today has been epic.
as most of you will know my travels take me far and wide; past the weird and the downright wrong. and my friends, today has been no exception.
it all started off at the bus stop, where i discover that green lanes is in the grip of some tyler durden-esque master milliner.

i should've known things were gonna get strange. anyways, i trolled on down to marylebone where i did purchase a cheap
[£15] return to coventry, and hopped straight on a train.
things seemed to be slotting together smoothly... a short while later i found myself in
leamington spa with no connecting train for an hour.
now leamington may not be very interesting, but it does sell food marginally more palatable than the overpriced rubbish the station's own purveyor of salmonella ridden filth had to offer, so i took a stroll into town to hunt for a supermarket.
what i found was this.

the second i set foot in the store i was salivating. not from the selection of food, mind, but from the overpowering scent of base. i've a feeling the proprietors might be related to
chromenewtanyhoo, got me a sandwich and got on the train. and to my delight the ticket inspector was obviously molested when he was a child by a man with a beard - that or the power he wielded had gone to his head.
here's how it went down:
the ticket inspector marches down the carriage fixing our adventurer with a look of disdain, perhaps it was the book he was reading, perhaps it was that he was reading... who knows? the hate came from somewhere deep inside his short little body.
"tickets from leamington spa," he says, barely able to get the words out he's so choked up with rage.
dave hands him his ticket which was stamped by the jolly inspector on the previous train. the scrutiniser of travel passes sees the chance of throwing his weight around and declares in a voice loud enough to let the whole carriage know he's caught a fare evader, "that ticket's not valid on this train"
"no. i think you'll find it is," dave calmly replied sensing a situation happening.
not to be bested, the ticket nazi stated, "virgin trains withdrew that offer"
"then how did i purchase this ticket? it's the just £15 deal. i bought it today it's valid," retorted the hirsute and bedraggled man.
"look, i'm trained to know what is and what is not a valid ticket..." began the inspector
"evidently you're not," cut in dave, "because if you were you wouldn't be having this conversation"
at this point, realising he'd lost, the pompous little man did what all bitter resentful people with a stamp would do: he smeared as much ink as possible over the ticket so as to have our hairy hero smear it over his book unawares and then scuttled off before the humiliation of what was happening hit home.
and thus ended our champion's the run in with authority.
after that, everything was shiny until i returned to wood green...
now, not that i'd wish to lend credence to the bell curve, but the bus i was on was boarded at turnpike lane by a group of 7 or 8 dark skinned youths.
they marched right up to the back of the bus, cigarettes in mouth, caps on and hoods up. talking loudly in their ridiculous street lingo.
all of a sudden, darkness. the bus just stopped. it turns out one of their chums was outside the bus and thought it funny to hit the engine cut out switch.
to follow up, he began to pelt the vehicle with whatever he could find around him. bottles, cans he even tore branches off trees to hurl at the bus.
never a dull moment here. in the ghetto