Last night I caught a train home. Rather astonishingly, it got lost. It didn’t get lost at a complex interchange or junction. It got lost given the choice of left or right. It should have gone right so it could stop at Weston Milton and Weston Super Mare. However, given odds of 1 in 2, somehow an elbow was mistaken for an elbow, and muggins here was taken on a magical mystery tour of South Somerset. I ended up well over an hour late on a 40minute commute. So this morning, I’m suggesting that the train company re brand itself to reflect it’s actual values and the realistic customer experience. The company is called “First Great Western”. The Western bit is ok, but it does kind of suggest some surety in their geographical bearings. Considering that last night, despite being on rails, they were more lost than Frank Spencer at a gang bang, they could dispense with that bit. The “First” and the “Great” are so obviously flawed, as to not require debunking. So they can also be ditched. Which begs another question. What do we call this company instead? What words quickly and succinctly summarize the public train services in South West UK? After much careful consideration, I think I’ve got it. Shit Trains. Sent from my BlackBerry
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Idiot train driver – obviously doesn’t deserve a job where he/she has to make such difficult decisions…
On a lighter note, perhaps the train driver was confused, as “Weston Super Mare” isn’t a place.
Yes, I know I’m being pedantic, but I wouldn’t spell “Bristol” as “briS-tol” or “London” as “lon-Don”, adding capital letters and hyphens wherever I please. So why add amend capitals and hyphens in Weston-super-Mare – just for the sake of it? It’s just plain incorrect, and very much akin to the error the train driver made… i.e. it wasn’t correct and it irritated someone else.
BTW, just started reading your blog and am really enjoying it – it’s nice to see another Westonian who speaks common sense!
Welcome Twang!
I’m sorry about the Grammatical error. Unlike Shit Trains, I shall try and explain why I’ve got into a bad habit.
I spend rather a lot of my day, too much possibly, working on PCs and the Internet. As this has been the case for a considerable number of years, some “shorthand” and “workarounds” have become habitual for me. Some denizens of the web call it “muscle memory”. One of these habits is related to searching for Weston-super-Mare when using the internet. Often the “search” text boxes on websites will accept boolean arguments as part of the search criteria.
For instance asking Google to search for “Weston super” will mean Google will search for websites containing either Weston or super. Asking Google for “Weston+super” for websites containing both Weston and super.
So as you can see, searching for “Weston-super-Mare” may be grammatically correct, however it may cause an unexpected or incomplete search on the Internet. I have found that “weston super mare” gives good results in most searches. Hence it has become habitual for me to type the name in that format. Ironically “Weston+super+Mare” may very easily produce better results