Monday, July 16, 2007

This Lonely Railroad Station All Alone


I'm headed up to Manchester Piccadilly on the train tonight for a couple of days work in the city on Tuesday/Wednesday and the inevitable lonely hotel room that accompanies it.

I've always found airports exciting places, I suppose because I associate them with flying off to foreign parts, and the whiff of aviation fuel is genuinely one of my favourite smells (yes, I know if you live right next to Heathrow airport and smell it all day everyday it really isn't so special).

But train stations? Train stations are sad. To me, they mean goodbye; someone leaving, and someone being left behind....

They also mean largely in Britain still - bad sandwiches, lousy cups of tea, windy platforms, smelly kicked-in toilets.

*sigh*

I'll be OK when I get there I suppose....

Little Junior Parker - 'Mystery Train' (1953)
The Monkees - 'Last Train To Clarkesville' (1966)
Richard Hawley - 'Long Black Train' (2002)

6 comments:

  1. it won't be okay - you'll be in manchester...
    may i suggest the odd bar on high street, also home of manchesters finest record stores.
    if you're very very lonely we could come and meet you wednesday maybe - i'll have to check the mrs's diary.
    and i quite like the outside of picadilly station. very good curve.
    x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, I like a nice curve.

    Bless you for the offer, but don't ask the Mrs to cancel the opera on my behalf just yet- I'll be heading back to Lahndon Weds night.

    BTW is that The Odd Bar I should check out, or 'the odd bar' (if you see what I mean) ? X

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is the age of ...

    Overpriced cans of McKewans, finding the best looking bird to sit opposite, listening to Rupert & Rodney's inane mobile calls, the tinny strains of student Grant's ipod, the smell of stale piss on the bone rattler, intellectual social worker-type reading Proust, salesman balancing laptop on knee, Chav hotfooting into toilet when ticket collector enters carriage, grafitti, puke, 3 in a packet custard creams, piss-head gets on with a burger meal, all change at Crewe, selfish c*nt with bags strewn across 3 adjoing seats, screaming kid, squaddies making pyramid with empty cans (of overpriced McKewans)

    ... the train.

    dickvandyke

    PS Keep out of the mini bar

    ReplyDelete
  4. next time - and it's The Odd Bar.
    nice snacks in there too.
    x

    ReplyDelete
  5. It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry

    ReplyDelete

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