The Doctor Shoes

Readers of this blog will have come across the fact that I’m something of an insane Doctor Who fan. When I acquired a business suit with a scarlet lining, for instance, it became “The Master Suit” because it reminded me of a suit with the same kind of lining worn by actor John Simm when he played arch-villain The Master in a run of three episodes a few years ago.

I did say an insane Doctor Who fan, right?

Today was an UberCommute day. I stayed late in the office, getting an altogether gratifying amount of Stuff done – you should see the List: it’s not so much a tree right now as a stunted, blasted little bush, which pleases me no end.

Anyway, I know from experience that the walk across Hyde Park and on to Paddington Station – to which I was quite looking forward on this otherwise exercise-free day – takes me about fifteen minutes. My train home – the last train home of the day – left London at 7.15. I left the office at 6.34 according to my phone, which my wife insists is five minutes slow, meaning it was actually twenty minutes to seven. No sweat – stroll across the park in fifteen, still enough time to grab a Starbucks and drink it before the train leaves.

“Fuck.”

“No, seriously…fuck!”

The park gates were closed. Mr Navigationally In-Freakin’-Competent here stood looking at the clock on his phone, looking at the locked gates, looking at the long expanse of road to…any damn thing that would take him somewhere useful.

“Fuuuuuck,” I said. “Did I mention that?” I asked the locked gates.

Now…feel free to laugh here, but as the numbers refused to compute, there was a moment as I stood mulling all this over where the thought actually went through my head…

“They’re only small gates…You could probably climb ’em if you really needed to.”

While the rest of my brain collapsed in paroxysms of simultaneous panic and mirth, my legs raised a point of order.

“Seriously, dude, get it together!” they yelled, like a pair of dope fiends on a job interview. “Ahhh, screw it…”

And they took off….

Running. I made Notting Hill by 6.43 on my phone, which for a fat fuck who’s chronically out of shape again, was pretty good going.

6.43…which meant 6.48 by my wife’s “real time”. 27 minutes till the train pulled out of Paddington and left me searching for a cheap-ass hotel room for the night and a train back in the morning…which would force me to miss a meeting with an accountant that I’ve already put off three times. How would I explain this one to her.

“Sorry, can’t make the appointment tomorrow, my train left on time…”

I should pause at this point to explain that it’s A-Week.

What’s A-Week, I hear you vaguely mutter. A-Week is a week (see what I did there? Crap, wasn’t it?) of Atheism Awareness. I’m not sure there’s much more I can do to raise people’s awareness of my atheism. Think I’m pretty much covered on that. I only bring it up at all, because if there was an awesome god in the universe, and I was one of his beloved little creatures, then when I arrived, panting, at Notting Hill – wearing, it should be noted, new tight trousers, a thick new warm sweater, a big heavy thigh-length woollen overcoat, a black suede faux-cowboy hat and my brand spanking new Walking-About Shoes – there would have been a Number 27 bus pulling in to take me to Paddington, which journey the gems at Transport for London, in their infinite optimism, had posted on the bus stop should take no more than seven minutes.

There wasn’t a Number 27 pulling in. Ergo there is probably no god. Quod erat demonstrandum, as the ancient Romans and the modern pretentious-fucks say.

Now I know what you’re thinking. But if there was an awesome god in the universe and he just didn’t like me very much for my blasphemies and sins and generally pointing out the extreme likelihood of his non-existence…then a Number 27 wouldn’t have turned up five minutes later.

And it did. Ergo there is probably no god. Quod erat…wossname.

I got on the bus at 6.48, according to my phone…which meant it was really 6.53. Seven minutes, according to the people at Transport for London.

Did I mention their infinite optimism? OK, did I mention they must have been smoking crack out of the ass of municipal hookers when they posted that up?

I tried to take my mind off the ticking of the universe. 7.53…which meant 7.58…Maybe there was a god after all, and this was his idea of fun. Maybe this was a very low grade smiting. There are famously – if shamefully incorrectly – no atheists in foxholes. And tonight, there was still an atheist on a Number 27 bus…but I will admit, it was close for a minute there.

I pressed the bell for Paddington when it came in sight. 7.03…which was really 7.08. Seven minutes for the bus to pull up, and for me to get back to the station (the bus, in and act which no sane god would have anything to do with, shows you Paddington Station, and then fucks off for a good few hundred yards…just, apparently…because), through the barrier, and along practically the whole length of Platform 5 (tip for you if ever you need to get the Cardiff train from Paddington. It’s probably going to be on Platform 5. Or if not, it’ll be on one of the hidden platforms that not even Harry Potter could find, which aren’t really in Paddington at all, but are halfway to Heathrow…), to sit my ass on the last train out of Dodge.

The bus duly did its thing and showed me the station. Then, as if it had been looking for the ideal spot for an urban picnic, it stopped. Truly, I expected the driver to pull out a hamper and a chequered rug and settle down for a brew and a cucumber sandwich.

7.08…which meant…

We moved. I raised my eyes skyward.

“You’re taking the piss now, you know?” I muttered to any deity that happened to be passing.

Finally, at 7.09 according to my phone, we pulled up at the Paddington stop. It seemed an impossible task, and if I was to stand any chance at all, I knew what it would involve.

My feet hit the pavement, and I ran!

Rand and dodged and ran and nearly went down the wrong side-street, ran and got the side-street right, ran to the departure board.

“BOARDING” it flashed. “Platform 5”.

Who says I don’t know what I’m talking about?!

I got to the gates, and my ticket wouldn’t work, I had to queue to be let through the gates by a surly bloke in a high-vis vest who asked me where I was going. I looked up to answer him, and something caught my eye. The station clock said it was 7.11. I quickly checked my phone.

Ha…

d may have her real time, but it turns out my phone clock’s not wrong. It’s just on Paddington Time. I grinned, deliriously, for a second. Then I snapped out of it, realising I didn’t have a second to waste. I ran, and ran to the end of the platform, looking for carriage B. By the time I got to carriage G, and was nearly out of platform, I realised something sneaky was afoot. They’d reversed the usual order of the carriages, making the rich buggers in First Class do the walking for once. Normally, this would have been entirely delightful. As I’d sprinted past the carriage I needed though, the delight was a little slow to dawn on me. I sighed, and took off in the opposite direction, getting my seat with about three real, Paddington minutes to spare. I used those minutes wisely and well – coughing up a lung and trying not to turn into a beetroot and die.

“Made the train…just,” I panted to d via cellphone. “Y’know these walking-around shoes?”

“Aha,” she said.

“Also good for running,” I panted. “As it turns out…”

“Great,” she said.

“In fact, I think they have to be considered my Doctor Shoes,” I announced.

“They don’t look anything like Doctor shoes,” d commented placidly.

“Not about what they look like,” I gasped. “About what you do with them. Most definitely Doctor Shoes…”

“OK,” said d, not willing to throw any further facts in the path of my illogical convictions.

Sometimes it amazes me that she’s not an atheist herself…

Post-Script: In this whole frivolous blog where I claim to prove the probably non-existence of gods (and yes, before you point it out, I know you can’t prove a probability or it becomes a certainty), one final thought has to be borne in mind.

I can’t remember the last time my Cardiff train arrived in Cardiff on time, allowing me to catch the connection up to Merthyr without waiting around on a platform for an hour or giving up and getting a bus. Tonight though, that’s exactly what happened – I arrived on the Merthyr platform with a whole seven minutes to spare, and got home a few minutes ago, where normally, I’d barely have been on the train a few minutes.

Evidence of an aweome god who loves me? Hmm…I’d prefer to thank the Doctor Shoes. Also, as it turns out, good for bounding up staircases like a fat bald slovenly gazelle…