ANGER

Trains. Today is not a good day to travel in the north of England. I am writing this on a Cross Country service to York currently between Durham and Darlington. Set to arrive home a whole 2 hours late. First there was the 95 minute delay on the train, waiting in the freezing cold Newcastle train station on a rainy Saturday morning, then once getting on the train, and battling for seats, it turns out the driver who was set to take over in Newcastle was on an also delayed service which lead to another 20 minute stationary wait in the station. Then news of the snow in Leeds which is set to delay the latter leg of journey home even more, never mind having to wait in York station for a connection, I dread to think for how long now, are just more blows, not to mention the dire overcrowding and deployment of a low number of carriages.

The reason for all this messing about and waiting, leading to every train from Newcastle to be either cancelled or massively delayed on a busy Saturday? Signalling problems. Really? It’s 2011 and a bit of trouble with some wiring can cause so much bother? Something needs to be put in place for when this happens, because it does happen regularly, surely there is a better system that can implemented, trains are rarely on time in the best of situations anyway.

And don’t get me started on the conductors. The depressing, easy job of walking up and down a train, checking tickets and occasionally having the pressure to open a door can give someone such a superiority complex, don’t get me wrong, there are some lovely friendly conductors who can actually do their job without making themselves look stupid, but that would not make for an interesting blog would it. Yesterday me and two friends were going to Newcastle, on the 18.35 train from Leeds, Greg, ACCIDENTLY booked on the 18.27 train, same destination, same journey length, and for the sake of getting a train 8 minutes later the conductor forced him to pay for another ticket, at the cost £28.50... How can that be justified?

You would think that we would have a better train system in this country by now, I mean there has been a major rail network in the UK for 161 years, and it still leaves a lot to be desired. Do yourself a favour... don’t bother with trains.

A rant that I feel needs to be said...

Right... So it's late at night, I've been out, came home and logged on Facebook to see a group entitled 'Soldiers should make as much as football players', don't get me wrong, I do think a soldiers work should be rewarded more than a sports player, but really? How many soldiers are there compared to British football players? Exactly.  It would hurt us, and we know it.

The average football player salary in the 09/10 season was £676.000 per year. Wayne Rooney, Mancheste United and England international star is paid £230.000 every week to play football. So roughly £11 million  per year. Crazy. 

So take an average for example... An average famous footballer in the British Premier League earns £647.000 a year. In april 2010 there was a recorded number of 113,970 British soldiers, so if they earned an average wage for a footballer if not more, like many people would wish, that would come to a minimum of  £77,043,720,000.... Our government, especially in these times of economic uncertainty where it is looking increasingly likely we will enter into a double dip recession based on recent figures and the surprising negative last quarter of negative economic growth in 2010, can not afford to make unruly out goings on wages for all these army workers.

The armed forces sign up to serve their country, not for a pay cheque. It is also important to note that the government do not pay for footballers wages. Owners of the clubs, multi-billionaires, pay wages, they decide how much, so it is no reflection on our government or our society how much footballers get paid in comparison to soldiers, It is not possible for soldiers to get paid that much, unless people want increases in taxes, which, if this happened, will absolutely cause more trouble than is necessary. 

Inflation, costs and ranting

Not wanting to sound like an increasingly old man, but bloody hell why has everything become so expensive?! It's just come from nowhere, and I know, rise in VAT blah blah but 2.5% here and there is nothing compared to the increases.

For example, train tickets, every year they go up more and more, I don't know how they can justify it. My local train station in leeds (Garforth Station) to Leeds City Centre in 2008 it cost £1.80 for a return ticket, rising to £2.40 in 2009, £2.70 in 2010 and now a whole £3 in 2011, all for a 10 minute train journey. Crazy. Then Leeds to Derby, after the new year when coming back to University the price is now £9 more per journey, making going home look a lot less appealing. I know the price of oil has risen and the average level of inflation takes places, but £9 extra PER customer PER journey? No thanks.


Now I looked at inflation charts to see what could be taken from them, all that happened is a headache, too confusing, the only thing of note is that inflation is up .6% from december 2010, and if we don't wish to go into hyper inflation the Bank of England will need to raise the interest rates from the historically low 0.5% which have been in place since May last year.


 In conclusion, I dont know why everything is a rip off, but it is, the facts and figures are too much for me to stomach though. Rant over.

Capping the Ticket Touts.

"Ticket tout" is a British term for a scalper, someone who engages in ticket resale for more than the face value of the ticket

Anyone who has been to music gig, show, concert whatever you like to call it, will know of Ticket Touts. Always Standing outside the venue selling sold out tickets for rip off prices to take advantage of the fans of whatever band is playing who have no choice other than to pay massively over face value.

In recent years with the move towards all ticket sales being online there has been a huge increase in these Touts buying as many tickets as possible for popular events, such as the Glastonbury or Reading/Leeds Festivals, and selling the tickets on Ebay later that day for hugely marked up prices. A prime example of this just last week was the ticket situation for the Rise Against London show in March. This show is a one off album launch show and the bands only date until the end of the year so it was bound to be popular, but coupled with the fact it is being held in a 1200 people capacity venue the tickets were greatly in demand. The tickets sold out within 10 minutes and within the hour on Ebay they were going for £65, triple the face price. Fans are missing out these people are making easy unearned money.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10137075 - Average Profit from touting tickets is 59%, this is outrageous. So, what are the government doing to combat this? Little to nothing. The only action taken is telling them to 

"clean up their act" because they exploit fans. I'm aware that it is a hard thing to stop, but steps should be taken to ensure only a reasonable amount of tickets can be bought at anyone time, possibly having to prove ID when attending the event to limit resale.

In conclusion, If there is good reason to sell tickets then so be it, but marking the price up ridiculously is not fair to fans or the artists, and I feel should be stopped.