start Stumbling; had a little flick through and found this on my fourth click:

“Someday, I will have a life.

It will be fulfilling and complicated and hilarious and tiring and real. And fun. There will be work and alcohol and sex and public transportation and way more coffee than is healthy. There will be different cities within each year, and art, and better friends than I have now. There will be responsibility and sleep and maybe even, someday, children. And a crush like the one I have on you won’t matter at all.

But today I am 17 and unusually lonely for my age and you matter much more than you should.”

It was very much like looking through a window at a school-age me; lots of the same dreams and ideals as what I hoped for back then (although, as Nate and Tom will attest, I already drank far too much coffee in those days..).

It is nice to be able to say that these are still the same dreams that I have; the big job, the nice house, the right salary. Hopefully some of these things are about to be realised in the next couple of weeks..

Anyway, back to basketball and the Miami-Dallas game (which is now halfway through the second quarter and Dallas are leading 40-33). I’d like it stated as fact, to the 200 or so that read this each day now, that Lebron James is the NBA’s Andrew Harper although not quite as proficient on the court. Hopefully this should allay any fears that D-mac has..

Tommy

“Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It’s got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it.”

I should start to hear back from the four companies I interviewed with last week; two want second (and final) interviews this week and the other two I’m yet to hear about. Quite excited about a couple of them, especially the one in Mayfair (next to the Porsche garage!) which seems awesome.

Will keep you all posted – fingers crossed!

Tommy

The Ninth Rule of Acquisition clearly states that opportunity plus instinct equals profit.