Mike Jennings.co.uk

It's a couple of days late, but oh well. Too busy being festive to blog, I guess.

I finished work on Friday and anticipated going straight to work at Dad's shop to help with the turkey rush; luckily, I wasn't needed on Saturday until the afternoon, when I went in to clean up.

Sunday and Monday, though, we all worked, all day. It was very odd, really - too quiet compared to the Christmases we've known before, for several reasons. It was a Sunday, of course, so even though every customer picking up a turkey (or goose, beef, chicken, whatever) had been told that we were open on Sunday, none of them showed up. It was an extraordinarily quiet day, especially considering that last year, December 23rd had been hugely busy when compared to Christmas Eve.

We anticipated a hugely busy Christmas Eve as everyone rushed to collect their turkeys - but it never really happened. We assumed that because, for once, we had a full staff - and said staff weren't having to forever stop dealing with customers to sort out whatever cooked meat they wanted, as we stopped selling it after last Christmas - we were whipping through the customers quicker than ever. So, really, Christmas was just as busy, but we were just more efficient. Which was nice. In fact, in terms of how manageable the workload was and how well it all went, it was one of the best Christmases we've had for years.

Christmas Day dawned early - I woke at 3am and drifted in and out of sleep from then, eventually wandering downstairs to greet Dad at around 6. I guess it's some subconscious excitement from childhood bubbling to the surface. I'm meant to be mature!

Got a lot of lovely presents. Skate on PS3 is immense and, for the first time, there's a serious challenger to the OTT charms of a certain Mr Hawk. I'm currently installing The Orange Box and can't wait to get playing. I got books by all of the Top Gear hosts, which was an odd - if pleasing - coincidence, and Heroes Season 1 on DVD. Transformers, too, which I'm hugely excited about.

11 of us went up to the Golf Club for Christmas Lunch, which was a bit of a change from mum cooking, and it was nice that she could relax on the day rather than worrying about the meal - even if the food wasn't as nice as hers. It was still fantastic, though, and I ate far too much. But it's Christmas, I was allowed. Four types of potato, Yorkshire puddings, stuffing, sausages in bacon, vegetables - no Brussels sprouts, thank god! - and thick gravy sat alongside gorgeous turkey and gammon. Christmas Pudding for desert, too, and a good time was had by all.

Boxing Day was also great - West Ham v Reading on the TV followed by Maidenhead v Hayes & Yeading at York Road, which was fun even though they played terribly and lost 1-0. My grandparents and old Aunt Louie came over in the evening as they hadn't been present on the day - they were eating with my Uncle, his Fiance and her parents - and we had Turkey and Ham Pie. My god - it was epic - and is my second favourite meal of the year aside from Christmas Dinner. This was followed up by some gorgeous pancakes and plenty of laughter.

All in all, it's been a fantastic Christmas. There's a party at my Aunt and Uncle's house on Saturday, too, so the festivities won't stop yet.

But if you'll excuse me, I have a companion cube to get acquainted with.

So, been working in London for nearly a month, and it's fantastic.

I've not been mugged yet, which is a bonus - the amount of people acting shocked and scared about me working 'up town' made me think that I should have just spread my accumulated (however meagre) wealth on the pavement and let people fend for themselves - and I'm discovering that every single road I seem to walk down is marginally famous for something or other.

For example, I work on Cleveland Street. This road - that normally appears to be quite sedate apart from the beacon of excellence that is Dennis Publishing - actually houses the mammoth, looming BT Tower and, at the other end, Radio 1. I only found out today when I mentioned it to Dave and he said, nonchalantly, that it must be the reason he always sees Edith Bowman going in and out.

I also read that, in 1899, London was gripped by a 'Cleveland Street Scandal' revolving around prominent MP's visiting a brothel full of rent boys on the same street - and the fallout from that incident led to Oscar Wilde being locked up in Reading Gaol, which is where I'm from.

Reading, not the jail.

And every street seems to have a story to tell. Goodge Street Tube Station is one of eight in the capital with a Deep Level Air Raid Shelter beneath it, and it's where General Eisenhower broadcast the radio message announcing the Invasion of France on 6th June 1944.

Great Portland Street is the border between Fitrovia and Marylebone, and joins up with Oxford Street - itself a legendary shopping venue that I've already ventured into a few times. It's a bit busy.

And that's just after being there a month and not really exploring all that much. Woo!

So, I'm looking at the Radio 1 playlist at the moment as I'm really quite disturbed by the amount of Indie 'rock' they're playing nowadays.

It all seems to be young bands who sing about how terrible life is in their home city - while retaining their accents, of course - and who have forgotten to turn the distortion up on their amps.

Going down the playlist, I find this roll-call of rubbish:

My god, Radio 1 needs a bit of rock.

Amy Winehouse is also on the playlist, although god knows why. Surely it's a negative move that Radio 1 could be seen indulging and condoning someone who spends most of her life banging on Blake's prison door and stumbling around London in a drunken stupor.

I suppose they could say that they're purely concentrating on the music - if they didn't spend most of their entertainment bulletins harping on about her latest coke-addled night out. And it's not as if they could use the 'concentrating on the music' excuse, anyway, as her records sound like a cat with a sore throat that's been put in a blender with a dodgy car engine and a couple of knives.

I'd planned to go back to Aberystwyth for the weekend - Friday night and Saturday, specifically - because it's Sue's birthday and we decided that the best way to celebrate it was to go out and have a damned good time.

Left work at four - thankfully I was allowed to leave a little early as we'd had the trip planned for a while - to take a train to Birmingham New Street, from Euston, and then I'd travel on from there to Aberystwyth.

Got to Euston and couldn't see 'Aberystwyth' on any of the departure boards. I queued up at the Information Desk - that was heaving with people - and asked one of the attendants. 'It's only going to Shrewsbury', she said. I asked her if she knew why it was only going to Shrewsbury. A grunted 'I don't know' was the answer. I then asked what could people do if they had to get to Aberystwyth. I was given a cursory glance and the same answer again. So much for helpful customer service.

I began to panic and phoned Chris, telling him that I'd been screwed over by the railways. He was still travelling through Wales and said he could come back to Shrewsbury to pick me up - but that would have taken too long, and I wasn't going to potentially ruin someone's night. He advised me to ring Kayleigh, he was still in Shrewsbury and - in typical womanly fashion - having her hair done before setting off for Aber. The Shrewsbury train was scheduled to take 50 minutes and arrive at Shrewsbury at 7:40 - so she'd be happy to wait for me and take me back to the ol' place with her.

The train was, according to the monitors on the platform, going to stop at three other places before reaching Shrewsbury. Got on the train - it was late - and left at 7, with the signs on the train telling me it was stopping at every conceivable place on the route, taking 10 stops to get to Shrewsbury instead of three. I phoned up Kayleigh and, in a show of heroism not seen since Captain Scott told his mean he was just 'going outside for a moment', urged her to go on without me as it wasn't fair to make her wait around. We were assured that a coach would be waiting at Shrewsbury to take us the rest of the way.

Eventually got there - was talking to a mother and two daughters - the youngest daughter was 43 (!) - who were amused by me phoning up many people and ranting about the trains. The coach took twenty minutes to arrive, so I phoned up some more people and ranted a bit more. Got on the coach which was, thankfully, comfortable - leather seats, hell yeah - and was talking to a guy who graduated in Interpol the same time as me, and who'd come from Ramsgate. The delayed train at Birmingham had meant he was 2 hours ahead of his schedule and, annoyingly, was in time-profit. The coach driver had to stop at every train route on the way, which meant quite a convoluted route - and brilliantly, he was using sat-nav. It's not hugely reassuring when a coach driver has been entrusted with the journeys of 50 people and all you can hear is 'take the next exit left' in a disembodied voice every thirty seconds.

After a couple of instances of getting lost in Caersws, we arrived at Machynlleth, where the train service would resume - we found out that it'd be seen stopped due to flooding and landslides on the line. Rolling in at 10:25, the twenty-or-so people left wearily and dejectedly stepped off the coach in the knowledge that they should have been in Aberystwyth at 8:38. The station master announced that the train to Aberystwyth would be leaving at 11:05. Riot ensued. We could see the train, idling beside the platform, through the waiting room windows.

Twenty people instantaneously asked the man why we just couldn't leave now. He replied that it'd been the same for all the trains during the day, that had been delayed because of the same reasons - they'd all had to wait 40 minutes. I lost my cool a little and asked the man that why, if they've all been delayed like this, that it occur ed to no-one to prepare the train to leave 40 minutes earlier to save the unnecessary wait. He said that, allegedly, his hands were tied - but I can't see how, as the only other train on that line would be nearing Birmingham had it been running. Which it wasn't. At this point, a legendary, god-like figure of a train driver strode through the crowd and agreed to take us regardless. Brilliant. In Aber by 11pm.

Met Chris and Dan at the station and was told by the wonderful Sue that since my journey had been so shocking, I was to have use of the bed in her room - she was staying with Pete. Got to the house, plenty of hugs, Sue liked her present - Star Wars Lego (who says us ex-students aren't classy!) - and we hurried out the door to The Castle, our local.

Used to be our local, anyway.

Met the legend that is Feathers in there and had a couple of drinks and a nice chat. Everyone v. impressed with my new job and the magazine - lovely ego boost!

Headed to The Pier for the night - me, Chris, Dan, Kayleigh and Sue - and went inside. Commence much drinking, shot-taking, woman-ogling, laughter, chat and happy, manic, drunken dancing to fantastic, cheesy music. Can't remember precisely how much I drunk, but there was plenty of mixing going on. Had brilliant catch-up conversations with everyone, and me and Sue had a long hug where we told each other how proud we were of each other. We were both drunk, but it had a really profound effect on me. She's an absolute star.

Saw Aberystwyth legends - hip-hop man, Rugby, and some old friends too. Went to Spar afterwards - we had to - and munched down a drunkenly-purchased cheese and onion baguette before heading back, all wobbly and stumbling. Stayed up chatting and drunkenly laughing til about 6, before falling asleep.

Next thing I know, Dan's saying sleepily that it's already 7 o' clock. I've got just enough time to think 'that was the quickest and best night's sleep I've had for absolutely ages' before I realise that we went to bed an hour ago, and my head hurts. I quickly rifled off texts to about sixteen people telling them that I was hung over - an update to my text of three hours ago that assured people that I was, and I quote, 'drunc'. None of us could really get back to sleep, so we bummed around and chatted til about 11.

In retrospect, I think I wasn't sober until about midday.

Went to the snooker hall with Chris and Dan to get some food - almost sick thanks to Dan driving actually quite conservatively - but couldn't face eating anything, even though I should have forced myself to. They played snooker, I sipped at water and read the papers, looking and feeling like some sort of stodgy vegetable. I eventually ate some potato wedges and played some pool, and felt better.

Train out of Aber at 3:27, got home as scheduled a little before 9. I dozed most of the way to Birmingham, with the train seeming to take twice as long as usual and unable to concentrate on PSP or music. Had some food at Birmingham, and something occur ed to me - New Street station is broken. There's a giant corridor full of food shops, and yet no benches or bins. Most people end up sitting on the floor, against the walls, to eat - I just wandered around aimlessly and had to wait to get on the train before I could dispose of my wrapper. Doesn't make any sense.

Got home and went to bed quite soon after. Super tired. Amazing weekend though. Parents and grandparents have asked me if it really was worth it, all that travelling for a night and a morning, and I've told them that it absolutely was. I saw some of my best friends in the world and went out for a brilliant night with them and now, even though I miss them and Aberystwyth more than ever, I'm so, so glad I went.

Love that town.

So, I got the job at PC Pro. I'm now a Staff Writer on the UK's biggest-selling monthly computing magazine.

Which is, obviously, brilliant!

I'm loving the job and the people, and really enjoying it at the moment. I also feel like I'm learning all the time, which is really fun too.

I am commuting, at the moment, from home to the offices in London which can be quite good or quite bad, depending on how you look at it. And my views on it often change depending on the journey or how I'm feeling that day anyway.

Yesterday was by far my worst journey so far - in my extensive and far-reaching commuting experience of, say, five days. My plan is to leave work around 6 and take 2 or three tubes to Paddington Station. My initial tube route didn't get me there in time, but my current one does - and I've helpfully been pointed in the direction of an even faster route that I'll have to look up at some point today or tomorrow, too.

Anyway.

Left work at 6:05 yesterday and was in time to get the 6:33 fast train to Twyford until I got to Baker Street, and the carriage doors didn't open. For several minutes. Then there was announcement that no-one could really hear that, as far as we could make out, involved the British Transport Police. They then showed up, all hi-vis jackets with hundreds of bulging pockets, marching down the platform and evacuating everyone who wanted to get on the train, locking them behind the doors. Eventually it emerged that a suspect - wanted for what, we don't know - was on the train, and half an hour later someone was reprimanded - and off we went.

I now know that tube carriages get awfully hot after a while.

Eventually, at Paddington, I found a train. It wasn't the fast one but only had 1 extra stop, so should have been fine - so I climbed aboard and started to read. 20 minutes later, we hadn't left the station and we were told that the service had been cancelled, without being given a reason. The consequence of this was that 1 full train of people had to try and get onto another train going in the same direction that was also full. When everyone had crammed on, it was literally impossible to move an inch left or right for three or four stations. It quietened down then, thankfully.

Like I said, that was the worst journey, and the rest have been largely without incident. I leave at 8:45 from Twyford and am beginning to recognise the various jaded faces in suits and ties that turn up every morning and sneer at me because I'm in jeans and a hoodie, although the actual travelling isn't too bad. Hopefully, now I've found a quicker tube route, I can even get to work on time when the train is late.

It's not too busy either, so I can sit and read without being bumped about by other people. Getting a seat on the tube is rarer, but the journeys are shorter.

I do find it strangely relaxing though, which is odd, given the amount of horror tales that are spun about getting to work every day. Perhaps it'll get worse with time, who knows.

In the meantime: fantastic job. woo!.