The Lego Friends Grand Hotel is so clearly based on the titular Grand Budapest Hotel from Wes Anderson's 2014 film. Sure it's scaled down, but the colours of the walls and roof definitely work
Righty-oh. So, as anyone who looks at my post history will see, in November last year I bought a WW2 gauge because 'cool fucking plane bit'. However, I then realised that it contained radium paint. Yay! Hurrah! Anyhow now I'm worried it's contaminated (using the carcinogenic paint dust) everything in my house, and hence, I keep on seeking reassurance, and then get more worried. How do I stop this particularly vicious cycle?
Oh yeah, I also had a bat in my house. Fun times! Dw the doctor said I didn't need PEP. Thank you! Image unrelated.
For clarification, I didn't use AI to write this. I hate that I have to clarify that, but I do, so here's my article.
There’s an air of anticipation as I make it to Platform 4, going down the crowded escalator onto an equally crowded platform. I have already grabbed my merch tote bag from the Metro employees in orange vests; the bag contains an enamel pin, a fold-up model of an Xtrap 2.0, and a Metro trains sticker sheet. Upon reaching the platform, I join the ranks of gunzels anxiously craning their necks and trying to look past one another. The efforts of the announcer on the PA system, to get the gunzels back behind the yellow line, are nugatory. Someone points out that one of the test Com-Engs is down the line, but regrettably it doesn’t get any closer. An Xtrap 100 stops at another platform, adorned in the Barring artwork wrap. It is avidly photographed, and, with all of us being all too familiar with the nauseating green poles, fluorescent lighting and general bumpiness of the ‘X’trampolines’, the mind begins to wonder how different the 2.0 will be to ride in. Chatter builds on the platform. It’s a delightful experience to see all the various niche shirts. The amount of autism is simply insane (I’m autistic, too, for the record). I don’t even think the avgeeks were this excited at the Avalon airshow last year, when the F-22 was doing its thing. Each and every one of these gunzels have lugged themselves to Flinders to witness the first passenger service of the much-awaited X’Trapolis 2.0. Finally, the call comes through that the train is passing through Parliament and will arrive at Flinders Street shortly. Sure enough, a pair of lights appear, and the camera shutters click and snap en masse.
The new train slides into the platform. It’s slick, sloped (at the front), and spacious. The gunzels make for the doors and it’s a crush as everyone tries to get on. Amazingly, I get a seat. The seats are narrower than they are on the older 100s, but they seem to be designed to fit snugly the curvature of one’s back. It’s thrilling to run my hands over the fresh seat fabric and know that it’s clean. For now. Thankfully, the handholds have all been painted banana-yellow, which is a blessed relief from the disgusting colour inside the 100s. Like the HCMT, the X’Trapolis 2.0 features screens built into the overhead panelling, which display the route and station. The screens are still so new that there are marks on them from some cleaner’s alcohol wipes. The windows are big and square, not rounded at the edges like on the 100s. A little lightbulb above the doors flashes green when they’re open and red when they’re closing.
It’s massively crowded, probably to the puzzlement of any commuters who had expected a normal morning service to Upfield. Excitement builds to a crescendo as the train nears its 9.06am departure time.
Finally, the doors close. Flinders Street’s tiled platform starts to slide past, as do the vending machines and the gunzels standing on the platform, filming and waving. Someone starts up a chant of ‘train, train, train!’ Soon, the whole carriage is chanting and cheering as the X’Trapolis 2.0 leaves, for the first time ever, Flinders Street Station with a full load of passengers. I, for one, feel very…special, as we pass the normal Com-Engs and Siemens on our historic trip. We travel along the banks of the Yarra, through Macaulay, Royal Park, and Jewell (and some other stations; these are the ones that I can remember most clearly).
I get the new train as far as Brunswick. When I step out, the rain is just starting, but that does not deter the gunzels on the platform who film the train as it goes on its way to Upfield and to history.
