This morning I had to travel to Leyton to Ilford and needless to say,
given I haven't bought a paper ticket in London for YEARS due to
always having a monthly or annual travelcard and auto top up on my
Oystercard, it never crossed my mind that I'd have to buy a ticket to
cover me for the stretch outside of zone 3 to Ilford.

And so, since at Stratford, there's no check to prevent me making the
journey, I hopped on train with scarcely a thought.

Having arrived at Ilford, I popped out my Oystercard but couldn't get
through the barrier, at which point it stopped me and I was "kindly"
asked to see the bloke issuing penalty fares. I waited (stewing, and
was strongly considering flat out refusing to pay the £20 if they told
me that was the way it was going to be done) and was informed that "by
rights", I should be paying £20 - I argued that since I come from the
21st century, I haven't bought a ticket in years, it was a completely
honest and understandable mistake. Fortunately, (and quite seriously,
given his attitude to the Asian woman before me, I suspect probably
the fact I was white and vaguely middle class) he made a huge thing of
the fact that he'd probably made enough money for the his employer and
would sell me a single from Stratford.

I haven't been so lucky before - when I used to travel from Hackney
Central to Stratford on the way to Canary Wharf, I had forgotten that
my monthly had expired the day before, and since it was the days
before barriers at Hackney Central, I didn't have to touch in to get
through and so had no indication that I'd got an expired monthly until
I walked into a ticket check at Stratford. On that day, it was 'zero
tolerance' regardless of the fact that my Oystercard had almost
complete travelcard coverage for the previous couple of years and so
it was quite unlikely I was trying to blag my way through. The arsey
"we've got you over a barrel" attitude of the revenue collection
officer on the day REALLY REALLY got my goat.

There. I've got all that off my chest.

And don't get me started on the behaviour of the revenue protection
officers on WAGN during the early part of this decade (when I used to
work in Hertford) - I had a number of run-ins with those a##holes.
(and never once was my ticket invalid - their general attitude was
disgusting)