Well that’s just ignorant that is

I have been having a lovely time on the Dutch high-speed rail website trying to book some train tickets.

Even before this, it’s been a long and frustrating story of nearly getting what I wanted and then being thwarted at the last minute. When, however, I got onto this site it all seemed to be going terribly well and I really thought I’d cracked it. Yeah man.

But how absolutely idiotic of me not to realise that:

“The specified order cannot be found, or the order is already paid.”

- actually means:

“You need to enable third-party cookies in your browser.”

… as any fule kno.

If only I were clever enough to have realised the true meaning of this perfectly sensible, ordinary, customer-friendly bit of IT Talk™ I could have saved myself much anxiety during the entirely fun and wacky process of trying to buy rail tickets from Brussels-Midi to Bergen op Zoom (as you do). I could have avoided the time spent trying to phone their helpline (you can’t); trying to get their guess-the-question system to give me some help or a valid-from-the-UK phone number (haha forget it buddy boy); the multiple retries, the gibbering, the swearing … the whole thing really. Thanks Hispeed and Worldpay for a very annoying experience.

Marvellous. And yes, I did (with the help of my friend Dr Google) suss it in the end, and yes I have got the tickets. Woo yeah. It’s just that I feel a touch resentful over spending a chunk, however small, of my life trying to sort out something they could and should have told me in one pithy and pungent sentence. (No, Tamsin, not that one.)

I could do with a nice cup of tea now.