Prussia still exists, in Birmingham!?

It's 1736 in the Prussian city of Königsberg, now the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, and Leonhard Euler, probably the greatest mathematician of the 2nd Millennium, is on a jog or something and decides to try to cross every one of the seven bridges over the river Pregel once and only once to prove his worth as a nerd. He failed. And subsequently he went home and drew up a snazzy mathematical proof as an excuse.

Oberwölz: A Wayfarer's Guide

I mounted the shoulder of the ridge and pulled up, raising my visor to get a good look at the valley before me. The river ran down the middle of the basin that lay before me, carving it’s path around and back to the sea that I had started at so many weeks ago. The walled town of Oberwoelz sat upon the river, some three leagues from my current position; just as my map read. I saddled back up and completed the final leg to my next country of destination.

Great World Wide Rail Almanac IV: Stratford

Haha gotcha, I’m not doing either of the Birmingham stations after all; because it turns out there are actually 3 stations in Birmingham centre. And I’d be amiss not to make it a three-parter. I’ll have to wait until I’m next in Brum to pick up some photos, although I hope it isn’t too far out; Birmingham has a safe zone of only 1 mile radius about Vicky Square before you get to the no-go zone.

Instead, I’ll be doing another Warwickshire classic, Stratford station. Stratford station is located in Stratford. Not the one in London, the one upon the Avon you fuck. Whenever people make that mistake I actually want to stab them to death with a sharpened Elizabethan quill.

“When beggars die, there are no comets seen.”

Thanks Shakey, always a big help. You’re always there for me.

“Friendship is constant in all things. Save in the office and affairs of love.”

Well I guess I’m going all “Et tu, Brute” on your ass coz I freaking LOVE Stratford. Stratford is my country. I guess it’s also yours but that’s besides the point. I wish I could tell you how Stratford is the Dark Souls of middle England mediaeval towns, but this is the great world wide rail almanac and I have a duty to almanac the great railways world-wide. And so, unfortunately, I should limit this to just the station. Here’s a photo:

I actually really like what they’ve done to the station facade recently. They’ve opened up a huge area out the front and redone all the paving, giving it this snazzy old-new look; almost like its a museum exhibition, when in reality its just fucking old and needs replacing. Clever. Thinking about it, isn’t that just what this entire country is? We try to keep everything clean and spanking, but maybe what we truly need is a complete restructure of the system. Interesting, I’ll put “overthrow the government” on my stack of things to do.

You see the black gate that looks like the entrance? It’s not. As far as I can tell its purely ornamental. Although “ornate” is a weird way to phrase it, it being covered in graffiti and all. Here’s a close-up:

Okay. I’ll admit that it does look like a weak attempt at inner city nu-age artsy graffiti. Cut some slack guys, most people in Stratford actually have real jobs to attend to. If you think that these photos are lower quality than usual that’s because they are, it wasn’t me took them. I outsourced this job to my secretary. And apparently the camera on my secretary’s phone is like 200% shittier quality than mine, and mine isn’t even fancy. To break up this section here’s a photo of the actual platform:

I’m glad I already said these photos aren’t mine, I wouldn’t be seen dead taking a vertical photograph; that’s what I get for outsourcing my work. I need a new secretary. Or maybe I should just stop being lazy.

Here’s a story I just remembered that happened at Stratford station. It was around 5 years ago and I was hanging out around Stratford on a Wednesday afternoon skipping PE, like all good kids do. One thing led to another, and eventually we were setting of a homemade firework on the wall outside the station. Why? Because it’d be funny. It was. Very. It broke a little bit of the wall off and it stayed like that for a good few years before they did the refurbishments a year or so back. Good times. One day I’ll tell some more stories about our extra curricula chemistry research, but assured to say they weren’t all crackers, some of them were pipe bombs.

Stratford is a sparsely used station, being the termination point of a line that only runs Stratford-New Street. It’s just a nice, quiet (usually) station that’s fun for all the family. I saw a steam train there once too; wholesome stuff. What d’you say Billy?

“Good.”

Thanks Billy.

PS - There's a new index page for the GWWRA, along with a never-before-seen Forward chapter!

Great World Wide Rail Almanac III: Nottingham

Hey look at the time, it's tomorrow already. Time for Nottingham! What's that? It's been a month? Well check your privilege nerd, some of us don't have the luxury of 24 hours every day. Sheesh. Saying that, it has now been quite a while since I actually went on that journey that included Nottingham station. In fact, I've already been on a different train adventure since then, but since I live here now, it's not surprising Nottingham came up again. Here's a photo of the platform. Platform 3a to be precise:

But who cares. It's not a remarkable platform. None of them were. I checked. Since I mentioned it earlier, now is a good a time as ever to spill the beans on the story of the first trip that will serve as inspiration for the first entries into this here almighty almanac. I was back to Nottingham university from my home near Dorridge, thus Dorridge was my first station. It wasn't a single journey oh no. First I took the Chiltern Line from Dorridge to Birmingham Moor Street, walked over to Grand Central New Street (popping into both Costa and Waterstones on the way) and then got the wrong train, kind of. You see New street station's platforms are split into A and B each, and evidently I got the wrong one, because I ended up on a train that did in fact go to Nottingham, but via Derby. So I ended up stuck in Derby station for an hour and a half. That's when I thought to myself; “you know what, this is a shite station isn't it. Dorridge is much better. I bet nobody could come to that conclusion by themselves; as the administrator of a successful and influential internet text blog, I have a duty to tell the lowly plebeians about the quality of these two stations. In fact, why not all the train stations. Yes I must take up this mantle. I must fulfil my duty as the direct ancestor of Mr T. Station, inventor of the train station. My destiny awaits me.”

And so I made this, the comprehensive great grand almanac of train stations by me, [name redacted]. Hope you like it. Remember to fucking like, comment and suicide. Donate to my Patreon at http://bit.ly/2ARsMxE. Kill me baby. Kill your baby. Kill god and steal his throne. Die in a hole, hole in one, one for all, all for me. Thank you.

Nottingham stations pretty decent actually. It has a fucky mix of old and new, with the framework of the old station still standing, but this time they actually gave it a roof. Like wtf, did it just not have one before. Here, look at this photo of the main lobby:

Did Victorians just like to be rained on then? And they were meant to be good at inventing stuff. Here's a different pleasing photo I took:

I call it, symmetrical ATMs on both sides of the clock tower entrance. There are symmetrical ATMs on both sides of the entrance under the clock tower. This way two individuals can withdraw cash simultaneously. But yet, there is not even a single person doing that. What does it mean? Very deep. A commentary on society's gradual disengagement and awakening to the true nature of the world in which they live? A satirical mocking of modern corporations' seemingly constant unashamed advertising, patronising its customers to no end? Or maybe they were both out-of-order? Who knows. I know. They weren't. The photo probably would've been better if those people weren't standing in shot. What was I going to do though? Ask them to move out the way? That's ridiculous. I'm British.

One cool aspect about Nottingham station is that it's directly connected into the city tram line. As in you can climb some stairs onto a ramp way that goes over the top of the rails, and straight to the tram stop. It's actually pretty cool. Now I'm a bumpkin so this is about as close as I've ever felt to being a city boy. Trams? What is this, freaking Coruscant? If God had intended us to take trams everywhere he would've given us built in oyster cards instead of legs. Ooah I'm pleased with that gag. Yes, very good. Here's a shot from on top of the tram ramp, looking across the entire station complex:

Well at the time I thought that this was a really good photo, I was well chuffed; but now I'm looking at it again, it just isn't. It's blurry, there's no real focus, there are weird light reflections all over the place. Hmm not my finest work. I'll blame the shitty camera lens. It would've been perfect if I'd had my proper snapper. I would try to explain what's in this photo but honestly I'm not sure. I've never been to the area the other side of the station, but I assume that pointy tower is some kind of church? And the chimney is presumably connected to some industrial thingy. Your guess is as good as mine.

I rate Nottingham good. Robin hood would be pleased. Except he didn't really live here, he lived a good 25 miles North in Sherwood, but antidigressionally I can say he'd really like it here. Yeah, you should come here. Nottingham as a city is really nice too. Although don't hype yourself up too much for the castle, think soggy-bottomed fried bread rather than a full English breakfast. Also it's just called fried bread, not French toast goddamnit. Screw the Frenchies, 1415 for life.

Here's a poll that you're not allowed to vote on, should I do Birmingham Moor Street or Birmingham New Street next? I don't care what you think. Democracy's for yellow bellies and cuckolds. Maybe I'll do a double station spectacular! Maybe this time it won't take me a whole month! Find out next time in: The Grandiose Expeditionary Stori of Iklone the Wise in a Cautionary Tale: Great Railways and Where to Find Them, the Almanac!

Great World Wide Rail Almanac II: Derby

Hello and welcome back to the magnum almanac of my superior locomotive travel in and around the affordable range surrounding my house. Last time I spoilt the surprise and told you that today's station would be Derby. I wasn't lying. Here's Derby:

Being a capital city, you'd expect something pretty grand out of the station right? Well that's either the opposite of true, or they were hiding it real good. Ok, cutting to the chase; this was the most boring station I think I've ever had the fortune to depreciate. The concrete block of a floor really goes well with the monotonous steel girders holding up the roofing. Does science really explain the perfect parallel here between the people and the aesthetic of a town? Such pathetic fallacy surely proves a divine creation. Truly my visit to platform 1b of Derby station was a religious experience, if not an apostolic phenomena of life-changing proportions.

Really what you see is what you get. The photo says it all. No cycling. Broken vending machine. No smoking. No proper bike rack. Boring rail-side benches. Boring rail-side folk. Train. Rail tracks. Transportation. Connection. Communication. Community. Friendship. Marriage. Love. Life. Death. Heaven. Heaven. Heaven. Maybe this is heaven? It kinda looks like that place where Harry meets Dumbledore in the the Deathly Hallows part II. That was heaven I think? Wait that was obviously meant to be King's Cross, duh. I should go there instead, oh wait... Derby is bad. My feet hurt. I want to go home. How do I get home? Wait it's a train station! Perfect. Maybe Derby isn't so bad. Oh wait no there's guards freaking everywhere. What are they even guarding? Who knows and who frankly cares. Recommended to all those who wish to change here for somewhere that isn't here. Or for those wishing to find God betwixt the sepulchral tower blocks of Derby's streets. Next time I promise I'll go somewhere more coherent, and try to write something less characterless.

I say all this as if I know the first thing about Derby. To tell you the truth this was just a change over on the way back to Nottingham. I had all of an hour to wait and I wasn't going to pay the (probably) enormous toll needed to get a day pass into the city. But I'm sure its bad, don't worry.

PS- This was a short one. Expect my Nottingham station entry to be soon. Probably tomorrow. Not today though, I can't even bring myself to edit this one it's so awful. Oh well, it's not like that'd help much anyway. I need more Whiskey.

Great World Wide Rail Almanac I: Dorridge

Hi there. Welcome to the first entry into this, my august almanac of train stations. Time flies by when you're the driver of a train, eh? All aboard the fucking express please thank you; first stop is the closest stop to my house, Dorridge station  of County Warwick. It's pretty cool I guess, not really getting the point of the almanac though, it's meant to be about travelling to exotic climes on Romantic voyages of discovery and fun, but oh well, I gotta get the basics out the way and its a nice place to start with you know? Anyway here's a photo:

Pretty pretty yeah? Also hopefully the photographs will be a running gag in this novel since photography is cool, and proves I've been there too. Ooh look at that willow behind the bridge. Very nice yes.

Dorridge station consists of three platforms: 1, 2 and 3. Its got a ticket office, free toilets and even a bike rack. The ticket office is well known in the area for never being open, even though the ticket master is clearly sitting there behind the curtain. If you ask him to give you a ticket his typical response will be: “Sorry sir we're closed. Please use the ticket machine located on platform 1.”

At which point you sigh a sigh of relief that you can escape this awkward situation and move on; thank god for technology am I right? The ultimate saviour of the anti-socialite. But alas. The machine's fucking out of order. It literally always is. I'm not sure they are even trying to fix it. And so you gotta troop back to the station master and tell him what he so obviously already knows. Or not. You could just get on the damn train. They never check the tickets out here in the sticks anyway. Unless you're off to Moor Street; then just fuck you I guess. Basically the ticket machine doesn't work and who cares.

Hey look at that fucker in the photo behind the lamp post. He makes me laugh every time I look at him, He's either an under-age nonce on his way to his grandma's or a the village clown out for a jog. I don't know why, he's just funny. Also I just noticed there's a grit box there on the left. Why? There isn't another grit box for a dozen miles in any direction. Why on earth does the station need one? Talk about state oversight. Also tut tut, looks like there outta Metros. Sad!

Okay I'm back, I really needed a smoke and a hobnob.

The architecture is very nice. Real classic 19X0's stuff there. If I remember right the bridge was restored a couple years back and they never bothered to remove the scaffolding. If you look closely you can see it poking out over the hand rail. But seriously platform 2 has a really nice array of plant pots along the central divide. I'm upset I didn't get a good photo of them. My grandmother actually waters them as part of her duties in the village council. It's one of their responsibilities along with administering the mob judicial system and organising any current raiding operations on neighbouring parishes. Oh look another photo:

This one's taken from astride the bridge looking South towards where I was standing before. This one's got my signature shitty focus since I was too awkward to stand there and adjust the lens because an important looking man in a suit was coming up the stairs hurriedly and I'd hate to be seen to be a loitering youth. Hey look its the bike rack. Don't you see? Its obviously that collection of 12 blurred pixels in the centre of the image, wait that might be the car park. Also it kinda looks like it was raining from this photo. It wasn't.

Now under the administration of the Arch-Earl of Warwick and situated in the centre of the great forest of Arden (deceased), Dorridge station has a rich and long history of stationing many a train. I would even name it one of the seven wonders of the Dorridge-Knowle county parish; for the sole reason that I can't for the life of me understand how it managed to stay open through the great rail purge; divine protection or maybe consorted oversight? I'd recommend to all those who wish to leave or depart from Dorridge. See you next time for another super exciting entry into the almanac: this time the Gare Saint-Lazare of Paris. Wait no I meant Derby.

I Can't Believe my Bass Guitarist is a Slime Monster!?

Forward: When I said that I can't write fiction unplanned I wasn't lying. This train-wreck was the result of a "random idea generator" returning: "A slime monster has trouble with the local band." Enjoy? It's not proofread at all so is possibly definitely incoherent at points.

In Can't Believe my Bass Guitarist is a Slime Monster!?

Kelsie checked the store shelf once again. She was looking for something very specific and it didn't look like they had it in stock. She glanced over at the store manager to try and get his attention. No luck, he still seemed to be intensely interested with the floor and was ignoring her presence completely. Kelsie sighed internally. People ignoring her like this was almost an everyday occurrence; she knew they didn't mean any harm personally, but it still injured her self-esteem every time it happened. Such was the life of a slime monster in modern society, shunned as an outsider.

She turned back to the shelf of guitar picks that she'd been perusing before. Being a slime monster she required custom picks due to the biological differences between her and humans. But alas, it didn't seem like she was in any luck. They had picks for mermen and centaurs sure, but absolutely zilch for slime monsters. Oh well, she'd just have to deal with what she already had for now. She quickly checked her internal slime watch, a common slime monster trait, and realised that she'd spent much longer in this shop than planned. With a curt “thank you” to the store owner, who responded with a grunt more akin to a goblin than a human, she left the music store and headed left down the hill towards the house of her best friend Katie, and where she was scheduled for band practice in just under 10 minutes.

“I'll never make it in time,” she muttered under her breath as she made way briskly down the pavement. Suddenly an idea came to her. Checking up and down the road for passers-by she skipped over to the drain cover across the street. With one last glance over her shoulder, and with a gelatinous sloshing sound, she disappeared through the grating down into the drain; now she was in business. When constructing their towns and cities, the humans had unwittingly placed in super-highways perfectly suited for slime monster transport. As she whisked down the sewage pipe she smiled at the small triumph her human superiors had accidentally handed her. Down in the drains was Kelsie's safe space. Away from the constant heckling in the streets above and into an environment only her body could handle.

Taking a sharp left Kelsie zipped along, unimpeded by the various unspeakably disgusting objects littering the pipeway. She didn't mind though, this is how a slime monster like her should be living; with the grime of a subterranean abode. Next she took a right, then another left, and finally a 90 degree pivot upwards. She had reached her destination. With a satisfying glooping noise she appeared from the tap in Katie's bathroom. She took just a few seconds to reassemble herself properly and proceeded to slowly push open the bathroom door. Creeping down the hallway all was quiet, which meant band practice hadn't started yet, success! Just as she was reaching for the garage door it swung open, and the face of Katie appeared, paint adorning her cheeks.

“Kelsie!” she exclaimed, “you took the sewer route again didn't you? I told you not to do that, you know what the police'd do if they caught you... Oh well. Your bass's over by the amplifier so go get set up.”

Kelsie nodded and, entered the suburban house's garage. The other two band members were setting up too. June was tuning her guitar against the back wall, her white feathered wings folded up neatly against her back. Danielle the spider girl was there too, spinning her 4 guitar sticks at the end of her arachnid arms. She smiled at Kelsie as she entered, the black paint on her face cracking slightly.

“Ayy it's Kelsie, hurry and kit up I wanna start playing.”

“Aye aye.” responded Kelsie, the excitement already building in her, “just let me tune my bass.”

“No time!”, yelled Katie from behind her, having already returned from the errand she'd been running, “we gotta start playing now, I've already set the timer!”

Five seconds was all it took for June to play the first chord, and five seconds was all Kelsie needed to throw the strap over her shoulder and ready her pick. And they were off. From the first ear-shattering chord played, Kelsie could tell they'd be going full force on this one. The noise emanating from her amp alone was enough to set car alarms off for miles around. She strummed hard. Real hard. The vibrations from the noise travelled all the way up her body, causing a rippling sensation up her invertebrate body. She was vaguely aware that Katie had started singing at some point, although singing was a generous description of the sound emanating from the teenager's mouth. More like a power drill than a human voice, her screams pierced over the low earthquake of Kelsie's bass. It didn't really matter what chords she played. It never did. As long as she didn't stop for a breath the cacophony could continue.

This was harder than they'd ever played before, much harder; a new record for the Black Eternal Suicide Death Brigade. Then the fire show started. Katie had linked up her kitchen's gas stove up to a pipe transporting the highly flammable gas into garden sprinklers set up in the garage. They were set to go off when Katie pushed a foot pedal and go off they did. Fire filled the room searing the hair off Kelsie's comrades with the immense heat. Far from deterring the foursome it merely made them more powerful, the noise level now rivalling a rocket launch, causing visible vibrations in the walls of the surrounding house. Not that the girls noticed, they had passed beyond mere mortal consciousness. This was their life now. The creation of greater and greater discord and to finally, finally deconstruct the cruel unfair world they had been born into. Pull down the society that surrounded them, treated them as outcasts, as lesser citizens. Destroy that which their enemies had worked so hard to create. This was their destiny. And collectively they could achieve the pure and total annihilation of all civilisation. Order to anarchy. Form to chaos. Kelsie suddenly became aware that she could no longer hear. Her eardrums had long since burst and her only sensation was a loud ringing noise along with the vibrating force of a Richter scale 9 earthquake of pure noise around her. Her vision was starting to fade also, but she didn't care. None of them did. They were only doing what had to be done. They weren't going to survive this. They had never expected to. This was their final stand and BY GOD they were going to achieve MAXIMUM ENERGY. Kelsie strummed harder than she had ever strummed before, her jelly fingers being ground down into the strings. Even the ringing had stopped now. The loudest silence ever recorded. The fire had piped down to a simmer, like a cobra ready to pounce. It was time. Katie turned to the members of the band and gave a shrewd, bloody smile. Kelsie nodded. With a stamp on the ignition pedal the entire garage was engulfed in a blast of plasmarised air. The heat instantly evaporated the performers, no the heroes. Although the heroes were gone, they had won. The legacy of that day turned out to be louder than even the event itself. Echoing across the globe, starting the fire that had been coming for so many years. The end of life as you all know it; the age of monsters had begun.