Thursday 4 February 2010


After some more post processing work this morning I headed into London for the Arc exhibition at Earls Court. This is an exhibition for commercial lighting manufacturers and as I already work for quite a few of these guys photographing their finished installations and products I figured I'd have a nose around and try to find some new clients. The exhibition was pretty small but I met some interesting people and I'm pretty sure I'll get some new work from the contacts I made. I also met up with some old colleagues and clients so it was a trip worth making.

The gits that run the trains to London from Leighton Buzzard have changed the fares since 1st of Jan and now if you buy a cheap day return and leave after 9.30am you can't travel back on any peak time train from London (between 4.30pm and 6.30pm). When the lady at the ticket office told me this I nearly took the chance (I knew I'd be on a peak rate train coming back) and normally I'd think bugger it and buy the cheap ticket - today luckily I didn't. Also at Leighton Buzzard there's never ever anyone checking tickets when you get back in the afternoon......except for today!. When I got off the train it was like a scene from Colditz - there were several security guards on each platform stopping people from hopping over the fence and at least 15 ticket inspectors (no exaggeration), one bloke with an ID badge and clipboard and one policeman stopping everyone. They were fining people who had travelled on off peak cheap day return tickets. Talk about a great way to alienate your customers. And why is a policeman paid by us the taxpayer to protect our public property on duty helping a private company to hassle rail passengers?. What a bloody farce!.

Next time I get on a train and some pisshead with an iPod turned up to 500 and a load of hooligans get on and cause mayhem (ever travelled home from Euston on the last train on a Friday?) I can safely bet these uniformed heroes won't be anywhere in sight!.

Anyway I'm just glad I bought the right ticket.

I've calmed down enough now to attached a picture from my shoot last week at Manchester Hospital.






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