I have felt so incensed at a cocky arrogant journo who is apparently now making a complaint straight to the top of the train operator I work for.. all for the sake of showing a ticket.

because he got on at a station with staff, he must assume that I do not need to ask for his ticket as he panted (I mean ranted, but he was struggling for breath most of the time) that I should know better. He refused to accept that he could have come from one of the dozen stations around it that are open access, nor the fact that by law I am within my rights to ask for his ticket as it is in fact still property of the railway!

All he would keep saying is that he is a journalist and he will put this in his paper and I will be sacked (again? i am getting good at this) until I started querying about his work and pointing out that as everything is recorded on the train. The subtle hints that refusing to show a ticket is as bad as not holding one he started backtracking that he was in fact a sports journo with no interest in news.. either way, he was nothing but a pain in the arse and I made sure his ticket was checked a third time on his way out.

As I sit here, pondering the meaning of life, warts and all, I can not help thinking what a waste of time the ticket checkers are on the railway around me. I sold a ticket to a man who showed me exactly how he got on the platform.. with a blank ticket.

Now I am a polite man, not abusive and definatly not racist, but when I see a group of checkers at London Waterloo, they are usually 'slummed' by a gate chatting away in foreign languages and letting though all and sundry. Granted, there are a few good ones, and one of our newer recruits actually caught a forged annual season ticket, but they are largely outweighed.

Its not only our foreign friends that do it, one of our white British colleagues based at a Hampshire station wanders away on a regular basis to 'bus spot' at the end of one of the platforms.

Blimey - I forgot I was writing this earlier.. its now about 40 minutes later than when I started. So I am slowly being resigned to the fact that I will never get above the rank of pleb, I keep getting rejection after rejection for promotions, transfers and even demotions!

I got a busy few days off coming up. My goddaughter and her mother are coming down after mother got beaten up by HER dad.. again. Then I am off to London on the second day to get rather drunk with an old university friend. No time to wash my work uniform then, not that I have any, it takes 8 weeks just to get a pair of trousers! I am now sat on sunny Brightno station wondering the world away. People milling around, loved ones saying hello and goodbye, life carrying on. It makes me proud to be a part of it.