Day Zero Part 2

The plan worked! Trains 1 and 2 were both on time and even had working WiFi so I could keep abreast of the luggage abuse on our Facebook thread. There was just enough time in Edinburgh to grab an iconic Capital city photo between trains.

On my second train, wallowing in first class luxury and complimentary wine I sat opposite a man from Munich who was doing the UK on a two week rail pass. He was most concerned that he might not be able to visit York Minster because of some kind of Synod event and seemed a bit surprised that i was not aware of this event.

The Swinton Hotel is not the smartest place I have ever stayed at but it sufficed for a night and is very handy for Kings Cross and St Pancras.  Mick arrived promptly and we had a couple of beers before our curry. On the way back to base we checked out the Betjeman.

Day Zero

 


Still can't remember what it is that I have forgotten to pack so I will have to do without.



 According to the GCERC blog Route page tomorrow is Day 1 so logically today is Day Zero and for some of us it is the first day of our travels/travails. It is also the last chance I have to launch the blog from the feather bedded luxury of a real keyboard. From here on in posts will be put together on the Tab. Watch out for unintended comedy outcomes.

 
Today's plan is to get the train into Edinburgh (29 km) and then the 11.30 East Coast service to Kings Cross (632 km). Once in the Smoke it should be a short stroll to the Swinton Hotel and a meet up with Agent 00Mick .  We then aim to head out for a last taste of Blighty by way of a curry and maybe the odd beer.








 Spectacular European Capital Cities not visited by GCERC - No. 1

Hope to be updating progress as things happen on Twitter @DisorientatedD

It looks like the interview with Der Fuhrer is ON for tomorrow. 

Squeaky Bum Time

Woke up this morning to a Facebook exhortation from our leader to pull our fingers out as there are only two days left. For yours truly that is now around 24 hours.The highly disciplined Secret Admin Thread on FB has now fragmented into a dozen different conversations, each wandering off at tangents of panic and recrimination. We are  not going to be short of shot glasses or chopping boards. Looks like things will be just as we envisaged all those months ago.

Starting to seriously worry now about what it is that I have forgotten. There must be something but I'm blowed if I can think what it is. Even the annoying fiddly things like putting the 11 other guys numbers in my phone have been done. Lawn mowed, paint bought so Mrs DD can decorate the bathroom while I am away, do I need spare shoelaces?

Places we won't have time to see Pt 1

Reasonably entertaining day at the Tour yesterday. Spotted this on Twitter. 

"Individual Tour de France stage wins: Mark Cavendish 24, Australia 23"

(Don't forget - DD is now a Twit @DisorientatedD - become a DD Disciple)

 

Luckily we only have a limited amount of time in Germany. This sounds really annoying. 

A German firm is proposing to transmit adverts via train windows so that the sound appears to "come from inside the user's head" when passengers lean against them. The idea would use bone conduction technology, a technique that transmits sound to the inner ear by passing vibrations through the skull.

Full piece here.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23167112

Where, I hear you ask, is the interview with our Glorious Leader? Good Question. 

I just hope that he is better at catching trains than he is at meeting journalistic deadlines. He is currently into his 14th minute of Fergie Time

Watch this space. We might get lucky yet.

Trainspotting with John H

Today I find myself rather nervously waiting for my man on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street in uptown Noo Yawk.  Not totally convenient a couple of days before setting off on a Euro rail marathon but it does give me the chance to do a bit of recce work for Project Konigsberg.    

 

John H has selected this location as he apparently has some business to transact somewhere around here.  Decades of living the rock'n'roll lifestyle have not dimmed John's enthusiasm for life on the edge. He arrives more or less on time and we retire to the stoop of a nearby brownstone to begin the interview. The deal is that I pay a cash fee of $26 up front. 


 

Our subject has already made it clear that he is not prepared to talk about his teenage years as a senior military commander in the Taliban so we get straight to the point.

DD - We hear that you are organising a boot camp to get Der Fuhrer into peak condition. What activities will this involve?

Vast quantities of mind bending class A drugs and arm wrestling with Captain Shakti
 
What is your earliest memory of train travel?

Steam trains in Leningrad. My Dad was a KGB spy.
 

What is the worst train trip that you have ever done?

Lucknow to Nealgargh sitting in the corridor outside the 'toilet' being dripped on by toilet water.
 

What was it like working with Beefy and Lamby?

I never met them but apparently they were twats.
 

You went through GCIRC. Have you got a tip for us noobs?

Dont shoot up in the train toilets. It makes you feel really dirty.

Tell us about your relationship with Captain Shakti.

Oily.  Very oily.

 Is there a GCERC highlight that you are looking forward to?

Shooting up in the train toilets.
 
Is there anything that you think we need to know about other members of the team?

Captain Shakti is not homosexual.
 
We liked the Coach Trip graphics on your website. Is it true that ML was too mean to commission something similar for us?

I'm very ashamed of Coach Trip. Please don't mention Coach Trip ever again.

Do you know the real story about the tiffin tins?

Its a mystery. They were there, then they weren't there. Probably junkies.

 

Froome or Contador?

Bored of Froome already so sorry it's Contador all the way.

If you could take anybody from history along who would it be and why?
I'd take William Burroughs for obvious reasons.

Three tracks for the album please

You're only getting one and that's Dead On Arrival by Throbbing Gristle.

At this point we were approached by a man dressed all in black, with dodgy shoes and a big straw hat. DD decided that discretion was the better part of valour and legged it for the subway.

Warning: Contains Train Nut

Mike G is a totally obsessed train nut.   You just need to flick through his flickr account to discover this. He is the sort of guy who buys his kids a train set and then doesn't let them play with it because they don't observe Rule 55 properly.






He also has a refreshing interest in the remoter reaches of  professional football where he uses his clout to rig Macclesfield Town matches so that he can relieve suckers of bottles of champagne. His reputation as a card shark travels before him

 
What we like about Mike is his down to earth approach. None of this reach for the stars luxury or time travel nonsense for him.  A pint of Red Willow and a Scotch Egg at the Catford Bridge Tavern  gave the long suffering DD budget a break and it was a relief to be able to use the Oyster card for travel rather than the Platinum Visa.

How did you become an archaeologist?
I spent an awful lot of time digging through Der Fuhrer's code when we worked together at Yahoo, trying to find interesting things. Archaeology is a logical - but muddier - step from that.

We hear that you have worked with ML previously. Any anecdotes that you can share? (Please remember this is a family site)
ML used to be a big fan of a "splash and dash" after work, the name of which implies a swift pint followed by legging it home before he got a telling off from his missus.

Unfortunately, ML usually failed on both counts. The "splash" invariably turned into six pints, and Mark's ability to fall asleep on the train home from Paddington to Reading was legend. He's woken up in Didcot, Swindon and, most impressive, Swansea. His missus refused to let him out for weeks after the Swansea incident!

All other ML anecdotes are very much unsuitable for a family audience.

What is the best piece of code that you have ever written?

I used to run the official web site for my beloved Macclesfield Town FC. A well known football news web site was constantly nicking every news story that we put up on the site, changing a few words, and republishing it. It was getting very annoying, so I wrote a bit of code to show them different stories to everyone else. We managed to feed them, over the course of a week, a series of more and more improbable stories, that they dutifully republished, culminating in the announcement of the shock signing of the chairman of Macclesfield Town's Scandinavian supporters club.
(Mike has been known to set lions onto opposing fans.)

What is your earliest memory of train travel?
Stockport to Peterborough, sometime in the summer of 1988. Five and a half hours on a Sprinter. Ouch.

What's your best train journey ever?
About ten years ago, a group of us (ab)used some free South West Trains all day passes to complete the ultimate pub crawl - to have a drink in ten counties in one day. It's a good job one of the group wrote the day up (link is http://www.beerintheevening.com/articles/10cc/ ) because my memories of the day are very fuzzy indeed.

What's your worst train journey ever?
The same trip from Galway to Dublin that Darren F described in his interview. It makes me feel ill just thinking about it now.

What on earth persuaded you to sign up for GCERC?
I'd followed the trip round India with interest, and as soon as ML said there was a plan for a trip around Europe I signed up immediately. It's a shame I can't do the full circular tour, but on the plus side, I don't have quite so many underpant-related logistics to concern myself with.

Norway sounds expensive. Any good tips for cheapskates?
Pretend the exchange rate is £1 = 25kr and it doesn't seem that bad.

Tell us  more about the kitten pictures.

I can't. The NSA and GCHQ will come after me.  What Lloyd said about Darren secretly wanting to be a nun is all true though.


Which bit of the trip are you looking forward to most?
The Arctic Circle, Berlin, Prague and Budapest. Oh, and every single alcoholic beverage along the way.

 If you could have a model of any prototype you like for your garden railway what would it be?
 
I'd love a Class 37. Modern(ish) British outline stuff is pretty scarce for 45mm tracks, about all you can get is the Class 66 which isn't exactly the nicest looking engine on the planet!

 

 If you could bring anybody from any point in history along with you who would it be?  Please bear in mind that this person will have to stay on board when you bail out at your nominated city starting with B.
The woman who runs the laundrette near my house, because I think there'll be a desperate need for clean clothes by the time I leave the group in Budapest!

Fårikål or Rakfisk?
Fårikal, definitely. Rakfisk is pure evil in food form.

Please nominate three tracks for the GCERC music collection Don't Stop Me Now by Queen
Margate by Chas and Dave
Waltzing Along by James

And then we went back to Mike's house to play trains.

Tomorrow John H tells us about his Rock'n'Roll lifestyle. Unmissable.

Lloyds Slovenia Shocker!!!

That's Lloyds as in LloydsTSB rather than Lloyd S although his latest blog post did precipitate matters. I have been thinking that I had better let my card issuers know that I may be using my cards outside the UK. Lloyd's blog has definitively pinned down which countries will be visited in the Balkans and was my call to action.

When I told the nice lady at the call centre that I would be visiting 23 countries she was not at all phased and asked me which ones. Armed with a list in order of appearance I read them out and all was going well until we got to Slovenia. It would appear that the bank's computer does not list it. So somebody else will be buying the beers in Ljubljana.

My shiny Post Office Platinum card (no foreign transaction fees) is administered in Dublin (?!?) where a more laid back approach rules. "Where are you going?" "Twenty three countries around Europe" "OK. That's Europe then"

Time is rushing  by at a frightening rate. This counter thing on the Official Website is starting to get quite scary, particularly for those who's trip starts a day early. So much to do and so little time. I  need to prioritise here so that the essentials get covered. Just as soon the extended coverage of the Tour de France on ITV4 has finished. Yesterday wasn't quite as chaotic as the end of Stage 1 but was still entertaining.

Tomorrow we will be revealing the scary truth about Mike G 

DD's Toughest Assignment Yet

Jason C is a man of few words and even fewer comedy photos. Since he retired from his career as a stand up comedian he has shunned the public gaze and leads a quiet life a long way from the action. His main interest is completing online reviews of the performance of Home Energy Survey providers - the three word recommendation he posted in June 2009 is still legendary in Industry circles. 

He Tweets voraciously @Caractucus 

 

On those rare occasions when the camera does catch him off guard he does his absolute best to avoid being recognised.  Here he is almost seen sitting as part of the Inquisition at one of the notorious GCIRC Kangaroo Courts.

Jason asked us to meet him at Singapore's legendary Raffles Hotel. Fortunately a loan of the Tardis was once more available as he had specified mid - 19th century. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing we managed to arrive just after the opening ceremony in 1887. At least the beer was cheaper then than when DD had to shell out £10 for a pint of Tiger in 2010.

According to Linkedin you are based in New Brighton, Pennsylvania. How will you be getting to St Pancras?

What's Linkedin?

You survived GCIRC. Any tips for this year's rookies?

Keep your head down, bring a black and white kindle and always smile and nod at Stretch (Mark Lester to you) unless behind his back.

Our contacts working on the PRISM project have uncovered references to you being a runner. How many miles per day do you plan to run while on GCERC?

Having now completed 56 marathons I no longer feel the need to train. 

That is impressive!  56 marathons would get you from St Pancras to beyond Gothenburg on our route. 

Is there anything that you feel we ought to know about any other team member/s?

I refer you to the tip above.

Are you related to this lady? http://www.modelmayhem.com/645662

I am the only surviving male Carrodus on Earth. Lisa was an early lab experiment.

Krug or Real Ale?

Krug and Guinness in the same glass.

What is the true story about the tiffin tins?

Many hours were spent negotiating and sourcing the said tins.  Used once and then forgotten /lost /disappeared.  An Agatha Christie mystery.
 

Is there a particular GCERC highlight that you are looking forward to?

I'm tempted to say the end but that's a little bit harsh even coming from me.  Let's say the scintillating company and endless variety.

 

Your charity work is well known. What is your connection with Beaver County?

My accountant has advised me to plead the 5th.  (Photo JC3 Accountant)

 

Please name three tracks that you would like to see included on the GCERC Greatest Hit's Album

Aint no stopping us now -Luther Vandross

Please relies me let me go.  - Tom F. Jones

You turn me right round -  Dead or Alive (moot point at the end of this trip)

Jason. Many thanks for sharing these insights with DD's eight readers. Best of luck with the endless company and scintillating variety. 

Readers, if you are starting to get bored waiting for GCERC to get under way you might take a look at the Tour de France. That takes even longer than GCERC and got off to a splendidly shambolic start yesterday.  DD will be following it avidly at his favourite TdF website Blazing Saddles

LATE ADDITION - The Blazer's take on the Stage 1 Shambles

Our next victim knows who he is. He needs to remember to send the photos.  Otherwise we will have to use those ones.

DD's Essential Packing Tips

Many people have been asking me "What are the essentials for an interminable rail journey around Europe?"  Search me springs to mind but as D-day approaches the need for answers becomes ever more pressing.  Here's the advice that you won't find on those run of the mill sites.

 
First up is that absolute essential - flat pack bog paper. This chap has been to India three times and done the Warsaw - Amsterdam sleeper so already has invaluable experience. I wouldn't leave without it as I suspect that there are bits of the former Eastern Bloc where they still use Izal.

All GCERCers are under strict orders to bring a shot glass and a reserve. I'm hoping for a good placing in the 'Most Appropriate Shot Glass for a Train Trip' with my first choice. My back up is a natty little number from a set created  specially for West Lothian Council Housing Department and eventually given away so that the cupboard space could be used. Good to see council tax being used so imaginatively.  I am still swithering over whether to take the decanter with me.

I wouldn't dream of taking a train trip without my trusty thermos flask. Just place it on the table and you are almost guaranteed sole occupancy.



 


I have never been able to carry off the rugged stubble look so shaving kit is an essential for me. This trip I will be giving a debut to this mini size toiletry. Indian marketing gurus are brilliant. I would never have thought of calling a shaving foam 'Sliver'.


 

 The 'Holy Shreddies' campaign has produced excellent results and been extended to include 'Sunday socks'. Every day my luggage will get a little lighter.  One thing that will not be getting discarded is the hat.




HOT NEWS  -  You can now follow DD on Twitter.  Yes it's true. DD has joined the 21st Century and become a Twit. Follow all of the inaction with @DisorientatedD. Look out for #GCERC.

We don't normally run adverts but here is a chance if you have missed the GCERC boat. The Independent is running a competition to win 2 First Class Eurail passes valid for a month! You could even get the Sicilian train ferry in on that one.

Our next issue will feature a Celebrity Interview with GCERCer Jason C, a man who makes Howard Hughes look like Piers Morgan.

The Camera Never Lies

You can tell what sort of bloke Paul C is merely by his choice of venue for our meeting. Not satisfied with a crash trip around a couple of dozen countries in a few days' time he announced that he wanted to be interviewed in an Uzbek shepherd's shack. A 17 day, 18,000 km train trip will be a breeze compared with the return flights from Scotland  to Tashkent via Amsterdam and Moscow!

 
It is no secret that Paul knows how to take photos that don't have his thumb in them but perhaps you didn't know that he recently stood down from the office of Chief Executive of the Duchy of Lancaster or that for 12 years he played for Kilmarnock FC. His horns must have been particularly useful in that role.

 

What is the best railway related photo that you have ever taken? Can we see it? 

                                                                       

Please.

 

 

 I think two trains caught having a massive snog at East Croydon might have to do. Or, less mundanely, the Princess Elizabeth over the river taken from inside one of the Diamond Jubilee river pageant boats.  

 

How did you get yourself into this GCERC mess?

Didn't run fast enough when Lloyd suggested it might be a giggle. I tend to say yes and think afterwards. I am now in a state of turmoil and terror, given that it looks like it's actually going to happen. 

What cameras will you be taking?

Big fat, full-frame Canons with all the trimmings. And a tiny G15 to save on wrist trauma. Will end up getting anything memorable by using my phone, as ever.
  
That business where you shave just  by rubbing your hand over your face.  Can you teach me how to do that?

I try not to talk too much about my superpowers. I also have the ability to void myself in the downstairs department merely by glancing at the door of the nearest loo and transferring what has to be transferred inside purely by the power of thought. I expect this to come in handy on our trip. I shouldn't have talked about that, should I?

 

 GCERC is a big step up from taking wedding photos in Margate. Will you be able to cope with the pressure?

 We don't mention Margate. It is a cheerless place.

 

How did you manage to get Exclusive Copyright to every Uzbek Shepherd's Shack photo on the internet?

Good sanitation is hard to come by in the 'stans. I have the ability to transfer my superpowers simply by touching them on the crook. Make sense now?

Who's the most famous/interesting person that you have given photography tuition to?

Former Pope Benedict. After his retirement he's been looking for new challenges and hobbies. He's been doing bodybuilding with Jodie Marsh, and after that he comes over to mine for a few pointers. He's got a very poor feel for white balance, for obvious reasons.

Is there a particular GCERC highlight that you are looking forward to?

Finding the prospect of midnight sun particularly exciting. I've been getting into training by going out of the house during the day sometimes. 

San Pellegrino or Badoit?

San P all the way. Nobody needs the taste of volcanoes in their mouth.
 

Tell us about the humiliating initiation rituals that your office interns have to undergo. 

 

Ah yes. The "happy tomato". I'm glad you mentioned that. Has to be worn for 24 hours continuously for anyone breaking my Rules. These include: using the auto setting on any camera that can't also make phone calls, shooting a group of people at less than f/5, and calling photos "snaps".

 

The city stop plans for GCERC seem to be crystallizing as 'Send Paul to get a landmark photo while we sit in the bar'. How do you plan to extract your revenge?

While you're all asleep, my camera isn't. 

If you could bring a guest along from any point in history who would it be?

Thomas Tallis. Anyone that can bring that sort of harmony to a group of discordant voices will come in bloody handy on the difficult Balkan stretches.

Three tracks for the album please.

It was a very good year by Frank Sinatra
Puffing Billy (of course) by the Melodi Light Orchestra
Did You Give the World Some Love Today Baby, by Doris.

 

Paul is clearly a man that we need to keep in with else we run the risk of being syndicated world-wide drooling on our GCERC t-shirts. One suggestion is that we each take days in turn as personal  valet to Mr C, ensuring that his every whim is attended to and watching out for warning signs that he may be unhappy. Apparently these are not difficult to spot. 

http://paulclarke.com/photography/