Surviving Liverpool Street Station

In times of old(e), the first port of call for any warlike and savage foreigners would be the provinces of East Anglia and Essex. These were the Club 18-30 destinations of choice for the Vikings, Jutes, Saxons, and anyone else with a giant helmet, fearsome axe, and a passion for late nights and mead. The tour boats would drop them ashore, and they’d rampage and pillage on through the night before finally slumping in a pool of their own vomit and someone else’s viscera. And they next day (well, afternoon) they’d kick off again, partying like it was 999. Which it probably was.

Once they’d put their youthful exuberances behind them, many stole a holiday home and settled down to a more peaceful life (once they'd killed the original owners, of course). Like modern British retirees in Spain, they never got around to learning the language or the culture, but unlike them, they generally got along through periodic culls of any dissenting locals.

Time has generally worn down the sharp edges of these once fierce invaders. Those in the northern counties of Norfolk and Suffolk devolved into peaceful swamp dwelling creatures that can be safely poked with a stick. Not so, the residents of Essex, their sharp edges remain such. The chariots of their hotblooded youth still roar along the seafront of Valhalla-on-Sea, each a screeching death yell of overheated Corsa; their exotic villas assemble on the broad avenues of Chigwell, built in the style of a six-year-old with blunt crayons.

This marauding tide gushes through the gates of Liverpool Street station each morning and then recedes each evening, leaving a trail of moral wreckage and lukewarm vomit behind. They’re like Vikings without the flashy hats and finely honed moral sensibilities. Fuelled on Stella and a job in the city, they make for a fearsome foe.

Fenchurch Streets also offers services to Valhalla-on-Sea and connecting stations. Generally, this is the safer of the two stations, since very few people know quite where it is, and it gets no easier to find after eight pints of Stella.

Survival tips. Spilling Stella on a lad from Essex on a Friday evening is the equivalent of throwing a Mogwai in the shower after midnight. I know that Billericay sounds like it might be populated by Hobbits. But it’s not, unless they’re ferocious, bitey little hobbits, who have somehow contracted rabies and decided to treat it with PCP. You can’t even fit one in a blender. Unless you have a really big blender. Note that this is illegal and you should not enter Essex with either an oversized blender or this thought in mind. There are far more of them than you and in all probability you won't survive past Shenfield.