Train travel
Posted by Ric on 13.03.04
I was the first person to borad the train when it arrived at the station. Mine was the stop from which the train first departed, and consequently I was also the first person seated on the train. Somehow, the woman who was second to board the train considers the seat I chose - the only occupied seat on the entire train - to be hers. Ladies and gentlemen, it has begun.
This is not actually true. The events described did happen, but in actuality it began long before this, and was heralded by an announcement on the loudspeaker: "Would the man on platform ten please stop that... for god's sake, the CCTV camera's two feet in front of you, can't you see it? Security..."
While I always despise train travel, the specific people responsible for my feelings differ on a journey-to-journey basis. Over the course of this page, I would like to recognise the efforts of some of those who really went out of their way to ensure my journey was not at all pleasurable:
The obese black woman who attempted to sing 'Milkshake' while drinking one, modifying the song to include 6 chicken McNuggets and regular fries until she had completed her meal. ("C'est tout ce que j'aime" and "Ich liebe es" proudly proclaimed the multicultural packaging, next to a picture of a mixed-race, single-parent family.)
The old man who though that, because he wears a flat cap and Top Shop sells flat caps, he has something in common with teenage girls and will be made welcome at their table.
The complete carriage of women who have wholeheartedly embraced comfort eating.
Craig David. Popular singer Craig David is instantly identifiable by his insistance on talking in the third person and regularly repeating his own name. He doesn't just do this when the cameras are rolling, he does this on his mobile phone on the train too.
(The last two times I travelled, I was on the train with Something Corporate and Amy Studt. This time it was Craig David; I run with the hip crowd. None of these people travel first class.)
The man in the bow tie who attempted in vain to manually shut the automatic door between compartments, that by its very nature opened every time he moved in proximity to it.
Everyone who boarded at Oxford brandishing individual portion containers of egg salad. To all appearences, these fat slobs proceded to spend the next hour staring vacantly into the air, open-mouthed and drooling. They were contempating deep philosophical issues, doubtless.
The prim woman who operatied the vacuum flush on the toilet while sitting on it, and had to be freed by a team of engineers. The position of the flush should have made this an impossible feat, so I applaud her achievement.
