Are FGW as bad as this?

[102 fan]

From the Daily Mail;

'Long to confront the boss of your lousy train service? One hopping mad commuter did - in 98 hilarious letters
Writer Dominic Utton commutes between Oxford and London on the First Great Western service
After 14 months of delays and overcrowding he finally snapped

The journalist wrote letters of complaint to the managing director of the company every time he was delayed which were posted on his blog

The blog has proved so popular it has been transformed into a book '


'I’d been commuting on First Great Western trains between my home in Oxford and my work in the capital for just over a year, and after 14 months of shoddy service, delays, overcrowded trains and price-rises, I’d had enough'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-mad-commuter-did--98-hilarious-letters.html

Is FGW as bad as he makes out? Is there no alternative to the train?

 

[TheWalrus]

There's the oxford tube?

 

[VP185]

He's a journalist!

 

[102 fan]

Judging by the emails, it doesn't sound a good/funny read!

 

[jnjkerbin]

No doubt, as a journalist, he will have researched the railway and found out about the challenges it faces so that he can, by the end of the book, reaches a balanced and well thought out conclusion considering both the impact on passengers' lives and the various bits of legislation and regulation that, normally for the greater good, occasionally cause delay or inconvenience to "customers", resulting in what I'm sure will be a riveting and well balanced read.






[/sarcasm]

 

[Greenback]

Pretty poor attempts at humour. If that's what the Daily Mail sees as hilarious, then it seems we don't share the same sense of humour.

 

[bronzeonion]

Is there a link to the blog at all?

 

[louis97]

There's the oxford tube?

Thats the brand name of a frequent coach services between Oxford and London

 

[Flamingo]

Oh well, he kept some poor sod in Plymouth (complaints department) busy.

Does he really think that the MD spent time reading and answering his drivel?

He featured on BBC Radio 4 as well, over a year ago, who omitted to mention he was a freelance journo who did work for them.

He seems to be trying to make a career out of this, and obviously must have plenty of time on his hands. When work is drying up, he must rehash this story.

 

[tsr]

Is there a link to the blog at all?

I couldn't see one, but then I didn't have the "article" open for long! It would be a bit embarrassing if so, because I believe Mr Utton stopped commuting with FGW some time ago, and there was a letter (well, email) to FGW to state that.

 

[Searle]

This was featured on one of the BBC's fly on the wall documentaries, I'm certain of it. Slow news day really I suppose

 

[Hartington]

If you really want it here's the blog link http://letterstofgw.blogspot.co.uk/

 

[David Burrows]

From the Daily Mail;


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...g-mad-commuter-did--98-hilarious-letters.html

Is FGW as bad as he makes out? Is there no alternative to the train?

No doubt this person, who presumably thinks he is terribly clever, forgets that his overcrowding problems are caused by a large percentage of the population of Oxford and the surrounding area all wanting to travel to London at the same time every day. How does he think that such illogical behaviour can be solved by a train company without the ability to provide more seats. Travel earlier or later and have a seat but all travel at once and then complain about overcrowding seems a might unreasonable.
Doubtless he also conveniently overlooks the number of times that 'his' train arrives on time and the number of times that it is late for reasons over which First Great Western have no influence, such as fatalities, lineside fires, infrastructure failures etc, plus his fellow travellers who hold doors open to enable others to board late or are taken ill on trains or drunk. He should stop moaning and appreciate that staff are doing their best for him, not all out to delay him.

 

[Flamingo]

If you really want it here's the blog link http://letterstofgw.blogspot.co.uk/

Jeez, he's not exactly Bill Bryson, is he?

 

[bronzeonion]

If you really want it here's the blog link http://letterstofgw.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you

 

[102 fan]

Jeez, he's not exactly Bill Bryson, is he?

I don't think Bill Bryson has anything to worry about! I struggle to to see how a publisher considered it worth printing.

 

[Flamingo]

A book by the anonymous letter-answerer in Plymouth delegated the task of reading and answering that rubbish would be worth reading, I am sure!

 

[Greenback]

Having now read the blog (well, attempted to read his last two letters before giving up) I have to say it's worse than I thought.

I can't see this guy making much of a living at this. What a horrible writing style. It was too painful to read his drivel.

 

[jon0844]

I've often constructed some rather lengthy, often humourous (in my mind) email letters to write to companies - but you always need to give yourself a cooling off period. That's when you leave things before posting/sending - and then come back later to re-read.

Usually you'll find that a lot of what you've written in anger is over the top, rude or not quite as funny as you thought. You then re-write it and the final 'product' is far better for it.

From what I can see from the blog, that didn't happen. It's a brain dump with no editing, and all the worse for it.

One problem with people trying to be too clever is that it helps to know what's really going on. If a company really is incompetent, you can call them out for it. However, if you're writing your sarcastic letter about something and didn't understand why it happened, or how things work, you just look like a total tool to everyone, bar those other tools that just rant without caring for an explanation.

 

[jopsuk]

I was trying to work out why a blog that stopped 18 months ago was in the "news". Clicked through to Mail. Ah. Been turned into a book that he's promoting.

Point that out again- the blog (and book?) ends in March 2012. Therefore not perhaps an accurate reflection of the current state of affairs.

 

[Captain Chaos]

The irony with all this is that it probably took him up to three times as long as the time 'wasted' to write it up and send it off at a minimum! What a total tool! He's not even funny in the slightest. He actually thinks his replies got read fully? By the MD? Yeah, right!

 

[GatwickDepress]

Reads a bit more like a series of love notes written by a serially obsessed stalker to me.

Re: 18.51 FGW service from Paddington to Oxford 19/3/12. Amount of my day wasted: seven minutes.

Seven whole minutes! I've wasted more time in my day trying to find a pen to do the crossword with!

 

[Flamingo]

It's a brain dump with no editing, and all the worse for it.

Good summary

 

[Captain Chaos]

I haven't bothered to look through them all. I'm too scared the terrible humour will become contagious and turn me into a miserable git. Could someone willing and brave enough to sacrifice themselves for me try and find out what his longest waste was and if he really stuck to his 100 words per minute on it? Probably the only interesting thing to get out of his tedious witterings.

 

[Flamingo]

Ah. Been turned into a book that he's promoting.

What a waste of trees!

 

[jon0844]

I've wasted more time in my day trying to find a pen to do the crossword with!

Really? Tell me more. Have you perhaps thought of writing a book about it? Or create a blog at least?

 

[Captain Chaos]

What a waste of trees!

Indeed. The only people I can see buying his book are the regulars on FB

 

[Flamingo]

Really? Tell me more. Have you perhaps thought of writing a book about it? Or create a blog at least?

There must be somebody he could complain to about it - The Gas Board perhaps?

 

[1e10]

Reads a bit more like a series of love notes written by a serially obsessed stalker to me.


Seven whole minutes! I've wasted more time in my day trying to find a pen to do the crossword with!

He does seem terribly picky and fussy. If my train rolls into the station 7 minutes late I am actually quite grateful and appreciate it.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I haven't bothered to look through them all. I'm too scared the terrible humour will become contagious and turn me into a miserable git. Could someone willing and brave enough to sacrifice themselves for me try and find out what his longest waste was and if he really stuck to his 100 words per minute on it? Probably the only interesting thing to get out of his tedious witterings.

I have have skimmed through all of the posts on his blog and have found these two posts which appear to be the longest delays he drivels about.

A 46 minute delay - http://letterstofgw.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/22-september-2011-letter-32.html

There is also this which comes close. (http://letterstofgw.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/4-august-2012-letter-13.html) He got this response offering to refund him £10 for the delay. (http://letterstofgw.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/new-reply-from-mark-and-hes-got.html)

The most pointless is this (http://letterstofgw.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/29-june-2011-letter-2.html) where he complains about a 2 minute delay.

Perhaps now I should send him a letter complaining about the amount of unnecessary reading required to get an understanding of the majority of his such short delays.

 

[tbtc]

My name is Dominic. For two years I commuted between Oxford and London on First Great Western trains. In late June 2011, after 14 months of paying around £450 a month for utterly appalling service, I decided to speak up.

Every time my train was delayed, I wrote to the Managing Director and Director of Communications for FGW trains - and the length of my email reflected the length of that day's delay... the idea being that I would waste the same amount of their time as they had wasted mine.

I kept it up for nine months - during which time I wrote around 100,000 words in 97 letters, reflecting over 24 hours of delays to my commute

I can't be bothered to wade through the whole blog, but 24 hours of delays over nine months ... nine months is around 270 days, maybe he used the service on 200 days (roughly five days a week, allowing for holidays in those nine months)? So, 400 journeys? That's an average delay of 216 seconds (approx three and a half minutes). Since there will have been some times when something like a suicide will have caused a delay of an hour or so, that means that FGW must have been pretty good on the other days. Correct me if my maths is shoddy, of course.

Complete non-story. Since reading the Daily Mail website is bad for my blood pressure, I've not clicked on their link, but in the interests of fair/ balanced journalism I presume that they found space to mention that the 1970s HSTs are being replaced by 800/801s, the Oxford line is being electrified, we're spending best part of a billion pounds remodelling Reading station, the Crossrail work will smooth things for Oxford passengers in the long term, Oxford is getting a regular alternative London service (to Marylebone), there's a lot of money being spent to improve the line... yeah, I'm sure they'll have mentioned these points.

What follows are those letters - and their replies. Nothing is edited

Much should have been.

This is the problem with everyone having access to laptops/ typing on their phone/ never being away from a means of communication - people type a lot of junk that they wouldn't have written if they'd had the chance to calm down before finding a typewriter (or that elusive pen!).

The idea of "editing" seems quite old fashioned nowadays.