Author: My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett)

The 12:37 Train from Swindon to Bath Spa

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Commute, nablopomo, train, Travel ,

As I sit here on the Sunday afternoon 12:37 train hurtling towards Bath Spa it seems funny to think that what seems normal and run-of-the-mill now was a massive event back when I was nine years old. The first few train journeys I ever made were half an hour excursions to the dizzying heights of Worcester, accompanied by mum and my sister. The speed, sights and blurred colours all seemed so amazing, it was as if I was on a theme park ride. I never wanted it to end.

Flash forward some fifteen years and reality seems to have become quite different. Intrusively lit LED screens and computerised announcements are the only sights and sounds that stick in my head now and, as I sit here staring at a mobile screen, it is safe to say the stunning English countryside woos me less than my pre teen incarnation. Spoilt by a glut of train commutes, all I care about now when boarding is getting into a carriage with plenty of free double seats.

I am now arriving into another station. Is it mine? No, although they all look the same nowadays. Mostly simple constructions, their importance and status marked by the presence (or lack of) a Pumpkin Cafe, WHSmith or an M&S Food outlet at the bigger stations. These platforms appear to have none. The Victorian canopy is the only thing that suggests the station once held a degree of status in a bygone era. Not that I’m paying too much attention. Just another minor hold up on my route to Bath.

As we pull away I can see below me a flat canopy of brick and tile, interspersed with warehouses stocking mass produced, cheap, furniture and DIY goods. Glancing at it I ponder that this imagery before me could belong to any town across the United Kingdom, there are no unique features in the flat red skyline.

The light suddenly drops and the internal train lights brighten up. The little town is gone and replaced by a long tunnel. If I were not writing a blog post I could well be cursing this engineering masterpiece for interrupting my telephone signal, or my ability to like a photo on Facebook.

Seconds or maybe minutes (for who has time to dwell on the passing of time?) we exit the dark space. My mind is indifferent but my body welcomes the return to normal pressure. Over recent years my ears have taken a disliking to the changing characteristics of air in varying locations. Hills and small communities surround me and I know I must be on the final leg on my passage to Bath. These small communities must have been so isolated and undisturbed before the train line came. Is my carrier a blessing or a curse to these hillside villages?

And here I am, arriving into Bath now, where the occupied, Georgian, buildings are so beautiful and the derelict, graffiti covered, constructions are so ugly. Better pick up my belongings and quickly brush out my fringe, for the train is starting to slow down.

I now stand on the platform, gracefully dumped, and watch as the large diesel engine bellows smoke into the pure blue sky before powering on towards Bristol. He has fulfilled his promise today, for I have arrived at my destination on time. As far as our commuter-train relationship is concerned I can ask no more of him than that. Beauty and delicacy was never in our original agreement. So off I now head towards the ticket barrier, accompanied with the conviction of a girl that has done this a hundred times before.

My friend will be here soon and with the arrival of an old alliance my mind will fill with altogether different thoughts. Jobs, boys, ambitions, after two years apart there is much to discuss. The shops will sparkle with Christmas goods every so often to distract us, but conversation will undoubtedly pull us back to the heated debate over the rising price of merlot. The train will turn from hero to villain, pulling us both apart when our laughter hits its highest decibel.

Will I tell my friend about this commute? Of course not. Because, after all, what’s so special about the 12:37 train from Swindon to Bath Spa?

 

Written as part of the National Blog Posting Month (Nablopomo) challenge to write a post for everyday throughout the month of November. This post was written for day 13.

Nablopomo Day 10: The John Lewis Christmas Advert 2016 – Who’s Cleaning up the Animal Poop?

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Christmas, Humor, Humour , , ,

In the UK, the John Lewis Christmas ad is kinda a big deal. In recent years it’s created a tadition of being the most finically invested, beautifully created and, therefore, most anticipated television advert of the year. It’s not acceptable to eat a mince pie until the John Lewis Christmas advert has broadcast on television sets.

Based on that, I present to you the John Lewis Christmas advert 2016 – #BusterTheBoxer.

You’re going to need to watch this for context to the below:

 

Now I’ve/you’ve seen the full advert, here are a few thoughts. My very British thoughts.

  • #BusterTheBoxer is not an acceptable title for a beautiful and/or Christmas advert. You guys spent £1 million on production and you couldn’t produce a better title than a hashtag? You guys charged per word or somthing?
  • That dog isn’t cute.
  • Whatever happened to nodding dogs?
  • That girl is going to destroy her bed.
  • I’m sorry, what decent parenting allows their kid to get away with that much bouncing?
  • Anyone who has ever been a kid/parent (i.e. everyone) knows that expecting a child to sleep on Christmas eve and not react to clattering in the garden is expecting way too much.
  • Goodbye to your chances of getting Alan Titchmarsh to redesign your garden. That thing is a beast and is going to kill off your grass to buggery.
  • Also – good luck mowing around that mate.
  • Ok, I’m going to have to suspend reality for a bit here I can see.
  • That is cute.
  • Oh no, don’t invite the hedgehog on, with his spikes that is a minor injury waiting to happen. I hope the dad kept the receipt, spike damage on a trampoline is going to be pret-ty noticable.
  • Mate, I wouldn’t be too down about it, with that many animals on there you wouldn’t reach optinmum bounce anyway.
  • Never snows on Christmas.
  • That trampoline is far too clean. You’re expecting me to believe that the animals of Farthing wood all came down and had a massive garden party on that thing and there’s no foot prints, scratches or poop on that thing? That thing should be reaking of ferral animal right now. Unless we skipped the scene where Peter Rabbish and Jemima Puddle-Duck came down and cleaned it up?
  • Real unattractive dog gets upstarted by CGI unattaractive dog.
  • Ok, I guess it is kida cute though.
  • Why do all the humans look so confused/stoned? Given their reaction shouldn’t the overall message be “Christmas is for sharing, idiots”?
  • Well that was nice, I actually needed that. Oh wait, Trump is still going to be president, better get back to screaming into a pillow and ditching Christmas presents for stocking up on tinned goods!

Gotta love the John Lewis Christmas advert.

Nablopomo Day 9: Speechless (US Presidential Elections 2016 – Results)

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) America, politics , ,

I saw this in the magazine aisle today and it made me very sad. Sad and concerned.

rtr.png

It’s official, the American people have voted in Donald J. Trump to be their next president and, by default, one of the leaders of the free world. Donald Trump. Trump.

I’m sorry, I am really trying here, but I fail to see why anyone would/did vote for this man. There’s nothing about him that makes him suitable for the position. Neither his CV nor his personality lends itself to the role in anyway. The only thing (and it’s such a slim thing) is that my colleague suggested that given Trump and our own Nigel Farage are so chummy, maybe we’ll get a trade deal with America, but that’s such a pie in the sky thing.

I guess now it’s my turn to question and generalise all American voters in the same why Europeans did to us when as a nation we voted for Brexit. It doesn’t feel as good or smug as I thought it would. In a world where Russia grows stronger, terrorists get more media attention than they deserve and Toblerone decide to radically cut down the chocolate content of bars I don’t know what to think or believe anymore.

Jesus Christ America, what have you done?

Nablopomo Day 8: The Lesser of Two Evils (US General Election 2016)

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) America, Humor, Humour, politics , ,

Given the countless number of blog posts, news articles, Facebook posts and general trollers out there, I’m going to keep this as short and sweet as possible. When it comes to my views on the Democratic nominee Hilary Clinton and the Republican contender Donald Trump, my opinion on the US general election 2016 is the same as my opinions on the 2012 general election. In fact they’re also the same as those felt for the 2008 general election, the 2004 general election and, had I not been so obsessed with Pokémon and rolling in mud, it probably would have been the same in 2000. My thoughts can be summed up in one statement is this:

Please America, just pick the normal one. The lesser of two evils.

It’s not too hard to do. Look, the other candidate has even been discovered as a massive homophobic/communist/sexist/racist/idiot. See! They’ve even admitted to it! (Wait, why are these people cheering?)

What I think I struggle with most about this election is that in a country of 324,707,000 people the two people put forward to rule country and, arguably, the world are not liked by anyone in said country. It genuinely makes no sense. Big shocker – the normal one everyone usually falls back on isn’t actually quite the saint everyone desperately wanted to be. Suddenly everyone would rather former President Hoover was resurrected and brought back to stand office – and he was the man that caused the Great Depression of 1929-1945.

Now, I know in the UK we’re not quite up there in size with America but I’m going to say one thing – British Empire. Ok, so that in mind, I’d say we can draw fair comparisons between our two political spectrums. How come when our former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was caught on tape in 2010 describing a voter as a ‘bigoted woman’, it literally spelt the end of his political carrier, yet Donald Trump has woman after woman claiming indecent assault and he is somehow able to shrug it off? If you told me our two countries were inhabited by creatures as different as fish and unicorns I’d understand, but on the surface the only things separating us (and I’m going to overly generalise here) are our differing accents and Wendy’s. So why are we in this position? Why am I going to bed thinking the same thing on a four year rotation? And why is it getting progressively worse each time? If the slightly better candidate gets in this time, are we only delaying the inevitable car crash when, in four years’ time, I’ll switch on my TV to see the political debate being fought over by Big Bird and Barney the Dinosaur?

I know it’s too late for this election. The nominees were decided months ago and your votes have well and truly been cast. The decision has been made. However, whatever the result tonight/tomorrow, America I ask of you only this:

For the love of God, don’t screw our planet up.

 

Nablopomo Day 6: Holidays Are Coming

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Christmas, Humour , , ,

The lights have ended and the bangs have fizzled away. The embers have faded and the ash is sodden. November 5 is over.

With the completion of bonfire night we herald in the preparations for the next event, something which, like it or not, is bigger than all the corporate western festivals (Valentines, Easter, Mother’s, Father’s day, Halloween…) all of them put together. To name this religious festival is to ring in all the spectrum of human emotion, reaction and opinion. To interpret it is to incite heated debate.

If you still do not know of the season I am referring to, let me enlighten you with the assistance of a video which traditionally marks the beginning of the festive season. A jingle which sees people dust off their themed jumpers and superstores follow suit with television adverts months in the making. The famous advert has taken many forms over the years, but the message remains the same. The message is simply this:

“The Holidays Are Coming”

Nablopomo Day 5: Fireworks Night

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) fireworks, Humour , ,

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, alias bonfire/firework night.

Now, I’m not really sure how if this is a ‘thing’ across the world. If it is I’m fairly certain the history behind it is unknown to most people (it’s unknown to a worrying amount of people in this country). Luckily my favourite show ever, Horrible Histories, is on hand to give a brief summary to the plot:

See kids, History is cool!

In recent years Halloween has started to somewhat overtake bonfire night in terms of public status. I mean Halloween has spooky creatures, sweets and sugar skulls whereas bonfire night is all about rained off events, dodgy Chinese fireworks and safety videos that give you nightmares.

That scream.

This year though I’ve made a conscious effort to remember bonfire night which is why I’m heading to a display tonight. It also gives me the excuse to dance about to Katy Perry’s song Firework as I prepare my outfit choice (consisting of many, many layers of jumpers). In truth, firework displays usually give me terrible headache and neck crane injuries that last for days afterwards. They normally always end in an anti-climax, where you never really know when the display has actually finished on account of the massive gaps left between each set of fireworks being set off. And don’t get me started on the whole “check your bonfires for hedgehogs” warnings, I still get worked up if I see people making bonfires days beforehand.

What I do like about bonfire night though is what follows after. After bonfire night we are on the home stretch for Christmas, and that is festival I can get behind.

That in mind, bring on the fireworks!

 

Nablopomo Day 4: On Going from Blogger to Newspaper Reporter

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Humour, newspaper , ,

As well as the 9-5 jobbing, blogging, managing social grouping, gyming, and the occasional bit of baking, I’ve recently been appointed as the events and features reporter at The Swindonian online newspaper. Eek, exciting stuff! It marks the start of a new platform and readership base (it also goes to show I must be doing an alright job thus far).

Feedback so far has been very positive and I’ve already been do a couple of event write ups. After that I’m keen to get my teeth stuck into the next article. Who knew, I actually don’t need to rely on photos to do a solid bit of writing.

In celebration of my first article (and also on the eve of Saturday) here is the link to discover how to have a cultured morning in Swindon. Enjoy.

http://www.theswindonian.co.uk/25316/246593/a/how-to-have-a-cultured-morning-in-swindon