So I have decided that this November I will be taking part in NaNoWriMo, and will attempt to write a 50,000 word plus novel in just 30 days. I don’t have any experience of writing fiction, so this will be a new adventure for me, although I have heard that it will be character building.

The novel I have in mind is called Plebiscite and I’m planning to tax my writing skills to the limit by straddling the fine lines between Humour, Horror and Psychological Thriller. How it will all turn out is anybodies guess.

During the journey, the conductor Dean came to check my tickets, I shown him my train ticket, my seat reservation and my 16-25 railcard. As my railcard was faded he took it out of the wallet to take a better look at it.  At this point, he acknowledged that it was valid until the 1^st of September, but told me that I should get it replaced once I got in to Cardiff. He then started asking me if I had bought cheaper advance tickets, or if I had bought them at the station on the day, to which I replied that I had brought them online, to which he said he was unhappy with that.  He said he would not have a problem if I had bought my tickets on the day, but because I had brought them in advance he was unhappy.  At this point he started damaging my railcard, running it through his ticket machine, ripping, scratching and bending the card. He returned the card to me and continued down towards the front of the train.

Later he returned and asked to see my railcard again, and when I handed it to him he said that it was not valid as it was now according to him blank.  He again said he was unhappy that I was travelling on an advance ticket and said he would sort it out. He then left walking towards the back of the train.

He returned, informed me that he was withdrawing my railcard and produced an Unpaid Fare Notice that he filled out from Walsall to Abercynon. He incorrectly assumed that I was married, a point I asked him to change. While he was filling in the address he questioned several times the street name and county, refusing to belive the Rhondda-Cynon-Taff is a county, whilst simultaneously asserting that the West Midlands is a county but that it also contains Cheltnam, requesting the spelling from me repeatedly. Once he completed the form, after going away to check the correct fare from Walsall to Abercynon, I signed it, only after asking him to make the above correction. It was only once I had returned home that I realised he had not included an Authorisation Number so I was unable to file an appeal on the IRCAS website.

I asked him if he could provide a written explanation of why he had withdrawn my railcard, this he did after a fashion in a statement that contained several inaccuracies.  The main reason given in this statement was the fact the railcard was blank, ignoring the fact that he had read the details of it earlier on the journey, and that it had been damaged by himself.

As he was leaving he informed me that the ticket he had given me was only valid on Crosscountry trains and that I would have to buy another ticket at Cardiff in order to continue my journey to Abercynon.

Once off the train I had to purchase a new railcard in order to make my return journey that night, and purchased another ticket from Cardiff to my destination meaning that ultimately I ended-up paying for this journey three times in addition to being forced to renew my railcard almost two months before my last one would have expired.

I have written to Crosscountry trains, as I believe they have some serious issues to address, regarding the actions,  and attitude of their staff but as yet I have not received any reply from them. I have advised the train company that I may need to take this issue to my MP is the issues are not addressed as it is simply unacceptable to me for a train company to penalise customers for taking advantage of the cheaper advance tickets rather than paying for the walk-on fare. I’m also wanting an assurance that their staff members xenophobic anti-welsh attitude was  an isolated incident as this deeply troubled me.

In January I started two year long projects, one was photography related, the other was to read 52 books in one year. By now I should have finished around 24 of these books when in fact I have only finished 15 so far, although I do have quite a few in progress stacked up next to my bed.

I enjoy reading real books, although I don’t have as much time to devote to this as I would like. There is something special about the written word committed to paper, especially compared to the fleeting pixeler nature of computer screens (and despite being youngish I still find it a lot easier to absorb information printed in front of me than on a computer screen). I also like the fact that with real books the book itself has an history and tells its own story, and that once they have been read they can be passed on to others, archived on bookshelves for further reference, or even registered with bookcrossing and released into the wild. Real books like churches also force you to disconnect from the always connected world of the 21st century, allowing time to relax and to think.