The Long Way to London

I spent three days in London last week at the Self Publishing Show Live. I’ve been to every one since the inaugural event in March 2020, a few days before Britain went into its first Covid lockdown.

Last year, I chose the budget option of travelling to London by bus, rather than train. It’s about £100 cheaper but takes six and a half hours instead of two hours and forty-five minutes.

I swore last year I would never get the bus again.

Yet somehow, I found myself last Wednesday boarding the 07.20am National Express to London Victoria.

In Not Tonight, Josephine, I argued that Greyhound buses somehow manage to make long-distance travel across America feel romantic and adventurous, whereas National Express does not. I wrote that there was ‘nothing romantic, adventurous or exciting’ about the National Express, and suggested that if the famous early-90s Wrigley’s chewing gum advert had been filmed on a coach in Wolverhampton, sales would have plummeted.

But was I right?

Why did a Greyhound journey across America feel exciting and full of possibility, while six and a half hours on the National Express somehow felt like an ordeal? Surely the romance of travel was in the eye of the beholder.

Rather than sit and stare at my phone for six and a half hours, I decided to enjoy the experience. I put on my noise-cancelling headphones to try and drown out the rumble of the bus, put on a podcast and looked out of the window.

This was going to be great. I had nobody next to me, a comfortable(ish) seat, and an uninterrupted view of Britain’s road network.

We’d been travelling for nine minutes when I foolishly checked my phone.

There was a message from Kitty.

Will you be available at 10am?

I then remembered that Phoebe Bridgers, one of Kitty’s favourite singer/songwriters, had just announced a UK tour and tickets were going on sale at 10am. Kitty was going to be at school, Rachel was at work, so apparently it all came down to me.

I couldn’t really claim to be busy. But I hoped the temperamental mobile internet might encourage Kitty to pass on the responsibility to someone else. It didn’t work.

I still had two and a half hours until I needed to worry about that.

Those two and a half hours were surprisingly enjoyable and the time flew by. Britain sure does look lovely in the summer.

The bus was only half full and most of us had a double seat to ourselves. The couple behind me had decided to sit on the aisle seats opposite one another, so that they were sitting next to each other but with an empty seat each too.

In Exeter, another 20 people boarded the bus. This changed everything.

Nobody wants some random stranger to come and sit next to them, but you have to be pretty dickish not to move your bag to at least give them the option. I could see that many of us were going to have to double up so tucked my bag by my feet, freeing up the seat for someone to sit down.

Other passengers began tactical coughing or opening packets of stinking sandwiches to try and discourage people from sitting next to them.

The couple behind me stayed resolutely on their aisle seats.

A young couple wandered up the aisle looking for two seats together. The couple behind me now had to choose between sitting together or risk sharing with strangers. They stayed stubbornly where they were.

The young woman of the new couple sat beside me while her boyfriend joined another man several rows away. By refusing to sit together, the couple behind had also prevented this couple from doing so.

I then realised I could offer to swap with the boyfriend so that they could sit together. I was just about to say something (I probably wasn’t, if I’m completely honest), but they must have spotted an empty double further down the bus as they both relocated.

It wasn’t exactly the Wrigley’s advert. But it was fascinating watching strangers navigate the unwritten rules of public transport.

And I still had a double seat to myself. Get in!

At about 9.50am I pulled out my phone, registered my details and joined the presale queue for Phoebe Bridgers tickets. At 10am on the dot, I was assigned a random place in the waiting room. Twenty minutes later, I was let through to the buying area.

It had already sold out.

So I tried another venue.

No tickets there either.

I tried another.

And another.

Still no tickets.

And then the app decided I had made so many attempts to buy tickets that I was clearly a bot and it refused me access to any of the venues.

I had tried and failed. Kitty would be mightily disappointed.

Four hours into the journey, I had a sudden panic.