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Basingstoke, and Curry With Wootton in Woking (2008-03-04)

Category: Diary. Posted: 2008-03-08 16:20:05 GMT. Updated: 2008-03-09 13:28:00 GMT.

I woke up in good time. Despite there being a quid charge for a shower kit, at least the shampoo had been included in the price. There weren't that many people in the restaurant, so I had a pretty good choice of table. There was no totty to perve at, so it took me a while to decide which table to sit at. After deciding, I went to get some cereal. I'd decided not to have a full English breakfast - I never have one at home, so why should I have one when I'm away on business, when I do less exercise than when I'm at home? Kellogg's Fruit 'n' Fibre seemed like the best option, but there seemed nowhere to put the empty packet.

I had two cups of tea, and some toast, to go with my cereal and OJ. No totty arrived while I was there, so I just updated my blog. Back upstairs, I had the biggest dump I've had in ages, which took two flushes to get rid of. I thought about calling my boss to see if he needed anything explaining, but he wouldn't have been in the office on his own for long, so I decided that there was no need to. Before leaving the hotel, I was going to mention the faulty bedside lamp, but there was somebody at reception talking about his magazine being cleared up, and the magazine cost £5. Gimmeration, what magazines cost that much?

I had been to the offices before, but wasn't sure how to get to them from the hotel. SatNav saw me OK, and took me to the roundabout by the stream with the funny bridge. I got funny looks from other pedestrians when my SatNav started talking to me ("Turn around where possible, but not too fast"), so I changed the voice to Lady Jane.

I arrived ten minutes early, so corrected the SatNav location, and then went for a wander around. I won't discuss the course in my blog, but it finished at about 16:20. I called my boss while I was walking back to the hotel, but I only got the answer machine, so assumed that he'd skived off early. Wootton had called during the day, but I'd had to ignore the call, because I was running the course. He was up for a curry, but reckoned he could leave a bit earlier than he'd expected. Wanting to get changed at the hotel, and have a quick cuppa, I didn't reckon I'd arrive much earlier than we'd arranged. Back at the hotel, I mentioned the faulty beside lamp before going upstairs to get changed.

I went to buy my cheap day return from Basingstoke to Woking, and was surprised to find that it cost £10.00 (even with my third off). This seemed too expensive, so I typed the details in two more times. Each time, the machine told me the same price, so I gave up, and bought the ticket. [8/3/08 16:20 To be continued, I've just arrived in Chester].

[9/3/08 12:43 continued on the train from Crewe to Coventry, while my brother's reading his Stuff Magazine] Unfortunately, my gimmering with the ticket machine meant that I just missed a train by a few seconds, and the next train wasn't for another half-hour. It took me ages to decide whether to call Wootton, or to send him a text message. I don't like making arrangements using text messages, but also don't like people using phones on trains. I decided to send him a text message, which said, "Sorry mate. Just missed a train, the next one gets in at 1815.". He replied to say that he'd meet me in a pub.

I waited in the waiting room, which was good because the bird opposite me had quite a low-cut top, and kept leaning forward. Once she left to catch her train, I got bored, so went to wait on the platform. The South West Trains trains are much nicer than the First Great Western Link trains, and there are tables in all of the carriages. I sat down at a table, and started updating my blog. It's a good job that I can touch-type, because I could tap away at the keyboard, and perve at the totty opposite (who didn't rumble me, because she was busy concentrating on her laptop).

After about 5 minutes, I felt tired, so shut my eyes, and slept until we arrived in Woking. I called Sad Simon, and he explained what pub he was in. By the time he'd finished explaining, I was almost outside the pub (The Railway or The Station, I can't remember which). If only he had a TomTom, I could have found him automatically. He was over half-way through his pint when I got there, so I got two more in (and scared the only totty in the pub away without even speaking to her). Wootton complained that my text message wasn't clear, because it didn't say whether I meant arriving in Basingstoke, or arriving in Woking. What a fool, why would I tell him what time the train was arriving in Basingstoke! Anyway, this proved that making arrangements using text messages is a bad idea.

Wootton mentioned that he had a new phone, so I asked him what type. It turned out that it was a Nokia 6210, so I started asking him lots of questions. We tried taking pictures inside - the flash made the colours a bit pants, but the night mode worked perfectly. We then went off in search of a curry house, so I asked whether we could use the GPS. It took a few minutes for it to find enough satellites to work out its location, but then so does my TomTom when it hasn't been turned on for a while. Still, if Wootton let it use A-GPS, it would have been much quicker. It found our location accurately, and directed us to the nearest restaurant. Unfortunately, it doesn't differentiate between different types of restaurants, so it found a MacDonald's! Fortunately, we saw two curry houses just up the road, and a Whetherspoon a bit further on. While Wootton was getting cash out, I went to have a look at the Martian sculpture. Wootton fancied some more ale, so we went in for another pre-curry pint. Apart from some twat smoking in the toilets, it was a very enjoyable pint.

We then went next door to the closest curry house. The service and food were excellent, but the Mattar Panneer was a real let down (only 1/5). At the end of the meal, I mentioned to Wootton about the plane landing at Frankfurt airport, so he got out his laptop, and we had a look on the BBCNews website. We found the clip fairly quickly, but the IPlayer wouldn't work on his laptop. We eventually found a clip on YouTube, which his laptop could cope with.

Trains from Woking seemed quite frequent, so we went for another pint. I wanted to go to a different pub, and not a chain pub, but the only one that we could find was an O'Neils. We had a quick pint while we were propping up the bar. There was football on, and the screen said Mill 0 Arnl 0, so I assumed that this was Millwall vs. Arsenal. While Wootton went for a jimmy, I realised that it was a European game, so Mill must be something like A.C. Millan. I then looked at the larger screen, and realised that it said 91 minutes, but the small screen said 89 minutes. This confused me for ages, until I realised that they were showing two different games at the same time. At least that explained why only half the pub cheered when Arsenal scored.

We walked back to the station. Wootton's train left straight away, but I had over 30 minutes before my one left, so I went into The Railway. I had a fairly relaxing pint while I was updating my blog, but was entertained by a kid who had obviously had a bit too much to drink, because he started singing karaoke, even though it wasn't karaoke night! There were no tables free on the train on the way back, but the airline-style seats also had airline-style fold-away tables, which are just big enough to use my PDA and keyboard.

The train arrived earlier than I expected, so I had to pack away my PDA and keyboard fairly quickly. Fortunately, Palm PDAs are far faster than Windows ones, so this wasn't a problem. I saw a few examples of bad apostrophe usage on the way back, but more about them in another post. Back at the hotel, I was tempted to nip into the bar to perve at the totty barmaid, but decided that I really ought to go to bed. I had a quick cuppa, and another shave with soap, and then went to bed. I watched a programme about the Galapagos Islands before going to sleep. Unfortunately, it was longer than I hoped for, because I went to sleep before it had finished.

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