Further to the Eurostar Public Relations Disaster...

Eurostar St. Pancras International, station management please take notice. This is an issue that is not going away. 
A congenital deficiency in management policy and initiatives needs to be exposed.

Further to my earlier posting , the report continues. Police officer 0502  disappeared into the crowd, on her mission of mercy. She had my home telephone number in Brittany and informed my wife of my circumstance. Luck was with her, we only use a land line. 
The consequence of the managers ill founded action caused a major emergency. We are not affluent people. Our small budget was stretched thin enough, awaiting my small pension payment to my bank. 
My ticket had been taken and cancelled by the Eurostar manager. He had referred to me as a "trouble maker" though little notice of the havoc and chaos he would cause by his own callous, ill concieved  action.
Police officer Docherty 0502, negotiated the refund of my ticket with  Eurostar. They refused to allow me to return on their train no justifiable reason was offered.Even with the refund I would not have the financial resources to return home, nor would my health have stood the stress of the ordeal of travelling by alternative means to my destination,  namely a train journey, and a ferry crossing from a sea port, then another train journey from Calais to Rennes. My exhausted, distraught condition would not have stood the damage.
After negotiation with the ticket staff Officer Docherty managed to broker an agreement for me to return to France via Eurostar, they imposed the condition that my wife must accommodate me.
Our subsistence economy could not sustain such an expense. 
Anne-Sophie had been informed, she was on her way to meet me .
In Paris Anne-Sophie was given use of a strangers mobile phone she informed Police officer Docherty of her pending arrival. 
On the Eurostar train, Anne-Sophie found herself sitting next to the same person who had lent the phone. Coincidence or not, it proved helpful. Police officer Docherty contacted Anne-Sophie on that same phone to inform her of my situation in London. 
Officer 0502's mission was almost completed.  Assuring Anne-Sophie that I was in well enough good spirits, looking forward to her arrival. I would be waiting outside the departure exit when her train arrived. When united we were to return to the ticket office, to renew my ticket and for Anne -Sophie to purchase yet another fare to Paris. Hardly the economy that my hard pressed budget  had planned for . 
My wife's journey was not altogether without incident. Having been called to respond to a domestic emergency, she, unprepared did not have an up to date passport.  I understand it took some hard discussion to allow her to gain entrance to U.K. She was acting on the information and instruction of the British Transport Police, 0502 had done the groundwork.  Police officer Docherty's last contact with me before finishing her day's duty was to inform me of Anne-Sophie's arrival, she brought me another coffee told me the details of the negotiated agreement and wished me Good Luck on my journey. She gave me her email  address  asked me to keep in contact. Her view, concurring with mine , that Eurostar, or rather their management in St. Pancras, had acted badly.
  Anne-Sophie and I got the first available train back to France. Our difficulties weren't over. A night spent outside waiting for a connection to Rennes from Paris Montparnasse. The station was due to open at four a.m. A most uncomfortable condition huddling without shelter, the wind chill factor was -6° C.   Can the management of Eurostar understand how punishing this has been to both my wife and I.  Our small financial reserve stripped to overdraft, that now due to insufficient funds in our bank account our telephone landline has been suspended, the standing order not honoured.  
The Station opened we were grateful for some shelter and the relative comfort of seating in an area with a wooden floor. After the chill outside it looked positively luxurious. The few early arrivals also having endured the cold congregated together. Pleasant conversation, ensued we all had trains to catch. We didn't have much longer to wait. Our small group was then approached by security. Several men in black uniform. One man with a muzzled dog.  One security man told us that we would have to move, when asked why, the man replied, "This place is reserved." Anne-Sophie asked, "For whom?", "For people with tickets...." 
The security man then excused himself stating that our presence had been noticed huddling from the cold throughout the night outside the station, merely waiting to catch the first train home. 
One of our early companions had been scribbling in a notebook, voiced his shock and surprise that I should have been targeted. I produced my ticket, the security men apologised and left us alone.
 The scribbling youth then tore the page from his notebook. Presenting me with a pencil portait of myself, a souvenir of our morning together. I bade him sign it. I'm sure he will do well, a talented personable man, with a useful style. I regret not recording his name. A photo of the drawing can be found below.
 I have since emailed police officer Docherty. She has encouraged me to lodge a formal complaint.  The management of St. Pancras has not acted equitably. Whether Corporate policy or the personal prejudice of the individual manager, the matter needs be transparently accounted for. At no time was I acting or behaving in a manner likely to cause fear nor harm. The bogus third party alleged complaint, an unsubstantiated hearsay.  The manager failed in his duty of care. Acting as he did in accord with his own uninformed partisan bias.
Perhaps the man was acting on his interpretation of my appearance alone.
What did the man think I looked like?... from foot to 
head; Timberland "Earthkeeper" boots, newly refurbised with British commando mountain soles. Dark green work trousers and matching jersey, common practical clothing in my rural area. From a local farm supply in my region.  My good "Marks and Spencers ", wool top coat. A woollen scarf.  My head topped by my "Grouse", a fine Harris Tweed hat by Lock &Co, , Hatters of London.
Two bags containing my music equipment and a fairly new looking rucksack containing only my change of clean cloths.
 My face is bearded. So it has been for most of my life. I regard it as part of my face. My hair is uncut. Matters of detail, none of which  should have  inspired the obstructions that I had to endure.
I will search for the manager's name. He must account for his part. I insist that more than a limp wristed apology is due; both to myself and to my wife. A compensative action is owed.
Management would be well to understand that the Eurostar was made for people like us. Folk living and working with familial and economic interests on both sides of the Channel. Management appear to be the only fault in the overall good design. 
The rest of the story will be recorded as it unfolds. My official complaint has yet to be lodged.
If anyone reading this has a view to comment on this matter. To Eurostar management or here on my Blog . Please feel free to do so. But please make sense and try not to be rude. I'm done for now.
 

Just jamming...

"That's him over there..." 

I. WAZIR

 

 The Eurostar St.Pancras Public Relations Disaster.

 My face, the only one I have...

I thought my troubles were over. I was struggling beyond exhaustion and debility, after attending to a domestic crisis at the London home of a family member. Concurrent to that stressful occasion, I renewed my passport and attempted to register with a doctor, I need a physiotherapist. I will leave the latter task for another time. The family matter took precedent. I am a countryman not accustomed to the toxic atmosphere of the city. My place of permanent residence is Le Breil, Campel 35330.  

I could barely drag my bags around. My back was in collapse. It's hard to keep the sound of one's suffering in sometimes. I tend to sound exactly how I feel. I am English, it's not just a much abused language. 

 Eurostar enables me to access my people on both sides of the water, London to Rennes only six hours. I needed to get home in short order, my lungs had become seriously congested I felt I was being poisoned. Reduced to incapacity for any major activity , I opted to get back to my healthier rural environment. 

My son ordered, booked and paid for the cheapest single ticket available, online.  A week to wait for my journey. Meanwhile I concentrated on decongesting my lungs. Hard to find herbs in London. I remembered "Infinity Foods", from the days of their early beginning in Brighton. White Horehound and Meadowseet.

The French may know them as "Marube blanc" and "Reine des prés". You can find Infinity Foods around Stoke Newington, worthy firm they are. A most miserable grumbling giffer ,hacking up gritty green frogs near passing out from the nightly oxygen starved gas filled London air. The bitter herb did it's magical stuff. As the week passed breathing was becoming easier. Little strength in my body,stamina at an all time low, the day of my departure arrived.

I didn't get much sleep prior to leaving Hackney, for fear of missing my train. I arrived at St. Pancras International at 04.00, in plenty of time. My son did the honours and brought me my ticket.An extremely cold morning. Hardly a soul to be seen, neither workers nor potential passengers. I was the first one there.

Son and I moved to the entrance of the Eurostar control gates, placing myself at what was to be the front of the queue.

The area soon filled up,passengers herded together in a semblance of an orderly line. The staff arrived we were ready to go. I said my goodbyes to my son. The stewardess ushered the  queue to proceed.

The liveried guide approached me directly and raised her hand in front of my face , indicating that I alone should go no further. The rest of the passengers were waved through the ticket barriers.On asking "Why", the reply was,"only people with tickets are allowed to enter the Eurostar train.  My voice was immediately heard in objection to the prejudiced action. Little evidence of any tickets visible in the crowd they as I kept the ticket firmly secure until needed. This was a humiliation insulting by implication, that I had not expected. There was no explanation just an "oops... Sorry" and  I was allowed through. An honest mistake(?), I gave the staff member the benefit of the doubt. proceeding through the control. 

In the waiting area I was still agitated, not a little angry.

I made small talk with a couple of passengers. Trivial stuff. I am naturally gregarious and sociable. not sounding quite as smooth as usual from a week of incessant coughing left my larynx quite raw.  "Take me how you find me, content over style" sez I.   There was nothing in the content of my conversation that appeared to cause concern to anyone. The Grand Solar Minimum, the weather, rising prices and the global food crop failure being the subjects upon which I touched. Matters of public information , there really is a global crisis hardly alluded to through the popular media channels.

One does ones best as ever to share important news.Hardly to be considered an antisocial or an obnoxious act. We were encouraged to be brave enough to talk with strangers in the days of my Grammar school education. I had no notion that I was taking a risk.

There was no indication that anyone within close proximity of my person had taken exception to my behaviour.

Settling into my seat, grateful for the warmth and comfort I witnessed a gentleman working on his laptop computer. The man from the Indian sub continent I believe, was bedevilled by a persistent hacking cough.  Having spent the previous week enduring a similar condition, I was naturally sympathetic.I offered the man a lozenge, a "Fisherman's friend", my contact reminded him that he actually had some of his own, he was smiling, untroubled by my offering.Benign social interaction ended there. A man approached me demanding that I give him my ticket and passport.  There was no rational reason why I would have been singled out, I am a sober man not taken to alcohol as a rule my memory is remarkably clear as regards all matters of detail. It is not my habit either of indulging in crude vulgar or profane language.

I asked the man who claimed to be the manager of the station, what the problem was. He said that someone had complained. Of what I had no idea, nor had I any clue as to whom the anonymous someone may be.Something didn't smell right with the man's attitude. He demanded that I follow him and leave the train , I was reluctant to do so without adequate explanation, I was naturally and not unreasonably irate having  been targeted only a half hour before without any moral or legal cause. I wanted to go home  I thought I was on my way. I admit my voice did not sound pleasant in vocal objection to being treated so unjustly. I was being subjected to an illegitimate action. I repeated my impassioned plea for the man's justification.  Laryngitis doesn't feel nor sound pleasant at the best of times.It was an effort to converse. I was under pressure, the mans face was within a foot of mine, that's 30cm.Too close. My raucus sound he interpreted as shouting. I most certainly was not. It is hard enough to speak clearly with inflamed larynx. The man was decidedly trying to wind me up, "You are shouting, you are shouting..." Speaking clearly as I could as I explained to him in the only voice available to me. He walked out with my ticket and passport I had cooperatively handed to him.   He said he was calling the police. I stood to collect my baggage and was escorted of the train by railway staff. 

This was all too much to bear. On leaving the coach I was met By three transport police. The manager was present. I asked for his name , he quickly flashed his I.D. close to my eyes Too quickly to read even if I had my reading glasses on. I ask again he refused to divulge. When I was insistent that he explain the nature of complaint, he mumbled something about "Sterilisation" someone he claims had overheard me. He could not identify the complainant. I suspect there truly was none. I further suspect that I had been the target of the managers own unnatural prejudice. Two or three yards along the platform I collapsed on the station floor. I didn't need the unconscionable treatment.  Whether corporate policy or the man's own self indulgent powerplay, by default or design. It was wrong.

The manager told me he was cancelling my ticket.  I could only imagine the concern of my wife Anne-Sophie who would be waiting for me in Rennes station with the car, to drive me home to our little chaumiere.  I was completely without funds there was no way I could make contact. Ticketless now, stranded I was desolate.  The police continually hustled me to stand, I insisted that my collapse was not a voluntary action.I would stand when sufficiently recovered. My reserve stamina was at an extremely low ebb. The train left the station . Surrounded as I was by three officers standing too closely to my seated face all refusing to at least stand back or to  at least squat down to my level as the light was behind their heads and I was being blinded. I have photo sensitive eyes. The Police did not relinquish their intimidating pose. "In Control and in Public View" The departing passengers for Paris Nord were no doubt treated for their delight and total security to the well managed circus display of how Eurostar will keep the riff raff out.

The police told me they were merely there to escort me out of the Eurostar complex at the request of the manager. They told me they were not detaining me. I have to admit I was feeling a bit detained. I wasn't speeding headlong to Paris Nord. There was no indication of any charge being brought against me. To this day I can see no rational reason for the managers action against me.

A vague unspecific allegation by an anonymous third party who reported overhearing part of a conversation. Presumably my appearance would be rated by some stereo type criteria,an important factor perhaps in confirming the manager's own personal bias. One wonders just what my deshevelled appearance would mean to the corporation also. What kind of nastiness do they imagine I might get up to. I was absolutely dog tired and would likely have slept all journey long had I been left alone. I have been sorely treated, subjected to summary justice without cause.

My passage was not secure in spite of my ticket qualification and clearance through security and passport checks. The greatest threat to the tranquility of my journey was the manager himself. I do not regard the first obstruction as mere coincidence. The combination of the two incidents imply they were orchestrated and I was deliberately targeted. I want to know why. No rational or reasonable explanation has been offered. Was this an example of Eurostar in house policy or the device of an independent initiative by the manager himself? There must be some adequate record of account. There is need also a need for a compensative action.

 I was to spend the day stranded in that cold place without the means to contact my people nor resources to renew my journey, without money . A dire emergency beyond my immediate wit to resolve. I am not of the disposition to willingly ask strangers for help. These were extenuating circumstances. I trusted to my aid a woman police officer who responded to my signal for assistance from a considerable distance across the busy station. We sat together, I related my problem, I was distraught. 

Police woman 0502 pledged her assistance to do her best to investigate and try to resolve matters. Concerned for my welfare she bought me a coffee and a sandwich, a good excuse at least for me to keep warm in Costa's Café. I was grateful. 

Rested in a little comfort.

The officer bade me be patient she would return. The story doesn't end here.  The police officer's help was invaluable,in someways most mysterious to me, I will finish the tale in a future posting after consultation with the police officer as I do not wish to jeopardise or compromise her standing in her work. Assuredly there will be more.

To be continued;

"Worse is coming,"

The great urban influenza hoax..The sign outside the Hackney community health centre warned of physical symptoms relating to influenza.  Adults working in London caring for their family would naturally take notice. 
Headache,  nausea, dizzyness, weakness , breathing difficulties, shivvering,fever, dairrhea, confusion.  I am paraphrasing the message on the sign admittedly.  An adult experiencing  any or all of these signs of ill health would naturally wish to prevent their children from enduring the same. The artful marketing promotion by a  vaccine manufacturer would encourage the hard pressed clientele to have their children vaccinated. Now check out for yourself the symptoms of Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Include for your imaginative delight further symptoms of permanent brain damage and death.One needs to address the main potential cause of the symptoms.  Air quality.
 There is no escaping the toxic atmosphere of London.  It's a gas trap, an atmospheric sump. The daytime traffic may contribute some of the contaminants , that is well known, as the day cools a suffocating blanket of heavy gases descends on the city. the clever money exits to the suburbs and beyond to where the air is cleaner and the grass is greener. Leaving the low pay grades and their families to stew in the exhaust zone.
Meanwhile the city turns on the gas taps. We crank up the heat in our hermetically sealed homes. Happy in the warmth, perhaps oblivious of our vulnerability to long term health damage. 
The incoming air is not revitalising during the night. A greater proportion of toxic heavy gases ladened with areosol sufficants and particles of fine dust. Nigh on every domestic residence in the city is pumping out the exhaust from their central heating. Sink and sewer gases , formaldehyde flavours the air from the many shop refurbishments using mdf and particle boards. The out pouring from poorly regulated commercial kitchens belch smoke from their burnt offerings into the streetside airways.
So many psychotic reactions to the heavy atmospheric pollution.
A captive wageslave population is driven adrenalised by economic anxieties to endure the risk.
Oxygen is the food of consciousness; not until we breath oxygenated air with our lungs do we expand our awareness in the relative environment beyond the womb.  As we grow the more is needed.The greater the physical exertion the more the need for brain and heart to avail themselves of the life giving gas. 
Maybe my take on this subject is all wrong. Vaccines, I understand are administered before an illness has incubated in the host, as a preventative measure. 
Vaccines do not cure nor do they prevent the damage caused by atmospheric  contamination.
Gullible caring working parents may be too dumbed down by the pressure on their own biology to do the headwork in avoidance of the uncomfortable symptoms.  Our brains deprived of oxygen may not, operate efficiently enough to maintain healthy natural recovery. Ones corporeal intelligence is not enhanced by asphyxiation.  
We dream in our urban crush of sweet country air ,holidays perhaps. We be best warned,  the rural atmosphere is no respecter of town and country planning borders.  Seasonal air borne contamination from pesticides, herbicides and fungicides mix in
 the cooling air with the overspray of hydrocarbons ,corrosive solvents, from the surrounding air ports add further to congestion of our life supporting oxygen supply.
Efluenza  is the noxious devil that lurks amid the confusion of health authority signals. It is not a virus that can be cured by medication. One wonders just how much of the N.H.S. funding is dependent on the ambiguous marketing of government approved pharmecuticals. Little evidence that diagnoses may be scientifically objective, in our cash starved public services. Placebo symptom relief, chemically managed stress anxiety. and vaccines for the children, so well meaning,"just in case" you never know.  Teaching hospital faculties, blinded by the profitable prestigious partnerships with Big Pharma do not adequately lobby for elimination of the overriding cause of sickness in the city. Immune systems fail by the background overload of environmental pressure.  Greater opportunity for lucrative funding of care in the community programs. The streets fill up with crazies , prescribed tolerated conditions managed by depot injections. Conform or what? There are worse things than death. All who dip their bread and say nothing are as doomed as the unfortunate minority who try to speak, perhaps too much for common comfort. They having to endure secure ward detention sensibilities reduced by enforced agressive medications until the detainee has modified anomalous behaviour. 
The clean air Act of the late Robert Maxwell's day was for the relief of Britain's smog polluted air. Thousands died every winter. Be warned, worse is coming.  Sickness is a growth industry.
Health has become the secondary consideration to profit. What could be the quantum cure for most of what ails the dominant majority of working people . "Green field pioneering ", sez I "as far as possible from the urban crush".   Abandon the city and the urban life, relearn your basic survival skills "en famille". It'd be tough at first. Wouldn't we help each other?  The long term viability of the health and well being is dependent on the sacrifice of convenience to self indulgent consumerism in the informed adult population. 
Abandon the city.
 I read the sign, I couldn't breath well enough to play my flute, I wasn't going there for that. My spine is sticking out of my back it wont go into neutral, I needed a physiotherapist. Several weeks wait for an appointment , I'll just have to bear it  some more.
The weeks of waiting did for me. I was visiting a Hackney flat close by, swamped by nightly gas attack. The overall melange of atomised sputum exhaust pipe waste gases mixing with the cosmetic odours of body sprays and air freshners. A real canary killer. Sure, I had all of the major symptoms displayed on the information banner outside the clinic, over weeks. Most common ailments last but three days.  It wasn't Flu. I hope someone get's this.  Unplug your minds guys. Get your families to safety. Cultivating a dependency on the N.H.S. to cure all our ill's could prove fatal. And if you are hunched over a keyboard nigh on holding your breath reading this, it may be your last chance to take good advice and "Get some good air".
I am back in the Breton countryside now. I doubt I will return. I have no axe to grind with staff in the clinic. Happy caring bunch no doubt I witnessed cake wielding birthday cheers for some fortunate well loved colleague. I managed to contribute my flutin Happy Birthday greeting.
The air in London is corrosive,Weighing up the risk to my health, I got out. Within a day the green phlegm that had beset my lungs with major congestion was once more clear. I will get my nback fixed sometime in the meanwhile, I am glad to be breathing. I.Wazir










 

Pretty cold out...

I'll leave it in.

Doggerman returns to the fabled realm...

       

    G.S.M. update...

Ali takes guard duty seriously.

Little boxus takes shelter from the chilling wind.

Towards a happy kitchen.

No snow damage

It's just the ticket.

Prep for Big Lump Stew a la Mode...

I.Wazir

Peace at last.

In from the cold.

They have got you to themselves now Toby...

How bad can that be?... Some just stand and stare in bewildered amusement, others try to silently ignore in denial of a witnessed injustice.

First passenger to arrive in plenty of time to embark upon the Eurostar . Proud owner of the new bio metric passport.  Did I really have a choice if I wished to travel at all. If ever I return to U.K. it will likely be as a pedestrian, on foot across a frozen English Channel.  That would save me from further potential persecution , public humiliation and targeted abuse. It was a real trouble to get the ticket home, the point of my journeying was  overshadowed ,my benign personal mission wholly obstructed , sabotaged in effect. One wonders why.

Having stood at the front of the queue for nigh on half an hour before all other potential passengers and many of the morning staff, as you may have witnessed. The line was ushered through the control gates. I was Immediately singled out  by a French steward, that I may not enter. The other people waived ahead of me. ...

The message loud and clear from the obstructing functionary. "Only people with tickets are allowed to travel on the Eurostar train." I was stunned and somewhat hurt. Producing my ticket from my coat. with audible objection caused a small distractive circus of drama. Not to my best liking, I asked the usher how she may have divined that the other people in the line must by her undoubted proffered  rationale all were in possession of a ticket, observing that most kept their tickets and passports securely out of sight, until entering the barriers. My right of passage appeared to have been reinstated, without an explaination as to why I should have been singled out. Waive along with a kurt  "sorry",one wonders how sneaky and dishonest one must look to the corporate all seeing eye that a low grade functionary should appear to  act with such irrational and unnatural prejudice.Whatever is your take on the incident is beyond me to know. Memorably on topic , you mentioned you would be a bit short this week. It would account for the shortfall in your curiosity as to what was happening to your father. Normally your six feet ten inches height would afford a grandstand overview.

Beyond the threshold of the ticket barrier, I was on my own. There is more to the story, front and back of this snippet. I will copy and paste this on my blog as a precursor to expanding the narrative. I wont be returning to U.K. now son. If there is any good we might do together it will have to be accommodated in the Izdom of Iz. You can keep up with this here yarn in further postings on my blog.

Some images from the smiling side of the ordeal. What happened on breaching the dragon's lair ?  Wait and see. See you son. Love, your grumbling giffer, Reinold.