odyssey

plan is information; knowledge is power and all that.
now picture the scene it is sunday, and i have a plan. i know what i want to do with the day. it is simple; it involves me going here, there, over there and back to here with a stop in-between. really simple.

most of the time when a plan goes wrong it is down to me being stupid or not carrying it out as planned (which when you consider it is a plan is a bit stupid).

i had planned to go to tate britain to see the final day of the chris ofili exhibition (never a good idea to see the last day of a show). get up early walk along the thames. see what i mean simple. ok falls at the first hurdle: don’t get up early.
adaptation is another aspect of plans. so check out the bus routes. i could do the 115 and walk from trafalgar square. mmm i wonder are there any other routes i could take?
let’s check.
get on the internet. go to transport for london website. look at buses. wow they have a new fancy bus map. put in the bus you want and it shows you the route on the map. sweet.
why it is a google map? don’t we have the ordnance survey or the geographers’ map company (they do the famous a-zs) can’t they provide decent and accurate maps for british companies to use? aren’t they cool enough?
back to the story: i bung in a location to see what buses from there might take me to the tate. there are some likely candidates. now what is nice about the new map is that not only does it show you the route, it gives you a list of the bus stops. belt and braces method. nice. sensible. foolproof.
i don’t know about you but there are times when i am using google maps when they don’t seem to work the way they should do – so a few views of different routes and i am getting maps that have routes on them but no streets – london has disappeared. no need to worry because there is a listing of the stops.
344 looks to be the best option, sure it is further to walk to than the 115, but it is a new route for me and it arrives pretty darned close to the tate. 344 it is.
all i need to do is walk to fenchurch street, as that is where the stop is.

walk, walk, walky walk and there i am at the top of fenchurch street. first bus stop and ‘oh look the 344 doesn’t stop here’. shit shit shitty shit shit. i know go into fenchurch street station and get a bus map from there.
bus map in hand. there is the 344 at liverpool street, and there it is again at southwark bridge road – no fucking clue where it is in-between those two. ask the staff at the station? why bother may as well ask a dada mime artist for help.
ok, ok time to amend and adapt the plan. i’ll get to the end of fenchurch street and see what options i have from there.
walk walk walky walk and i am almost at the end of fenchurch street and what the good fuck is that i see going by: yes it is a 344 – just that it doesn’t go down fenchurch street but it goes by it. nice. helpful.
now i am on gracechurch street and i can see a bus stop, and the 344 stops there. oh now you are just taking the piss look at that sign “bus stop not in use” – oh and look there is a helpful note telling me to use the next bus stop on the route – but where is it, would it have hurt to put a map there? no it wouldn’t have but they didn’t.
don’t panic. obviously it will be near london bridge. quickly make my way there, look behind me see a 344 coming, look ahead see a bus stop, run fat boy run.
get there, just in time to see the 344 turn a corner. noooooooo, it’s going to the monument. pissflaps.
walk around to that. no sign of a bus stop. oh i know where it will be. yup there it is, only it is the 344 stop for liverpool street – wrong direction. oh this is stupid.

this is about the time when anyone sensible would give up, but i am committed, i am determined. i am stupid.
if you can’t go forward, then go back. no idea where the next bus stop is, but i know where the previous one is. so off towards liverpool street i go. and there it is a working bus stop and look there is a 344 approaching it. joy.
“excuse me how do i get to fenchurch street?” no no no no no no why me, why? why? why? do my duty and watch another 344 sail on by. fuckity fuck fuck.
finally a 344 turns up. i jump on. happy.
oh by all that is fucking holy, by the power of greyskull and a big what the fucking hell is going on the bus has stopped at the “not in use stop”. remember what i said about planning and information? well it only works when the information you base your decisions on is right – so far transport for london have sold me two pups: firstly the stop is on gracechurch street and not fenchurch street – quite why they can’t get that right is beyond me and secondly they mark a bus stop as not in use when it really is in use. kafka does the krypton factor.
one of the joys of being on the top deck of a bus is that you get to see london from a different vantage point and sometimes that allows you to see the bigger picture. from my seat on high i can see just what has happened. transport of london have obviously employed a total fuckwit whose idea of fun is a facial from a doberman while he sits on a cactus. when said fuckwit was alerting potential customers to the fact that the stop was going to be out of action “due to works” he wasn’t concentrating on his task and was thinking too much about his illicit relations with a dyson no bag big ball machine and put the sign on the wrong fucking stop. quite how he missed the fact that the works were taking place on the other side of the road is beyond me, how he missed that the opposite stop had been fenced off with those bright red barriers that are the pride and joy of so many construction companies will remain a mystery to all the sages and mages in the world.
but can i take this moment to wish upon said fuckwit a plague on his house, a bad case of knob rot and that all the food he eats from now on tastes as if it had been stewed in the socks of a tramp who has not changed for a week or three.
so on the bus, at last. off to tate britain.
further into south london than i normally go.
oh look the imperial war museum, i really should visit it one day and so easy to get to. isn’t southwark bridge road a long road. there is lambeth palace getting close now. soon be there. crikey there is an odd coupling of establishments; right by chariots (roman sauna for men) is a motorcycle showroom. so much easier for the local chapter of the hell’s angels to get their brown wings.
ofili show seen. very good it was.
now i need to get back to the tate modern. sod the expense i will get the tate to tate boat. nice trip on the thames will cheer me up and get me there in no time at all. look at that the next one goes in a few minutes. perfect timing.
noooooooooooooooooooooooo what the wanking hell is going on the sodding place is locked up. nice padlock, below the timetable that clearly states that the next boat is due shortly. well that is a lot of fucking use, not like it is a popular route, i mean who would want to catch a boat between very popular tourist attractions on a sunday afternoon. i have no idea what i was thinking, silly me it is the perfect time to just be closed and no reason posted. arseholes.
it is back to the 344 for me. that will drop me off at the tate modern, or do i stay on and just get back to liverpool street and call it quits? i decide on the tate modern. mistake. show there is major pants. i leave and hoof it back to brick lane – i need a coffee.
and fuck my old boots it decides to rain and rain and rain again.
i am soaked. i look like a drowned ewok.
the moral of the story? not only am i not a map-reader i am not the man with a plan.