I'm not too sure what the objective of Tagging is but apparently I'm to post 7 obscure things about myself and ask 7 people on my friends list to do the same, so here goes.

1. I once stole somebodies pet rabbit, killed it, cleaned it and gave it to my Grandmother who cooked it for tea the next day. Whilst the rabbit was one of the tastiest bunnies I've ever eaten, I'm not proud of how I got it, but what can I do about that now?

2. I once clean bowled Geoff Boycott 1st ball. (it was in the nets mind but I was only 15).

3. I spent 12 months travelling round Australia when I was 21 and only got laid once. I don't mind telling you it took a female plummer 2 weeks to clean my pipes when I got home.

4. I wanted to be a Miner like my grandad but Maggie Thatcher saved me by closing all the pits.

5. I once swam competetively for Yorkshire but consistantly came last and got kicked out of the team after I got caught smoking a fag in the changing rooms 5 minutes before a race.

6. Biggest regret is not making more of an effort to watch Barnsley during their one and probably only foray into the Premiership.

7. My first car was a red Ford Escort 1.1L that broke down all the time and which I sold to some poor unfortunate without telling him that it broke down all the time.

The 7 friends I'm going to tag are as follows:-
Eggbod
Growing-up-girl
Irish-Le-Feaux
Naughty
The Gardner
theticketcollector
The-Walrus.

Appologies if you've already done this.

I was looking for some infomation on NXEC's web site yesterday and on the hoof, decided to run a quick price comparison between season ticket prices from Stevenage, Peterborough and Grantham into Kings Cross. On the old GNER website this wouldn't have been a problem but it appears NXEC think us commuters don't need to know how much our tickets are going to cost us because they've removed the facility to price season tickets from their website.

Becasue I couldn't find the info I wanted on-line, I rang them. Bad mistake that was. I eventually got through to some numpty and asked him for the cost of an ANNUAL ST from each of the 3 destinations. Unfortunately he could only give me the cost of a monthly ticket and wouldn't/couldn't give me a price for an annual ticket. It got worse. I then asked how I could find the information I was after only to be told that I would have to visit the travel centre at each of the stations I was interested in.

What a load of bollocks this all turned out to be. As far as I can see, NXEC's new web site has reduced the level of information available to season ticket holders and totally removed the ONE piece of information each and every commuter will require. Worse still the only way to find out how much your season ticket is going to cost, is to visit the station at which your journey begins.

I've fired off an e-mail of complaint so lets see if 1. I get a reply, 2, How long a reply takes and 3, If they acknowledge the issue and finaly 4, If they do anything about it. Why am I not hopeful?

This morning whilst alighting the 07.20, the platform was blocked by a throng of people and I couldn't work out why. It wasn't until I got a little further down the platform did I realsie that the cause of the blockage was due to crew helping a Wheelchair passenger off the train. The fact that half the platform has been fenced off due to the renovations didn't help matters either.

Anyway that got me thinking what a hassle it is for disabled passengers to travel on trains and wondered what others thought. We also had a timely comment posted earlier requesting a post on disabled passengers so here it is.

I have recently had the "misfortune" of catching the 18.20 from Kings cross which is now a nightmare. It used to be a good train to catch with enough seats for all, even on a Friday. However since it now stops at Stevenage it is the train from hell, to get an unreserved seat you have to be there 10mins+ befor it leaves, and by the time it goes even the vestible areas are packed. Why are they packed?? because of the 100s of Stevenage commuters that more than fill the train. This leaves us longer distance commuters and casual travellers having to stand until Stevenage.

Stevenage passengers do not pay extra to use NXEC services, and should therefore not travel on these trains. As we know from previous comments on this blog the guards turn a blind eye and avoid any conflict by simply not checking tickets until the train departs Stevenage. They should be banned from these services unless they have purchased a vaild NXEC ticket, FCC season tickets are not vaild to/from Peterborough on NXEC so why should they be vaild to/from Stevenage. It would be easy to solve, a few platform ticket checks and warnings announced on the train would surley frighten most of them away and therefore the passengers that have actually payed for a seat might get one.

NXEC managed to put the seat reservations on the 07.20 for a full week. This week they managed it for the first time since Xmas. About fricking time too.

Having said that, why am I not confident they'll do the same next week?

Either the fair weather riders are getting their bikes out again now it's getting lighter or there are more people who have converted to a motorbike to get to the station becasue there seems to be more Motorbikes at the station that there has been for a while.

Unfortunately these part time or new riders don't seem to care how or where they park their bikes and it's starting to get on my tits. If you ride a bike, please consider where you park. Please don't leave it at such an angle that 1 bike is now parked where 3 could easily fit if you had parked more considerately. Please don't block one of the entries or exits. Please don't block other bikes in. This last point is the most worry some because I'd hate you ot return to find your bike on it's side becaseu I've had to push it over to get mine out. Yes I know you thought you would be back before me but your traveling on a train mate and trains are subject to a number of delays.