Well I was hoping to live blog my travels this weekend but the train is not one of those nifty wireless equipped ones so I’m stuck making notes for future publication. So this is like the Dark Ages or something! I’m off to a conference this weekend in Dunfermline, a conference that was quite craftily marketed as being in Edinburgh. Well, what’s a big river and a 15 minute train ride between friends, colleagues or drinking buddies?

The Emerging Analytical Professionals Conference, subtitled ‘Crash, Bang, Wallop’, taking place in the Carnegie Conference Centre. I’m giving a talk on Sunday called ’what’s the point’ and I’ve expressed that sentiment so many times this morning so far I could scream. What, indeed, was the point of me asking for my hot chocolate to be put into my own thermal mug if the person making it used two paper cups in the process? I ended up walking out on to the platform, thermal mug in one hand, paper cup with dregs of hot chocolate in the other. And UK train stations rarely have bins (trash cans if we’re being trans-Atlantic). The cup is now festering in my luggage which has been surrounded by the wheely bins…oops…cases belonging to a hen party. What was the point of the people insisting on sitting in their reserved seats in an otherwise unreserved, unoccupied train carriage and evicting people in the process?

I’m also traveling on one of those paranoia inspiring ADVANCE tickets that are one-train-one-seat deals. You must travel on the train and route specified on the reservation. Well, at least it had the benefit of being cheaper than the standard UK rail return. When did train travel in this country get so expensive, and so complicated? A return ticket for my journey would have cost in excess of 80GBP, but paying for each ticket individually as a single saved me almost 20GBP – i.e. just sufficient saving to make the hassle of buying 6 different tickets worthwhile.

Anyway, more about ’What’s the Point’ on Sunday, for now I’m going back to staring blankly out the window.

Update – just gone through Carlisle. Probably 2 hours until I get to my destination (Edinburgh, train change then car ride) and I’m hungry. I can’t face the buffet car (or the prices) but my rucksack really is buried under the hen party’s wheely bins. There was chocolate in my rucksack. I’m hungry. Did I mention that this train doesn’t have wireless?

Update at time of posting – made it!