What happened to my transport zen?

Sometime back in June of last year, I had a shock end to what had been, at least in recent times, a pretty smooth and organised travel and transportation experience in Europe. My London trip ended a touch disastrously as outlined below... (in case you are wondering - I drafted this at the time and never got around to finishing it. After my recently horrific long haul travel, soon to be blogged about, I was inspired to revisit this).

So I get up at a fairly evil time of the morning, after some stuffing around and final packing, manage to catch a bus, a tube train and an airport train all in good time, with little or no waiting around. So far so good.
I get to airport, walk to check-in machines, smoothly check-in, wait in line for the bag-drop and head to the departure area.
I had no problems with the security check, even getting chosen for a special new security check (where you have to stand like a mongoloid and put your hands in the air while a low level x-ray is beamed at you in four positions) was actually a bonus as I was moved to the head of the queue for the bag x-ray.
I check the screens for my gate, but of course it is too early for them to tell us, so I look around the shops, get something to eat etc.
I keep checking the screens every 5 or 10 minutes for my gate.
Eventually I check the screen and it tells me the gate and says 'now boarding'.
I walk towards my gate.
I get there, but there is no line of people, no staff at the desk. One staff member off to the side doodling about. Lots of people sitting on the chairs at the gate. So I check the screen again - yes it is the right gate. So I go to the loo.
Come back from the loo, check the screens, it says 'last call', but there is still no-one lining up at the gate, nor any staff at the desk. I have heard no announcements, so I assume there has been some delay and I sit at a chair close to the gate to wait.
The screens still say 'last call' when it is about 5 minutes before the plane is due to leave. Panic begins to rise as I look around for anyone who could possibly be considered a staff member... no one.
I walk for what seems like an age, past about 8 other gates, until I finally track down a BA staff member, and enquire about my flight. He types it in and says, "oh it was on time, it has left already".... WHAT?! But I was there, I was at the gate! Panic sets in and I get a feeling I have never felt before, a mixture of stress, confusion, dumbfoundedness (is that a feeling?), dread, loss and hopelessness.
Next saw me begin a series of discussions with various BA and airport staff, mostly of the unhelpful variety and eventually I had to buy a new ticket on another airline (the salubrious JAT) at my own expense, after collecting my rejected baggage of course. But it was the series of inconsistencies in these discussions that really got my goat. Each person had a different story about the flight, particularly regarding the time it actually left.

A while later, after walking through several different terminals at Heathrow, I spoke with a customer service officer of BA, who informed me that the fight actually left several hours late. In fact it left AFTER I had been told to buy a new ticket!
They suggested I should therefore be compensated for the cost of my new ticket and sent to me another desk to arrange such. Of course nothing is that easy, and I was then told to write a letter to a certain adress with copies of the tickets and the story.... needless to say after a courtesy reply letter, I have yet to hear any more about this compensation.

Lesson learnt: Never assume anything at airports and departure gates, ask and confirm if in any doubt! Oh - and avoid Heathrow at all costs!

The disastrous travel day didn't end there - with a dodgy JAT flight, followed by a ridiculously and unnecessarily long bus ride of around 8 hours through deepest back country Serbia, I arrived 'home' at around 2am absolutely shattered...