royal mail, national express, ears and peelie

So the royal mail lose my brother’s birthday card with 25 quids worth of vouchers in and all I get is this lowsy email apology:

“Thank you for your enquiry from which I am sorry to learn of the loss of an item of mail containing a birthday card an (sic) vouchers.

Unfortunately, I am unable to meet your claim as items of negotiable value like money and vouchers sent by the service you used are not covered for compensation.”

Well thats just great isnt it. Thanks Royal Mail….

As I’m no longer a “Young Person” I can’t take our fantastically reliable train service down to London at a semi-reasonable price anymore. Without a railcard its 57 quid which I think is a little bit overpriced. So for 20 quid I took the National Express, with the temptation of a 4-hour express journey time, no refreshements, minimal leg room and a comedian driver.

Actually on the way it took 2hrs45 mins to Golders Green, mainly as we didnt stop anywhere and there was no traffic. So it was all good. On the return journey it was full, the driver nearly didnt let me bring my hand luggage on (“It could take someones head off” apparantly – but only due to the ambitions of the driver to be a brake-tester for Ford).. this time it did take four hours as we took in the Milton Keynes “Coachway” and several service stations… despite all that its not a bad way to get there, especially as sometimes they have 2 quid return tickets.

Finally Valve came to town this week, but I had to give it a miss to preserve my ears for a checkup this week. Went to Zinc’s new night (Faster) in London on Saturday and going to a night in Sheffield this weekend (Sneak vs Metropolis) with lots of Movement Dj’s and it’s gonna be broadcasting on 1Xtra..

Finally, John Peel passed away yesterday and I felt gutted when I heard. He’s been someone to listen to music thru exams, University and more recently in work! You dont expect someone like that to disappear so suddenly. I expected many more years of listening to random punk next to drum n bass. I remember him playing a couple of years ago in the upstairs room at Fabric and shaking his hand.