Hanging Around

The worst part of travelling, and one which I am all too familiar with is hanging around. I absolutely detest stations - bus and train -and airports. However modern they always offer the minimum amount of comfort for the weary traveller.


Having finished my business and social commitments in record time today I decided to test the flexibility of my travel arrangements by trying to change to an earlier train home. I was by no means suprised to learn that in order to bring forward my journey - on a ticket for which I had paid £36 - would cost another £30. Now I understand to some extent that the government's sale of British Rail resulted in many new private owners, but I am not really so interested that I am prepared to invest an enormous amount of time in researching who owns what. I just wanted to forestall the necessity for hanging around for six hours in Kings Cross station, surely one of the world's least hospitable places.


Luckily for me the world of cyber space is now readily available by the relatively simple expedient of Starbuck's where, for a fiver I am now connected to the internet with its myriad possibilities. For a couple of quid I can have a coffee and insinuate myself into relative comfort and watch the hours disappear as I pursue my obsession with hyper-reality.


I've been fascinated with it since discovering Jean Baudrillard's theory of the simulacrum.

The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is
none. The simulacrum is true.
-Ecclesiastes

http://files.meetup.com/1392983/Baudrillard,%20Jean%20-%20Simulacra%20And%20Simulation.pdf

I recommend anyone who spends 10% of their waking hours, as I am sure that I do, to investigate this particular theory in order to better understand this remarkable phenomenon.

Here's an example of what I understand it to mean. Please click the link to experience hyperreality:-

http://www.tate.org.uk/pharmacy/

If only we could experience travel-related experiences fully in a hyperreal sense. I'd never have to sit in Starbuck's ever again, nor experience the dirt-tinged reality of grubby stations' concourses and the claustrophobia of being crammed into carriages and queues, or the interminable waiting for reality to coincide with one's expectations. And perhaps that is what those of you who choose to follow this are actually doing; vicariously experiencing that which time, opportunity and the distaste for the uncomfortable aspects of travel deter one from experiencing in reality. Small wonder that Playstations and PS3 now hold sway across the planet!

Here's another perspective of my cyberreality.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&rlz=1I7ADFA_en&q=starbucks%20kings%20cross%20google%20map&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

I look forward to the train home and the relative comfort of the home fire that will await at the other end of the Einsteinian teleport of the intercity 125. Bring it on home, wherever that may be.

Postscript.
Inevitably my train was delayed. To pass the time I settled down by a brick pillar with my uke and began learning how to play Life on Mars by Bowie. Happy in my little world I failed to notice the train, which was undergoing repairs, had left, thus occasioning yet more waiting in the station! Music can be very absorbing!