Written yesterday before I came down with food poisoning... today I'm mostly resting and generally trying not to barf. Nice!
I’m writing this on the 93 Amtrak train which I picked up two and hour hours ago at Newark Airport, and which in another three hours or so will safely deposit me in Richmond Virginia. We’ve just gone through one of the few North East cities that I’ve yet to visit, and would still like to see. Baltimore. The sun is setting and the sky has that wonderful Turkish delight pink to it, with the result that even the clouds look like fluffy meringues that you could just eat.
In front of me, on a foldaway shelf/ledge (what should I call it?) that’s slightly too far away from me, sits my trust old, and slightly battered, laptop. When I say that this is slightly old, I do of course mean in ‘laptop years’for it’s only three years old, but that makes it good enough for a museum compared to the machines being used by my fellow travellers. And when I say that it’s slightly battered, I do mean that the screen and cover is dirty, scratched and looking well worn (if it were a face, it would be WH Auden’s) and not that it’s covered in the crispy gold artery thickening substance which fish and chip shops across the UK seem to liberally apply to anything, and everything, that can be eaten. Battered cauliflower cheese anyone?
On account of being positively ancient, my lead plated laptop has no battery life to it. None at all. It crashes the moment the power is cut, which can be very tedious indeed and means that the whole portability concept – fairly central to the laptop philosophy – is null and void. It is however more convenient that carting a normal fully towered PC around with you, but only just.
As a result, I had reconciled myself to a five and hour train journey involving a welcome combination of sleep, reading and staring out the window – not necessarily in that order – until that is, I chanced upon where I am now.
Quite simply, I must have the biggest most fantastic seat on the train. And as a result, quite simply, there must have been some mistake allowing me to sit in it. More to the point, as I’ve only just discovered it - having just discovered that the portion of the train that I was in was terminating at New Carrolton – why isn’t anybody else sitting here? I’ll put it down to luck, and accept the fact that right now I feel like James T Kirk at the helm of the Starship Enterprise.
If my camera battery hadn’t also died, I would have taken a photograph of my luxurious living quarters, lest you not believe me otherwise. The legroom is such that unless I slump in my chair I can’t touch the seat in front of me. The seat, is so wide I could probably sublet it, and has enough padding to make me feel like I’m sitting on Roseanne Barr. Although it is a little quieter and altogether less mouthy.
Best of all, there’s also a power point for my complex power adaptor collection to hook into, which allows me to work and toil away with the written word. Perfect! I say complex power adaptor collection, for it is indeed that. Confusion yesterday abounded when I tried to get a UK to US power adaptor. Sadly, that wasn’t possible, and the man in the shop did not believe me when I told him that in the UK we had three pin plugs, not the two pins that both continental Europe and the US have (although the distance between the pins for each is quite different).
‘Here Bert’ he said calling over his assistant, ‘you’ll never believe this…’ and indeed Bert, (why are they always called Bert,) did not. Finally in a bid to prove my sanity I produced my laptop power capable from my rucksack. The pair of them recoiled in horror, as if the power cable were a venomous snake rather than a simple (or so I thought,) conduit for electricity.
In the end I left with my continental Europe power adaptor and two salesman who were still shaking their heads in a state of perpetual perplexment.
As a result, my power needs are now met by a nice three plus for the price of one combo as my UK 3 pin socket goes into a continental Europe 2 pin, which in turn fits neatly into a US 2 pin. Remarkably it works, but it does look somewhat ridiculous.
Not that that normally stops me from doing anything….
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