Sending Out The Wrong Signals
You can tell you've become a creature of habit when colleagues remark upon the tiniest change in your routine. Today, unusually, I was in Glasgow.
"I'm just checking my calendar," said Tony Currie, "aren't you usually here on a Wednesday?"
In the space of twenty minutes, five other people said exactly the same thing. Who says sophisticated wit is dead at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ?
Mind you, I was lucky to get to Glasgow at all. I changed trains at Perth and got as far as Bridge of Allan before the conductor announced a delay because of a sheep on the line. He repeated this news with mounting incredulity.
"Yes, sheep on the line, ladies and gentlemen, a sheep on the line!"
I'm not sure what they do in these circumstances. Do they wait for a shepherd to arrive...or maybe a chef? No matter, we were soon rolling south with all the urgency of a sheep finding its own way to the abbatoir. We got as far as Bishopbriggs when the train stopped again and the conductor (who now seemed to be auditioning for his own radio show) told us there were points and signal problems preventing trains getting in to Queen Street station.
We were diverted to Springburn and told to gather our belongings and wait like refugees on platform three for a low-level service...then that was changed and we all had to scurry across the footbridge to platform one to catch a high level train to Queen Street. It trundled out of the station but soon stopped. Another conductor (not as chirpy) told us there were points and signal problems preventing trains getting in to Queen Street. I began to feel like a character in a Stephen King novel. Perhaps I had actually dropped dead at Perth and this was .
Ironic, then, that when I finally walked through the automatic doors at Pacific Quay so many people thought I'd arrived early.
