h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So, here's a quick run-down of my yesterday, in all its glory!

10:10 Leave my house to catch the train; on my way out, my house-mate enquires what I'm doing up so early; I explain that I'm catching the train to London, and why...
10:14 The London train arrives at Earley station.
10:16 I arrive at Earley station. I hate it when the trains are on time!
10:43 Just before the next train arrives, my housemate appears at the entrance to the station, opposite me, and waves. She then does a double take, and is incredibly surprised to find I haven't left already.
10:44 The train arrives; my housemate is going to Clapham Junction, so we chat for 90% of the journey.

12:05 Arrive at London Waterloo. I was supposed to be meeting Lifson Kofie at midday-ish, but she managed to catch an earlier train than me, so said she'd get tubes to Waterloo. Her train turns out to be late, so she gets there shortly *after* me.
We wander off round London, seeking lunch etc. - however, Lifson seems to think we need to leave lots of time to get to Somerset House, so we don't get very far, and she's not keen to slow down and look around.
13:40 We arrive at Somerset House, with no problems finding it, 20 mins early.

14:00 We get our tickets, h2g2 pens and mingle with various degrees of complete stranger, comparing towels, name-badges, and other such essential accessories...
We head off with the pub contingent. Once there, we play snap, quizzes, and chat some more.
I begin to get into random -y conversations with people whose names I don't know, and whose nicknames I'm guaranteed to forget.

18:00ish We move off to the evening venue. Much argument abounds as to where it actually is, but reassured by who I realise is IanG, I arrive safely. More mingling, murmurs of food.
"We've really over-ordered on the food" an italic has been heard to say, earlier in the day. A brief queue of researchers later, the food is all gone.
Spend the rest of the evening having random, meandering, and probably fairly pointless - but nonetheless interesting and enjoyable - conversations with more random people, whose names I wish I had a way of remembering (if you were one of them, please tell me!)

23:10 Leave to head for Waterloo, as the last train back is 23:37
23:15 Decide it'll be just as easy to walk to Waterloo as get a tube.
23:20 Realise I'm not actually sure where I am any more. Begin to panic.
23:25 Get to the Embankment. Realise you can't get onto Waterloo bridge from Embankment, you have to go along further...
23:28 Manage to get across the road to the steps and run up and across the footbridge.
23:31 Realise I'm not quite sure where Waterloo station is.
23:33 Run into the station with minutes to spare. See a departures summary: 23:35 Reading: Platform 18
23:34 Run up platform 18, glance to see if this is the right train - notice it saying something about "front four coaches". Hope I've read it the right way round, and sprint towards the front of the train.
23:35 The train pulls out. It's absolutely packed; I feel like I'm about to collapse, but have to support myself on a metal post.
The announcements are completely inaudible because it's a hopeless old train; I hope that a) this is one of the front 4 coaches, and b) the front 4 coaches are the ones going to Reading...

The train splits at Staines; I'm now pretty sure I'm in the right bit, and everyone gets off at Egham, so I collapse on the nearest seat.
As we pull into Sunningdale, the couple next to me ask whether I know when we'll get to Chertsey. That was the other half of the train. They get off at Ascot - I hope they found a way back OK, 'cos that was the last train...
The person sitting opposite me, having helped explain things to the lost couple, starts chatting to me. He's at college, apparently, and we discuss what he intends to do next, what I'm currently doing, and the like.
He gets off at Bracknell, but not before asking for 20p to phone his dad for a lift, and introducing himself as Ben.

1:10 I arrive back at my student house, and am amused to see from which lights are on that abolutely all my housemates are still up. As I open the door, I manage to surprise my housemate for the second time that day, by not having stayed over in London.

Feeling like my head's melting, I make my slowly towards bed.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable day - I think...

"everyone gets off at Egham "

That'll be the royal holloway lot on their way home from london too

Of course the year I spent there the trains were all dodgy and took over an hour and a half to get between egham and waterloo

Ah! random, meandering, and probably fairly pointless - but nonetheless interesting and enjoyable - conversations with more random people! Its all coming back to me

I was one of the guys you were talking to just before you left the second pub, remember? You wrote on my map!

I got on my train with 2 min to go. This is cutting it rather fine, as it's the last one, and if I missed it, I would be standed, with no money to buy a new ticket.

I prefer with stuff like that to have at least a 5 min margin for error, and when relying on tube changes, I like to have 10 to 15. If the tube trains hd been 7 mins (like when trying to get to Waterloo) instead of the 3 or 4 that they were - I'd have mised it, and been in bigger trouble than you can imagine.

The reason that you're always late to things, like your original train, is that you leave no margin for error. If you get there early - you have a little wait, if you get there late, it inconviniences others, and yourself.

I'm not being nasty, or trying to tell you off or anything - just pointing out why.

I love to to bits - late or not.

LK