THE JOURNAL OF ELLIOT CRIPPLESBY
Having had an early start, I am currently on the six forty-seven stopping train from Edinburgh to London, where I am meeting Mr. Vermies to discuss the case further.
Now trains are all well and good; I could have taken a plane, but this way I have limited my so-called carbon footprint and they do help to keep cars off the roads, so I am all for them in principle. The thing is though, the rail system we have here in England is like an old farmer who has laboured for many, many years in the sleeting rain, howling wind, and driving snow.
It has been baked by long, hot summers and subjected to wild, wet winters. Now is the time when it should be metaphorically tucked up by a crackling fire, the work having been taken over by a horde of doting grandchildren. Instead though, it is still out there toiling away as if it were still young and sprightly. Which it most definitely, definitely is not.
In a word, it is knackered. If it is possible for an entire transport system to have developed arthritis, then this one has. Privatisation has done nothing to improve things and the whole system creaks and groans in constant complaint. It is slow, dirty, and its movements are laboured. I suspect that even Stephenson’s Rocket could easily over-take the train I am in right now, such is its inability to pick up speed.
And the people who use these fatigue-ridden carriages - do they bring rubbish specifically in with them in order to spread it around in as wide an area as possible? Perhaps the station is closer than the dump for some people, I don’t know. I boarded this train at the point of departure. That is to say the journey began there. It had not been to or come from anywhere else, yet it was already dirty. Do they never clean them? Or is there some sort of pixie that comes out at night, casting litter hither and thither with a filthy wave of her magic wand?
Still, I made my choice so here I am; it cannot be helped. The reason for my unhappy travelling is that it would appear the elusive Mr. Humphries has left these fair isles we love to call home, and bade a hasty retreat, to Africa of all places.
Mr Vermies has put it to me that I have some decisions to make. Should I drop the whole thing and try to stay focused on Scotland? Or do I carry on paying the mysterious ‘Shamanic Detective’? I am unsure of his methods, but he certainly seems to have tracked him down somehow or other. Is it worth the expense in packing him off to big game country? He insists that it is.
But then he would do, wouldn’t he?
I for one was looking forward to spending a glorious summer ‘over the border’, perhaps finding out how the sporran got its name and many other interesting historical truths, which would help me to understand my Celtic cousins and therefore – hopefully - lessen the need for me to spend almost every waking hour thinking about the place.
Surely if I was that committed in catching up with the mad professor I would have to go myself to the sunny continent with G Vermies Esq., denying myself the summer just described and replacing it with one of dust, disease and insects.
Having said that though, if I did go to Africa I would be guaranteed the sun, roving purposefully across the plains of the Masai Mara, spotting elephants and dodging poachers’ bullets. If I wanted a good tan in Aberdeen this summer, I would be better advised to go to Malcolm MacGin’s Sun Parlour as opposed to relying on dear old Mother Nature. Unfortunately it is an indisputable fact that, laying wistful romanticism aside for a while, the influence of nature’s sun between the months of June and September up here is not so much that of a Mother as an obscure Great Aunt living alone and undisturbed in St. Ives.
It is something I shall have to think long and hard about on my way down to London. Thankfully, due to the nature of my chosen method of transport, ‘long’ will not be a problem. You see? There is always a silver lining if you look for it.
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