Travel Sick

Just over a couple of weeks back, the day in fact that the first signs of creeping death started to manifest themselves, Work Buddy had to take the Eurostar to Paris for an audio project. With an early departure, and his train line into London shut down over the weekend for “essential maintenance”, he stopped over to get the overground from here.

From here it would take him half an hour to get down to Blackfriars on the mainline, then he could either walk across the bridge and along the South Bank to Waterloo or jump in a cab. With the amount of luggage he had – most of which was recording equipment – the latter option would make more sense.

It’s an easy trip. Unless of course he had to travel on the day of the London Marathon where the whole north side of the Thames is part of the route. Oh, unlucky!

Yesterday morning he had to be at Gatwick for a flight to Toronto, which meant another stop over. During which time we tried to work out which was the best train for him to take that would avoid the rush hour crush. It didn’t help that he needed to change at Kings Cross, staying on the same platform at least for the through train to Brighton that stopped at the airport.

At the station here the platform was filled with glum middle management types in cheap suits and faces like thunder. We let the first train go through. For a while the platform was virtually deserted until the next train through was due. Suddenly the next wave of commuters arrived, knowing exactly where to stand for the compartment doors. None of them had apparently had their Ready Brek.

Work Buddy shoved his way on, then had a hell of a time trying to get aboard the connecting train. Stopping here the night before is convenient, but somehow it always leads to a troubled journey.

Over take-out pizza we discussed me getting around to writing the short film script and whether it was worth trying to bash the whole thing out against the clock. The general consensus was that it would be utter pointless. Get it done, obviously, but get it done right.

With the amount of thought that has already been put into it, which has radically altered the story and structure since the idea was first floated, we’re well over this “five hour limit”. As David Anaxagoras mentions on his Man Bytes Hollywood blog, simply spewing out a vomit draft can be more trouble than it’s worth.

Whoopee, you get to put words down on the page! But if they’re ill-considered and simply wrong, what’s the point? Such a pointless, worthless draft probably takes more time to correct than one that takes longer to write in the first instance but has been properly thought out. Anyway, I promised to get it done while he was away.