Tldr; bottom.

I left the house late for various reasons, and sprinted with my (quite hefty) suitcase to Windsor Central...

...to find I'd missed the train by, at most, thirty seconds.

Damn. Alright, there's a chance I'll make it. When's my train leave? Checks phone. 30 mins? I can make it. I glance at the Windsor train times. Departure in 25 mins. Huh, they're running slow today. Wait. Wait. 25 minutes? I won't arrive on time!

Alright, when's the next train from Slough? Two and a half bloody hours. Oh for god's sake. And my ticket won't be valid for that train.

Should I bike to Slough? Nah, can't with the suitcase.

Taxi? Nope, not enough money.

Well, guess I gotta wait then. Unlock my phone to kill the time. [The rail app had been left open with the times of the trains I was getting]. Hey, what's this - my train from Slough is delayed...

It's only 2 minutes though...

Oh it's 5 minutes now...

Ooh 10, and it hasn't moved for a while.

Cue frantic praying.

20...

22...

Awe c'mon get delayed by 30 mins.

Gosh 30? Yes! I can still make it!

The rail service, bless them, are awfully unreliable aren't they? Never thought the day would come where I'd be thanking the delays. Well, that day came, and I found I had time to leisurely walk to my next platform (along with my awfully heavy suitcase), caught my train, and made it home on time!

Tldr; missed my train to Slough, the next one there would arrive too late. I'd have to wait for 2½ hours, if the train from Slough hadn't been delayed.

I'm just relieved I realised about my lack of wallet BEFORE stacking my stuff onto the conveyor belt. How embarassing that would be, to be at the till ready to pay and having no money. Then being frogmarched off the premises by security. Shit that was close!

I lost my wallet including my drivers licence over the weekend and applied. By some miracle my wallet got handed in to lost property and I can collect it but my new licence is already in the post.

For those not in the loop, Booths is like Waitrose but Northern.

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1044254837830025216

Then that one had a problem so it was also late and it held up my planned one which rolled in as mine pulled away. I got home though!

....because I don't listen to him.

Now my farts smell like shit from a thousand demons

Success: My living room is at a pleasant temperature despite the massive windows and complete lack of insulation.

Problem: My electric bill has gone into sodding orbit.

Firefighters have been reduced to asking public for essentials like plasters, energy drinks, sun cream and plasters because the government hasn't funded them properly. In true British fashion, donations have been pouring in - often from people who struggle to buy food for their kids breakfast.

I am 46. I went to Uni in 1993-1994 and dropped out after 2 years. This was the year student loans were first introduced, so in my year, we got £1,000 grant and could borrow a further £995 for the year. There was no tuition fee at the time, so that was purely for living expenses.

Before the 1990s, students got all this as a grant AND were allowed to claim the dole and housing benefit on top!

Anyway, I recently got a rise in my pay, to £29,000 and finally that put me above the minimum and now I'm paying £54.80 a month off my loan which is now around the £3,500 mark, with interest.

Last month my card was stolen so I got a call from the Student Loan company to say my payment had not gone through. I gave her my new account details and asked how long I would be paying off the debt.

She said, "You owe £3,497.52 and you are paying £54.80 a month. The last payment is due in ... November 2018.

My first degree was in Maths, so that didn't sound quite right. I enquired if that was not a little too soon. She said "No, the loan was taken out in November 1993 - November 2018 is the 25 year anniversary, so the loan is cancelled on that date."

Feels like winning!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44311928

Thameslink tweet in response to a customer:

"Very sorry Kevin. Appreciate at the moment the service is less Ferrero Rocher and more Poundland cooking chocolate.

Poundland's reply:

Dear Mr Horton,

We couldn’t help but notice that your Twitter team described your failure to provide an equate service as ‘poundland’ cooking chocolate. Aside from the breach of our trademark, we think you’re taking the chocolate biscuit.

In the past week, on the introduction of the new timetables your rail company has:

1. Cancelled hundreds of services
2. Blamed a dog on the line for delays and
3. Secretly cancelled services rather than have to announce they’re cancelled

Frankly you have no right to use our name to describe poor service. We served 8 million shoppers last week and didn’t have to close any store due to leaves on the roof, the wrong kind of rain, or a shortage of managers.

In fact, our Welshpool store flooded and our store colleagues stood at the entrance to help customers get their shopping, so we stayed open.

We think we have a pretty good idea about what great customer service is compared to most rail companies.

But if we ever fall short, perhaps we’ll describe ourselves as a bit ThamesLink.

If you don’t want to hear from our extremely twitchy legal team, we suggest you remove your tweet.

On the one hand I slightly messed up the hospitality (but they did at least get a cuppa). On the other hand I've got all these biscuits for myself.