Just one in my occasional series of London commuting hell posts – and inspired by Jon Worth’s travelogues!
I work in Westminster, and last night I was going to Greenwich for a concert at the Royal Naval College. I thought, I know, I’ll get the Thames Clipper. I would be keen to use the river to commute regularly, if it wasn’t so expensive, as I live near the river and my office is near Westminster Pier. So it seemed a good opportunity to try it out. I looked up the times on the Thames Clipper website and found one went at 18.10 which fitted perfectly with my timing for the evening. I got to Westminster Pier at about 18.00 to find there was nowhere to buy a ticket. OK, I thought, I’m sure they sell them on the boat. I went down to the pier and couldn’t quite work out which boarding point I was supposed to be at, as there were two for Greenwich and neither mentioned Thames Clippers. I waited till 18.20, but no boat came, though I could see two that looked like the Thames Clippers waiting over at the London Eye pier. There was no-one around to ask, no information about timetables etc and the pier was dark and deserted. So I went and got the tube.
Transport in London is undoubtedly a nightmare, and with us in the South-east been forced to depend on Southeastern and the Jubilee line, we have our fair share of problems. The river offers a solution, but on last night’s experience, I won’t be trying that again. The final irony was that as I arrived at North Greenwich and went to get a bus to Greenwich town centre, one of the giant screens outside the O2 was covered in an advert for…Thames Clippers.