First Great Western Major Service Alterations

OK so FGW have decided they need to revamp Reading train station. Their record in 2010 has been pretty good up until the start of November, yet since then pretty much 1 out of 2 trains I've treid to catch has been late. I'm not suprised, this is how it used to be all the time so the first 11 months of 2010 were blatantly a purple patch the company has now got over.

So to supplement the lateness they're causing by poor mangement and bad planning they have decided to pretty much double the size of Reading Station over Christmas this year closing it completely between 27th December to 3rd January.

Reading Station and railway line will be closing from the 27 December to 3 January to begin a programme of multi-million pound improvement works.

While this will be of benefit to customers in the long term, it does unfortunately mean that there will be periods where we are unable to run services on the Reading line. This means anyone planning on travelling over the Christmas period to, from or through the Reading area will be affected and should try to plan their journey in advance.

We are doing everything we can to get you to your destination. We are running trains via diversionary routes and when this is not possible replacing trains with a bus replacement service.

Either a masterstroke of genius, or the blind fumblings of foolishness - no, actually anyone can see it's not a masterstroke... Yet again decisions made at the highest level in FGW are completely out of touch from what is best for the majority of passengers, as per normal... Clueless, ignorant and on merciless quest to absolve all responsibility of being awful at their jobs - that's the management at Railtrack and FGW for ya, If only they were accountable for the public funds they needlessly waste.

Tesco - Best Before Date Scam.

Ok so i generally shop at Iceland or Tesco Metro (down Newbury high street), which i am aware aren't the best supermarkets, however they are the only two places I can easily walk to without resorting to using the local bus service. I'm aware that stock in Tesco Metro costs more than identical products in the megastore 2 miles up the hill, and I'm also aware that some cheaper products are not stocked in Tesco Metro, so customers will be forced to buy a more expensive alternative (value bin bags for instance...). Now that's a little bit of a piss-take seeing as they have pretty much taken over the entire UK shopping industry and make a million pounds profit every 37 seconds, but I can live with that. Something I cannot live with is the fact that Tesco produce is covered in barefaced lies. I can give you an example: On Sunday I emerged bleary eyed from my bedchamber, fragile and hungover - and upon finding my fridge empty undertook a shopping excursion, I decided Tesco Metro was the spot as I had a whopping £1.50 clubcard voucher and was determined to use it before it expired, unlike normal.
So I trot off there and buy a bunch of stuff including a pack of 6 standard tomatoes, the 'Display Until' date on the packet read 24th August 2010 and the 'Best Before' date said 28th August 2010, I used my fingers to calculate that as it was Sunday 22nd August I had at least 6 days in which to eat my 6 tomatoes, which worked out perfectly, one tomato a day keep the doctor away and all that...
So this morning I was rather pissed off to notice the biggest tomato in the packet was not only soft and leaking juice but the underside was fucking mouldy, and today's only the 25th!! Upon checking the remaining fruits I found they are all soft and over-ripe and will be very suprised if my remaining 3 tomatoes will last until Sunday without going bad too... Cheers Tesco, You Fucking Lied To Me!
Now one or two tomato's I don't really give a shit about, but this happens time and time again with allsorts of stuff: Ripen at home Peaches and Plums take ages to ripen then you have a window of maybe 12 hours to eat all the fruit before it goes bad, Tesco brand wafer thin ham never lasts the distance, and the bread!! Don't get me started on the fucking bread, I end up throwing out mouldy slices every single week - partly because they don't stock any loaves with a best before date more than 2-3 days in advance, (thanks you fuckers) and partly cos it always bloody goes off, airtight container or not.
So there it is, I fucking hate Tesco, because for all the money they earn / scam / cheat people out of, they still cannot work out when a tomato will go bad and put the relevent instructions on the packet. Fucking Chumps

Can I borrow 80p mate?

What the hell is happening to Newbury town centre? It seems that every single day I'm asked to lend crackheads, junkie's and the fucking DREGS of society 80p. He can't even busk for change.. WTF? These people have obviously seen the modus operandi of those other high street inhabiting scumsuckers: the charity mugger - which Newbury is a renowned hotspot for - and decided to emulate with their own twist (i.e. look like a toothless crackhead and ask for 80p instead of looking like a student and asking for £4 a month; to care for disabled kittens or some shit...).
Anyway so I'm wandering down the high street to the shop to purchase myself some nice food, and as i'm walking past the Snooty Fox a young man, reasonably tall with dirty clothes approached me looking a bit apprehensive with the classic line 'can I borrow 80p for the phone, mate?'. I replied with a curt 'No' and strolled onwards whilst the dude went straight to a well to do older couple behind me and asked the same question. I was out of earshot and do not know whether he was succesful in his quest for 80p. I have a feeling tht it was is shift in town and he had probably asked every single person he ad seen walking about and probably earned several 80p's from kindlier members of the public than I.
I have several problems with this practice which I'll try and describe for you. Firstly - Why does this dude need 80p to use a phone? I'm pretty sure there aren't even any coin operated pay phones left in town - so right from the off this stranger has just wandered up and fucking lied to my face. Unaccetable.
Secondly - why 80p? Has he got a specific conversation he plans to have on this phone call, and knows that he's gonna need exactly 80 pence of credit in order to complete it? No - he's clearly a fuckin idiot, even if he had to make a phone call (which I'm certain he doesn't) he would have no idea about how much it costed, we are talking about the sort of person who simply cannot and will not learn.
Thirdly - do I not have a right to walk to the shops unmolested by scumbags? Why should I work everyday and pay income tax, council tax, vat, national insurance only to be hassled for the remaining change in my pocket by these cretins? You could earn 80p in ten minutes of your hourly minimum wage (£4.85 innit?) if you got a job... But therein we have the problem, for the last 12 years the welfare system in this country has been generating a culture of people with no assets of their own, who somehow believe that everyone else is happy to pay out whilst they take, take, take. What a world we live in.

First Great Western Customer Service Farce

Just going to start a little log of all the times FGW fail massively in their task of selling people train tickets so they can commute to work on time.

This morning I arrived at Newbury station at 9:14 am the train leaves at 9:22am. Despite queuing at a ticket machine for 5mins plus, I could not buy a ticket because it only accepted cards. The other ticket machine was pulled out of the ground by a car (which was apparantly my fault when I asked the retarded station mis-manager about it) and the 3rd ticket machine was frozen trying to print out some pre-booked tickets for a poor lady... The ticket window had a queue of about 7 people.
Upon finding I was unable buy a ticket, wallet is at home... I went to get on the train and saw the stupid fat station manager on the platform and voiced my concerns over the ability the customer had to buy a ticket, only to be rudely rebuffed and threatened with a penalty charge for travelling without a ticket. What an asshole. So rather than call him an asshole and getting on the train, I pointed out that i knew my rights, I had tried to buy a ticket, I had queued for 5 minutes plus, I had full intention of paying for my travel but his piss poor organization was incapable of servicing that request...
Then by the time I go to get on the fucking train like 30 seconds later it pulled away right in front of me, without me on it!! I was pressing the open door button as it started up and rolled off.. Fucking Bullshit.

So I rocked back into the ticket office once again to make it clear to the station manager that I held him personally responsible for me missing my train and again tried to purchase a ticket. He accused me of giving him abuse and was reluctant to sell me a ticket. I pointed out that I hadn't even begun to abuse him, all i had been talking about was how poorly I had witnessed the management of staff and services at the station that morning. (I should point out that as soon as the train pulled away they opened a 2nd ticket window and quickly issued tickets to all the customers that had been queueing and missed the train.) He then said that if I wished to travel I should stop being sarcastic.
I threw my hands in the air, 'I can't travel if I'm being sarcastic?' I asked in the most patronising way I could, aqnd he sold me a ticket.
What a fucking joke.
Lost for words at how fucking shit that system is. And they don't give two fucks, which is the most annoying thing, your problems whether valid or not do not even register as a concern for these wankers.

At no point was I offered an apology or even a slightly reasonable explanation, it was all my fault: should have got to the office sooner, shouldn't have had out ticket machine stolen, the ticket macine outside and down the road works fine why didn't you use that, oh if you weren't rowing with me then you'd have been on the trian....


So well done Newbury station and First Great Western who manage you, you are undoubtedly the worst public service I ahve ever had the misfortune of having to use. Uber Fail

Please note, FGW,  that I will now be going out of my way to complain about fcking everything and make your lives a relentless misery