27 September 2015
We have deposited our second child, who is ever so nearly an android, at university, where he is going to study computer science and learn to be a complete android. His new student room is more luxurious than most of the places I stay when I am using the CIPA budget. In fact, his ensuite alone is more luxurious than most of the places I stay when I am using the CIPA budget. When I went to university, the closest you got to an ensuite was a sink hidden in a walk-in cupboard. It was half a term before I even found it. The nearly-an-android does not look back when we drive away. I take this to be a good sign. He is already thinking about how to connect his computers to the university network. He is not particularly interested in unpacking his clothes. At this point, I am supposed to return home to suffer “empty nest” syndrome. What is worrying me most about the empty nest is that it contains a router that only the nearly-an-android knew anything about. The rest of us haven’t a clue what to do when the broadband goes down. Instead of returning home, though, I make my way to London for a week of CIPA-related excitement, culminating in the annual Congress. So I need a train ticket from Cambridge to London. And I would also like to buy a train ticket from London Paddington to Bristol Parkway, ready to make a rapid getaway after the aforementioned Congress on Friday. I explain my requirements to the person who has been allocated the task of selling tickets at Cambridge station. The Paddington-to-Bristol part stumps her. “From which London station?” she asks. And then adds, hopefully, “King’s Cross?” Because she has heard of King’s Cross. Because that is where the trains from Cambridge go to. I would rather she had a slightly broader view of the UK’s rail network. “No, Paddington,” I repeat, patiently. “Which Paddington?” Now it is me that is stumped. “London Paddington. The train station. Where there are trains and… stuff.” I wait while she finds London Paddington on her machine. The machine is the size of a 1920s bus conductor’s ticket machine, with similar computing power it seems. “Ah. Paddington Underground?” “No. Paddington Overground.” I do not think the Underground extends quite as far as Bristol yet. I wait some more. “I’m just checking whether it goes through here.” “No,” I say – and my voice is perhaps a teeny bit tetchy – “Trust me: the London Paddington to Bristol Parkway train does not go through Cambridge.” This is worse than talking to the satnav. “Have you done this journey before?” She seems uncertain that it is even a possibility. “Yes,” I say, wearily. “Just a few times.” “It’s showing me several different prices,” she says, peering at her 1920s ticket machine. I am encouraged by the fact that the machine has found any prices at all, but dismayed to realise I am supposed to help her choose which one is right for me, this being something I usually expect the railway staff to do. I am tempted to get out my own ticket machine, which is a 2012 smartphone with access to National Rail Enquiries®. We compromise. I buy my Cambridge-to-London ticket, aware that if I let this transaction go on much longer the Cambridge-to-London train will have left without me anyway, and we agree that I will buy my London-to-Bristol ticket, should Bristol Parkway turn out not to be a figment of my imagination after all, at London Paddington. Overground. On Friday. I proceed through the ticket barriers with some relief. It is depressing to think that one of the UK’s top-ranked universities has to be reached via one of the most backward train stations in the country.
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