Madness and Mayhem on a Train from London

Yesterday was a day that I will treasure forever. It was a long, surreal, head-spin of a day. Up at 5.00 am, after a very disjointed night of sleep. Apprehensive about the impending interview, I kept waking up with my heart pounding, certain I was going to be late. I hobbled along to the train station in my brand new T-bar’s and waited briefly in the shelter.

The journey up was fairly uneventful; we got to Paddington in just over four hours. That’s crazy, considering it usually takes me that long just to get to Somerset. Paddington was hectic, crowded and daunting. I had about an hour to spare before my interview, so I had lunch and found a place to sit and write some notes. There were police everywhere, which made me feel a bit nervous. Then I watched as one policeman saw a suite case unattended and began to try the combination lock to search it.

Unbeknown to him, the man that owned to bag was a few metres in front, extracting cash from a hole-in-the-wall. When the man turned round, witnessing the policeman fiddling around with his bag, he said, “Hey, that’s my bag!” The policeman looked a bit surprised and replied, “You can’t leave luggage unattended around here.” He got back on his feet and wandered off again.

It’s a shame this sort of scrutiny is becoming a part of everyday life. Paddington is a great place to people watch, but I couldn’t really concentrate on anything other than my rising nerves. So, my time came and I took the stairs to the top café where I was meeting The Writer’s team of interviewers, I was desperately trying to remember what Neil looked like (I’ve only seen him once and that was at the front of a lecture hall.)

They greeted me with zealous smiles and offered me water. (Still or fizzy? I took still, but then thought they might be doing some kind of psychological test to see if I was adventurous or not!) The interview started quite badly, they asked me to criticise my responses to the briefs they set me and then asked me what I thought about their website and what was wrong with it. They played good cop - bad cop with me, firing questions left, right and centre. It was intimidating and I did feel out of my depth, but I kind of redeemed myself at the end by asking them some good questions and I sucked up a bit by thanking them for the opportunity to meet them.

I couldn’t wait to get to the bar and finally relax. Joe and Liam had already had their interviews, so we went to the Dickens Tavern (how ironic?) and waited for Jenny. We then rushed back to the station via the off-licence to stock up on wine and beer for the journey. Being Friday, the train was bursting with ratty commuters and students. Miraculously we managed to find a booth for all four of us, every seat was booked, but to our great relief, no one came to claim our seats.

We were hyper and oh so relieved to be heading home again. The drinking began and we got louder and (most probably) annoyed the hell out of every one in our coach. We played consequences, and offered our fellow commuters wine in compensation for our behaviour (funnily enough, no one took up the offer!) Liam played his station game, which consists of waving madly at people standing on the station. Once he had their attention, he would beacon them to get the attention of a person near-by. If it worked, the stranger would be made aware of Liam and then Liam would pretend he was a friend of theirs. Thus embarrassing everyone involved and providing a plethora of confusion. I laughed so hard I cried, the baffled strangers were probably quite annoyed by his behaviour, but getting someone to do something silly and then realise how silly they look was absolutely priceless. What a wicked boy that Liam is!

I did feel very sorry for a small, old Canadian man who sat directly opposite us, I knew he wasn’t happy because I saw him shout at the woman next to him when she was speaking too loudly on her mobile. So, Liam offered him some wine. He didn’t accept, but was fairly polite about it. Next we played picture consequences, and drank more wine. We got held up at Exeter, and in that time we made some new friends and most of the other passages seemed to disperse. By the time we set off again, the coach was near empty.

At this point we were playing the Rizla game, and people from around the carriage were following it with great interest. We picked up some extra players in the form of a comedy producer for channel 4, his friend and two older women. They were as pissed as us and so we played on. Steph bought another two bottles of wine and we finished the game, just as the train rolled into Truro.

By the time we reached Falmouth, we were royally sozzled. Ravenous, we walked to Asha and had a superb curry and more wine. Exhausted (and still in my precious new heels), we then stumbled to Toast. A pint of cider later – it’s definitely time to give up and go home. The London lads said they’d meet us in town, but as they didn’t show, and so there really was no other reason to elude sleep anymore.

What a spectacular day! A rollercoaster of a ride, surreal and definitely delirious. We met a whole bunch of interesting people, drank too much, partied hard and learned a valuable lesson from the interview. I don’t think I’ll be asked back for the apprenticeship, but I don’t really care. It was such a crazy day out, even if I was only actually in London for about three hours. It was a wake up call for me. I’m so far removed from the London scene; I’ve barely been out of Cornwall in the last couple of years. I need to gear myself up for a change in lifestyle. I’ve been toddling along at a snail’s pace, blissfully ignorant of the bigger picture.

I have a love/hate relationship with London. I love visits, but the thought of living there in the smog and chaos does absolutely nothing for me! But, I can’t ignore the fact that most of the media industry is based there, so I’m going to have to change my views and forget my prejudices. I’ve learned a lot about myself from yesterday, I need to prepare for my future and embrace the changes.