It’s Thursday morning, between 6 and 7, and almost Christmas. I have only a handful of 2010 commutes left. Snow is on the way though. My flight home, for Christmas in Cork, is in jeopardy, work is busy, time is running out and I have a performance review this afternoon. Luckily I’m reading a good book, cooked my best ever chilli last night (still burned the pot), and am sitting in my favourite seat on the train. I’m a little stressed but things could be worse I think.
Enter a twitching man.
There’s something about him. I don’t know if it’s the dreadful trainers, the very blue jeans or the gold chain that’s dangling from his neck but there’s definitely something about him. He boards the carriage and like a jerk looks for a seat. He plops alongside me.
He smells of cigarettes.
The smell of fags mixed with morning damp is revolting.
He leafs through his Metro like he’s inspecting legal documents. He’s back and forth, fidgeting with himself, up, down, cough, sniff.
I can’t read like this. It’s Thursday morning, how did I end up spending what should be the most civilised part of the day in the company of halfwits like this?
His phone rings, blessed relief for the poor bastard, finally he has something that’s easy to concentrate on. It’s a dreadful ring tone; commercial dance/hip hop, the kind you’d hear in a niteclub for the thick and the lonely.
“Alright mate” He’s faux cockney and a shouter.
It appears the caller is returning an earlier missed call.
“I was just checking if you were still on for tonight”
It’s only slightly after 7 am.
The conversation continues loudly, and infuriatingly. His friend is still able to meet after work – at least 8 hours from now – but is unsure about how to get to their previously agreed rendezvous point. Bad news for those within earshot, in this case the entire carriage, I’m bearing a fair brunt of it though.
“You need the get 9-1-9 mate”
“Nah, it’s easy. The 9-1-9, right by the chemist. You know the chemist on the Bells Road, it stops right outside there”
Pause.
“You there?”
He looks at his phone. I notice his screensaver is a woman in a purple bikini. She looks pretty. I wonder if it’s his girlfriend. Some girls have dreadful taste in my experience so I wouldn’t be surprised.
He calls back.
“Yeah mate, it went crap I don’t know why.”
I don’t know why a man with a voice as dreadful as this one gets to talk on the phone.
He continues…
“The 9-1-9…”
He has a way of saying that number. I want to scream at him. Can I stress again that it’s about ten past seven in the morning. PHONE HIM AT LUNCH TIME YOU FUCKWIT, I want to scream.
To othersI must look like another listless passenger but on the inside I am full of rage.
“You know where you work”
Moron, moron, moron.
“Well, you turn right, go onto Bells Road, keep going, yeah, and you know the chemist on the right, the bus stops right there”
He listens.
“Yeah, the chemist, on the right the bus stops right there, just get on the bus”
Honestly, I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.
My book, long forgotten, is put into my bag and I myself begin to get fidgety. What station are we at? It’s too dark and there are too many people blocking the window. The time on my phone tells me it’s almost time to switch to the Underground.
I get up, train still moving, and squeeze past the offensive one. He’s still blathering.
“So we’re going to the King’s Crown, well the 9-1-9 stops right outside…get out there”
As I pass him, I have the urge to squeeze his head and shout in his face, but I don’t, because there are certain things one shouldn’t do on a train or tube.
The review goes well and later that week my flight leaves on time.
Happy Christmas.
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Tuesday evening
The Teacher is at book club. The fridge is empty. The plastic storage box we use to keep the ironing in is full of ironing. These things all involve my home life, but I haven’t switched that part on yet. I am still at the office.
Finally I leave, in a mad rush. My grandmother is arriving on Friday morning. The spare room needs to be prepared. We call it spare not because it is spare space but because spare things that have no place to go, go there.
I am going spare.
The trains are a nightmare. This is not unusual. When the weather turns, train companies seem to go into meltdown. The rain, the leaves, the cold, the shock of it wasn’t this dark yesterday morning.
Oxford Circus has closed its gates. As they do every evening. A lazy admission of failure; Oxford Circus cannot handle its passengers. Oxford Street; close your shops, the system isn’t working.
I am working though and so am forced to stand like a sheep in the rain, huddled next to strangers, some smoking, some smelly, some pretty, for long minutes and minutes while the Underground sort themselves out.
The gates open. The concourse is clear but the platform is a mess. A train is held, full of people. The platform is full of even more people. I find space, put my bag between my legs and wait. People shove past me in every direction. The sign still says ‘Held’. I wait.
Ten minutes and three full-to-the-brim trains later and I am on my way, squashed between two Italian twentysomethings, a weary businessman and faceless others. Between stations 2 and 3, the train stops. The driver announces something. We wait. The young Italians don’t know the rules and talk to each other, like they’re at the beach or something.
We move again and then stop again and so it continues. Until I am at another platform, off the tube, waiting for a train; this platform is also very overcrowded. I manoeuvre for position. I need to get on the next train; the house needs to be prepared for Granny Sheila.
I am on the train. The train stops, again not at a station. There is a simultaneous frustrated intake of breath, an indecipherable driver announcement and then deadly silence. It moves again. Repeat thrice.
Finally, the train begins to empty. I sit down, check my phone and breathe out. I take out my book, Big Sur by Jack Kerouac, I’m two chapters in and struggling, I love On The Road but I’d forgotten how long Kerouac’s sentences can be.
Anyway, I’m finding it difficult to concentrate – the evening of cleaning and the thought of showing my almost 80 year old grandmother around London is distracting me. The guy sitting opposite isn’t helping either.
In his forties, with slightly curly hair, he looks like a geologist, a pretty successful one. He has an air of confidence about him and is sitting with his legs crossed and has papers on this lap. His dangling foot is in my eye line.
His fold-up bike is also blocking the seat and I nearly fell over it when I was sitting down; minus further commuter points.
Maybe because the train isn’t packed or maybe because I’m off tomorrow I don’t fill up with rage. He’s annoying but has a certain friendly charm too. I forgive him and try to get on with my book.
Two minutes later, I look up. The geologist is staring at the papers in his lap. He has an odd, bewildered look on his face. He has a pencil in his hand. He’s making a list. I love lists. Reading them and making them. Watching someone make a list is something I am very interested in doing.
His manly geologist legs are folded in a peculiar way that is restricting my view. I can see though that the list is half printed half written, in pencil. This list was so important it was started at work and then printed it off to be continued on the train. This is no shopping list.
I adjust my position for a better view but still can’t read anything. It’s a list of sentences not words or names. What list is made of sentences? It could be a brainstorming list of ideas I think but his pensiveness makes me think otherwise. The train begins slowing.
I like this man and am disappointed as he begins to make leaving movements. As he uncrosses his legs and faces me more directly he looks less like a geologist. He could be anything really, he’s a middle-aged man who isn’t poor and doesn’t wear a suit to work.
As he gets up and begins to fold his bike, The List is revealed for a quick second, it’s enough time for me to see number one.
Every day is the same.
Finally I leave, in a mad rush. My grandmother is arriving on Friday morning. The spare room needs to be prepared. We call it spare not because it is spare space but because spare things that have no place to go, go there.
I am going spare.
The trains are a nightmare. This is not unusual. When the weather turns, train companies seem to go into meltdown. The rain, the leaves, the cold, the shock of it wasn’t this dark yesterday morning.
Oxford Circus has closed its gates. As they do every evening. A lazy admission of failure; Oxford Circus cannot handle its passengers. Oxford Street; close your shops, the system isn’t working.
I am working though and so am forced to stand like a sheep in the rain, huddled next to strangers, some smoking, some smelly, some pretty, for long minutes and minutes while the Underground sort themselves out.
The gates open. The concourse is clear but the platform is a mess. A train is held, full of people. The platform is full of even more people. I find space, put my bag between my legs and wait. People shove past me in every direction. The sign still says ‘Held’. I wait.
Ten minutes and three full-to-the-brim trains later and I am on my way, squashed between two Italian twentysomethings, a weary businessman and faceless others. Between stations 2 and 3, the train stops. The driver announces something. We wait. The young Italians don’t know the rules and talk to each other, like they’re at the beach or something.
We move again and then stop again and so it continues. Until I am at another platform, off the tube, waiting for a train; this platform is also very overcrowded. I manoeuvre for position. I need to get on the next train; the house needs to be prepared for Granny Sheila.
I am on the train. The train stops, again not at a station. There is a simultaneous frustrated intake of breath, an indecipherable driver announcement and then deadly silence. It moves again. Repeat thrice.
Finally, the train begins to empty. I sit down, check my phone and breathe out. I take out my book, Big Sur by Jack Kerouac, I’m two chapters in and struggling, I love On The Road but I’d forgotten how long Kerouac’s sentences can be.
Anyway, I’m finding it difficult to concentrate – the evening of cleaning and the thought of showing my almost 80 year old grandmother around London is distracting me. The guy sitting opposite isn’t helping either.
In his forties, with slightly curly hair, he looks like a geologist, a pretty successful one. He has an air of confidence about him and is sitting with his legs crossed and has papers on this lap. His dangling foot is in my eye line.
His fold-up bike is also blocking the seat and I nearly fell over it when I was sitting down; minus further commuter points.
Maybe because the train isn’t packed or maybe because I’m off tomorrow I don’t fill up with rage. He’s annoying but has a certain friendly charm too. I forgive him and try to get on with my book.
Two minutes later, I look up. The geologist is staring at the papers in his lap. He has an odd, bewildered look on his face. He has a pencil in his hand. He’s making a list. I love lists. Reading them and making them. Watching someone make a list is something I am very interested in doing.
His manly geologist legs are folded in a peculiar way that is restricting my view. I can see though that the list is half printed half written, in pencil. This list was so important it was started at work and then printed it off to be continued on the train. This is no shopping list.
I adjust my position for a better view but still can’t read anything. It’s a list of sentences not words or names. What list is made of sentences? It could be a brainstorming list of ideas I think but his pensiveness makes me think otherwise. The train begins slowing.
I like this man and am disappointed as he begins to make leaving movements. As he uncrosses his legs and faces me more directly he looks less like a geologist. He could be anything really, he’s a middle-aged man who isn’t poor and doesn’t wear a suit to work.
As he gets up and begins to fold his bike, The List is revealed for a quick second, it’s enough time for me to see number one.
Every day is the same.
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Monday morning
It’s a Monday morning, and despite this being the first work day since the clocks went back, and therefore brighter than last week, everyone at the station is pissed off. I have a dread about me. Another weekend has passed me by. The week is ahead and soon the train will arrive. For the rest of the week, I’ll be a passenger.
I fail to grab my usual seat and am forced to sit on the other side of the carriage door facing the other way. I’ll never break my Brick Breaker high score looking this direction so I take out my book; Theft by Peter Carey.
The train departs and by the third stop the carriage is almost full. A woman has sat opposite me. Early forties, attractive with short black hair, she’s wearing a black dress, with a black jacket and a red scarf. She’s also wearing black tights that are semi see through, a small birthmark above her knee is visible. She is reading the Daily Mail.
I go back to my book. Peter Carey is probably my favourite writer.
The woman gets a phone call. It’s not yet quarter past seven so it must be important business or something gone wrong with the family. She answers a quick hello, listens for a bit and says, with an absence of emotion, why? A moment later she presses the red button and puts the phone back in her bag.
She returns to her paper. I try to get back to Mr Carey but the tension that’s coming off this woman has me mesmerised, who was on the phone?!
As the train pulls in to another station I notice on her paper the headline ‘CAN WE EVER TRUST THE FRENCH’. Fucking Daily Mail I think. My interest in her gone, I adjust and get comfortable for the last ten minutes of the journey.
The carriage is full now and the beeps are beeping, just before the doors close, a young woman runs onboard, apologises to the men she bashes on the way in and finds a corner to stand in, right next to the tense lady and in my eye line.
She is a fat young girl. I wouldn’t say very fat but she’s definitely chunky, she has glasses, a young white face and red cheeks from dashing to the train. Her hair is still damp, her clothes a little ruffled, her coat untied. She’s slept late and needs a coffee.
She finally relaxes and begins to read her Metro. She looks pleasant and happy to have made her train. She doesn’t look great though it has to be said. Between our new arrival and my glimpse of the French headline I have almost forgotten about the tense lady but she’s still on my radar and still looks stern.
She shifts in her seat. Maybe coughs. Her face is bitten. She looks up at the pleasant girl. Looks again. Catches her attention. Her face changes. I realise what she’s doing. Don’t, I think, but it’s too late.
“Seat?” the older woman having a bad day says to the girl who made her train.
The colour goes from pleasant girls face. Her face drops but she maintains eye contact and tamely refuses.
I see beneath her coat as she attempts to cover herself. She’s wearing a tight fitting blue dress and I can see the bulge of a belly. Not a great choice of outfit but does she look pregnant? No way.
The tense lady settles back into her seat and paper. I look at her, it's like nothing has happened. Behind her the young girl has forgotten her paper and is subtly clawing at her clothes with the limited space and free hands she has.
More people board the train and she moves further down the carriage, beyond my seat and out of my line of vision. I turn around and catch her surveying her mid-section and looking distressed. The week hasn’t even started.
We’re approaching
The shuffling begins and soon I’m off the train and on my way, hoping both their days improve and promising myself I’ll have a salad for lunch.
Friday, 22 January 2010
Untitled
I have a job. That’s why I spend so much time on the tube and other forms of public transport.
My contracted hours are 8am to 4pm. I get one hour for lunch. Sometimes I have soup from Eat (Italian Ragu and Chicken Noodle are my favs), sometimes I walk around Central London doing chores for various people (mostly L) and sometimes I have a huge sandwich, a packet of crisps and a Diet Coke. 2010 has seen me kick the sandwich habit though and I have been enjoying flame grilled chicken breast, bayleaf and beetroot salads (also with Diet Coke) at my desk. It saves me money and is healthy. If you ignore how boring it is, it’s a delight.
Colleagues have asked if I’m on a diet. So far I have responded with either a curt no or a mumble and a leaf choke. Beetroot, it’s well tasty but Christ it gets everywhere. I think I may smell of it too. Do I prefer being referred to as the obese guy who eats all those sandwiches or the guy who smells of beetroot? I’ll take the beetroot.
My hours are 8-4, not 9-5. I write for a living you’ll be flabbergasted to learn and I have always felt at my most lucid and creative in the morning. In the afternoon I get a little sleepy and turgid, something to do with all the sandwiches I reckon.
So I get up early. Earlier and earlier, it becomes strangely addictive. Eventually I’ll never go to sleep. Just lie down and get up again. I arrive at the office at either 7.10 or 7.30. I turn on the lights, am the first person to dip an undersized stirrer slash spoon into the generic industrial sized tin of decaf, and the first to slightly burn their fingers on the hot water machine. I then, after reading the day’s gossip column, either get right down to bashing out some serious gold standard copy, plan my day or browse the guardian and telegraph websites while muttering swearwords about Carlos Tevez, Jermaine Beckford or right wing media types like the disgusting fatty Jan Moir.
Speaking of bitch, remember Moir’s awful piece about Stephen Gately? Why the hell wasn’t that scandal referred to as GatelyGate? It could have really been the nail in the coffin to the Gate suffix. You can probably find a watered down version of the column on the Nazi rag’s site (I refuse to link to it) but if you want to know the truth and have a laugh see Charlie Brooker’s take on it here;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir
Back to Friday morning time. Sooner or later 8.40 arrives and my charming and erudite colleagues start arriving. I work in retail/fashion and the majority of my workmates or attractive women, the rest are men, straight mostly but with a higher than average straight/gay ratio.
Yes, here they all are, strutting into the office without a care in the world, making all sorts of noise and ruining my rhythm and reason in an instant. They’re a nice bunch in fairness though and by the time they get in I’m ready to share things. When they sit down and I feel they’re settled, I quickly blurt out what I had for dinner last night, tell them how great this book/film/album is and pontificate on Stephen Baldwin and Heidi Fleiss.
That’s how my morning goes. Though there are exceptions. There is another option. A later bus can get me to the station in time to make a train that will get me on a tube that can take me to the street where I can walk to the office and be at my desk for 8.05.
I rarely take this option. The roads are busier, the tube is fuller and the weather is worse – honestly it is. No, the early bird routine suits me. My ancestors were farmers probably. Rich, land owning ones.
This morning I took the option. For a combination of two reasons, first reason. My good friend Robert P. He’s a pest. Here I am buying a house, struggling to make ends meet, thinking of new romantic ways to impress The Teacher and up at the crack of dawn and there he is, betting and drinking, and harassing me to do one or the other, or both.
Last night I wilted and we met for pints. He brought me a copy of The Yellow House which was most appreciated. We had some beers and chewed the fat, discussing wide spread ignorance, travel plans, French films (he discussed I listened) and our mutual friend Neal C.
I didn’t drink much and certainly wasn’t drunk and even managed to catch Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4 +1 in bed.
Digress, digress, digress. In summary; last night I had some pints. This morning L rolled over and said she was getting the later bus. In a split second my brain computed; wet outside + not loads of work to do + beer last night + Friday today = roll over too.
I rolled over and slept for four minute periods until it was time to get up. Why people have a mini lie in but choose to have that gifted time interrupted by beeping every five minutes is as foreign as eating sheep’s eyeballs to me. Turn off the damn snooze button please, thank you.
So we got the later bus and arrived at the station at a time when a lot of people are at the station. There they were, standing there without a care in the world, dressed in overcoats and high heels and all plotting how best to deprive me of a seat for my journey.
L was wittering on about some educational initiative or other when I saw it. I double taked and took two steps forward towards the track, almost going beyond the yellow line as I did.
I looked down again. “What in Christ is that?” I said. “Jesus, in Christ” I repeated. There was a sharp intake of collective breath.
A man was on the tracks.
He appeared to be young, with a slim build, dark hair and was wearing a brown shirt. His head was on one track, his feet on the other. Is he alive or dead I thought, my head was racing. L grabbed my arm. She was staring at the man. As was I, as was everybody on the platform. Only 10 seconds had passed since I had first spotted him.
He was breathing. Thank heavens he was breathing. A train was due in three minutes. My phone was now in my hand.
“Who should I ring?” I whispered.
It was a very odd atmosphere, everybody was whispering. Very undramatic. Very British.
“The police” a young girl replied.
“What’s the number?” I said thinking I could hear the train approaching.
I did not want to see a man run over by a train. I did not want this man run over by a train.
A man pressed the emergency button to speak to the station security or whoever.
Is it safe to get on the tracks I thought?
A man who was closer to the lying man shouted at him. There was no response. He just lay there, like in Radiohead’s video for Just only a track with a train due.
Two men quickly jumped onto the tracks and tried to pick him up. He struggled and shouted but they aggressively and unsympathetically got him to his feet. Their curtness can be excused due to the expected train I think.
The man was lifted to the platform. He wasn’t as young as I had thought. He was smartly dressed in a brown shirt and a dark tie.
The man said something to him. He let out a scream. A woman whispered he was drunk.
He broke down and cried. Right there on the platform He sobbed deeply. The adrenaline induced from drama subsided and his distress became clear. A very private moment was being played out in front of a platform of commuters.
He was picked up and brought downstairs. The poor fella.
Whoever is on the other end of the emergency button machine finally responded. The gent who had pressed the button didn’t know what to say. The platform was silent.
“He’s not on the tracks anymore” he said.
The train arrived and we went to work. I got a seat but it didn’t seem as important anymore.
Illustration by Gemma Luker
Friday, 11 December 2009
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Late October
The London transport system is a huge, sprawling and complex. I live 14 miles from Charing Cross as the pigeon flies. It takes me about fifty minutes to get to work in Central London. I leave the house, taking the rubbish with me every Thursday, walk through a dark full-of-insect-shit alley, get on a bus, wait four minutes for a train, get on a train for 18 minutes, walk down some stairs, walk down more stairs and get on a tube for fifteen minutes. I then climb two escalators and more steps to reach daylight (March – October). Seven minutes later (fifteen if I fancy a bacon sandwich) and I’m at my desk ready to read the gossip column and drink coffee.
My return pleasure trip is of course not free. In fact it’s expensive. There are a few different payment options one can consider when committing to a London commute. Presently I go for an Oyster card (for the tube) and a weekly x to y card for the train.
Monday started well. The teacher is on mid-term which usually makes it a lot harder to get out of bed but after two or three weeks of dark mornings the bright dawn was a welcome sight and lifted my drowsy Monday morning mood. In these post-clock-going-back bright conditions the alley is just an alley.
My bus journey was as pleasant as ever. As I leave earlier than most, my morning bus’s motley crew have come to resemble dependable kindred spirits. There’s the German couple who may or may not be German (and are statistically English), the lady with the bike who’s husband has recently had some kind of fall at work and the three company owners who I assume are a husband and wife/father in-law team who run a small office equipment firm somewhere in London. I assume this because one man carries a copy of the FT and there are three of them. God knows what they think of me.
Monday, being the first day of the working week, is ticket buying day. I have four minutes from bus arriving to train departing in which to buy my ticket. This is usually plenty. However today the machine was broken leaving only the grumpy woman who lives behind a Perspex screen and also sells tickets, today a queue awaited her service.
I had no time. I could either buy a ticket and miss my train or get my train and get my ticket when I get off. Of course I caught the train.
Anyone familiar with Murphy’s Law will know what happened next. Between the first and second flights of stairs at Finsbury Park stood men in coats holding machines.
Walking down the first stairs I noticed one man immediately turn around and walk back up towards the platform. Ticket checkers were around the corner. This man clearly had no ticket. I too had no ticket but I had a very valid excuse. I surged towards the honest men in big coats who were only doing their jobs safe in the knowledge that in a few minutes I’d be buying a ticket from the nice men and on my merry way.
Fascist bastards.
I approached a young upstanding man. I explained the situation. Not good enough said the ball of grease. He pointed me to an older man who was lurking behind the chaos with a notepad in his hand. Looking back I think he might even have been nervous.
The machine was broken…there was a queue….always give yourself enough time to buy a valid ticket….you want me to miss my train…I have a meeting….I spend £2000 a year (I don’t)….
And so it continued for at least 70 seconds.
“There’s no problem in X Station” Greaseball shouted passive aggressively. I resigned myself. This man was taking £20 hard earned snots from me.
Why I didn’t leap on the ‘no problem’ comment I do not know. I should have screamed “Are you calling me a liar” type screams but I didn’t. Instead I scowled and stuck out my wrist. I put it down to the aforementioned resignation. It didn’t last for long, this resignation, and as the man played with his Stalin toy and entered my details I began to get a little
irate.
“It’s funny how on the day the machine is broken you arrive here”
“We just go where we are told”
“Is this to pay for your next strike?”
“We haven’t been on strike in years”
A grunt and steaming ears.
I entered my number and got slapped on the wrist for twenty turned away in disgust.
A few days later I realised that the station has two machines, not one. One, the one I use everyday, is broken, the other works like Boxer the
horse.
I feel bad for being so rude to the man. In retrospect he seemed nice. Sports fan I reckon. A few kids, likes a few pints, possibly enjoys camping or hiking. A decent shit.
Unlike me; sullen, moody and in a hurry. A commuter.
Illustration by Gemma Luker
Friday, 23 October 2009
October 22nd
After a day where everything went wrong in the last ten minutes I ended up running for a tube to connect me to the last possible train that would get me home in time to watch another drab Manchester United Champions League game.
I made the tube. I made the tube because I am a fast walker. I made the tube because over the past years I have developed a passive aggressive look on my face and voice in my head that kicks into action when anyone or thing has the gall to stand in front of me when I’m on my commute. Murmurs and grunts of “Fat bastards”, “ugly bitches” and even the odd “old wagon” all mutter through my head as my Italian heeled boots clip clop their way to platform number 2, Northbound. This deranged state lasts for only a few minutes and is very effective, and slightly worrying. Is this what I’ll be like when the war comes?
Anyway, I made the tube. Barring any bullshit delays, anyone living in London will tell you there are many of these, and I should make my train and be in the living room by half past five, supping a beer, munching Hoola Hoops (57p for a family bag in Tesco) and watching Anderson once again prove that he’s not of an Old Trafford standard.
Speaking of standards, because I had been marching quickly and had no seat my free edition (loving these) remained furled in my fist allowing me some time to slyly inspect my fellow unfortunates.
Gawking at commuters is an odd art and sometimes there is simply nobody to look at, which is when we’re forced to read insurance ads and bad poetry*. Mostly though a lovely lady, a tattooed man or a loud talker will grab your attention and make your journey slightly less excruciating.
On this particular day I didn’t even have to browse the carriage as the pair next to me immediately grabbed my attention. What hooked me first was a response. I caught the end of a sentence, “Halls” the man had said. A torn and mishandled nearly empty packet of Halls (other brands are available) was produced with a grunt. The pair was a he and a she.
Colleagues I figured. Colleagues who have had the bad luck to end up travelling home together. Colleagues furiously thinking of sober small talk suitable for rush hour (there is none).
But wait. Suddenly I noticed a flash of intimacy. Is this pair of dullards involved in some sort of lurid interoffice tryst? I wondered, piqued. No they’re not my brain shouts, upon further evidence of tenderness – it’s more than that! They’re a bonafide couple, dating, seeing each other, in a relationship, partners. He mutters like a wimp. He asks about dinner and she, possibly because of her ailment and possibly because she’s a complete tool, responds, IN BABY TALK, “Fried calves liver with gravy” or something to that affect she chirps like an infant otter.
All doubt is now gone. They are a couple. They co-habit.
So what I hear you ask? Surely the tube isn’t only used by nosey degenerates and asshole bankers? Of course some of these sweating commuters must be happy people, happy people who share their lives with other happy people. Yes. Happy people do take the tube. Commuters do consummate with other commuters. I am one of them in fact. But I did it properly. I consider myself a high six or low seven in the looks department – hair, weight and general upkeep dependent, the teacher (my other half) I reckon to be an eight and a half. It is because I am a good man and stump for dinner and wine that I have bagged an eight point fiver – this is not unheard of, quite common in fact.
What is uncommon is a differential above five. And this is what I concerned myself with while the tube chugged onwards. The couple were young. Between 23 and 25 was my guess. He was sallow skinned, with brown hair cut without style. He wore a dark coat and nice jeans. His shoes were a little shit. He probably smelled nicely. He was a six all over. (If he doesn’t watch his tummy though he’ll soon be a four) Perhaps he’s aware of the rules and is trying to reduce the differential because she’s a one all over.
I don’t want to sound like an uglyist because I’m not. Some of my best friends are ugly. In the past I have been hideous and am quite sure I will be again at some point. But this girl would win awards. She looked like a girl Timothy Spall with red wine thrown over her face. She had no neck. Her hair had clots of dandruff that for a period resembled lice. As with most of the ugly she was also quite fat.
It’s nice really but I still don’t understand what that guy sees in her – I’m guessing they met travelling when she was going through a thin and tanned phase. Those days are long gone now and yet there she was all happy and in love, even when she’s being sick and annoying.
It’s shallow but also reassuring, in a chick flick kind of way, and it’s what I saw on the tube today.
* London Underground provide free poetry on some advertising spaces as a gesture of cultural goodwill to those forced to suffer and wait miles beneath the soil everyday. I love the idea but is this the best they can find? Where have all the poets gone?
I made the tube. I made the tube because I am a fast walker. I made the tube because over the past years I have developed a passive aggressive look on my face and voice in my head that kicks into action when anyone or thing has the gall to stand in front of me when I’m on my commute. Murmurs and grunts of “Fat bastards”, “ugly bitches” and even the odd “old wagon” all mutter through my head as my Italian heeled boots clip clop their way to platform number 2, Northbound. This deranged state lasts for only a few minutes and is very effective, and slightly worrying. Is this what I’ll be like when the war comes?
Anyway, I made the tube. Barring any bullshit delays, anyone living in London will tell you there are many of these, and I should make my train and be in the living room by half past five, supping a beer, munching Hoola Hoops (57p for a family bag in Tesco) and watching Anderson once again prove that he’s not of an Old Trafford standard.
Speaking of standards, because I had been marching quickly and had no seat my free edition (loving these) remained furled in my fist allowing me some time to slyly inspect my fellow unfortunates.
Gawking at commuters is an odd art and sometimes there is simply nobody to look at, which is when we’re forced to read insurance ads and bad poetry*. Mostly though a lovely lady, a tattooed man or a loud talker will grab your attention and make your journey slightly less excruciating.
On this particular day I didn’t even have to browse the carriage as the pair next to me immediately grabbed my attention. What hooked me first was a response. I caught the end of a sentence, “Halls” the man had said. A torn and mishandled nearly empty packet of Halls (other brands are available) was produced with a grunt. The pair was a he and a she.
Colleagues I figured. Colleagues who have had the bad luck to end up travelling home together. Colleagues furiously thinking of sober small talk suitable for rush hour (there is none).
But wait. Suddenly I noticed a flash of intimacy. Is this pair of dullards involved in some sort of lurid interoffice tryst? I wondered, piqued. No they’re not my brain shouts, upon further evidence of tenderness – it’s more than that! They’re a bonafide couple, dating, seeing each other, in a relationship, partners. He mutters like a wimp. He asks about dinner and she, possibly because of her ailment and possibly because she’s a complete tool, responds, IN BABY TALK, “Fried calves liver with gravy” or something to that affect she chirps like an infant otter.
All doubt is now gone. They are a couple. They co-habit.
So what I hear you ask? Surely the tube isn’t only used by nosey degenerates and asshole bankers? Of course some of these sweating commuters must be happy people, happy people who share their lives with other happy people. Yes. Happy people do take the tube. Commuters do consummate with other commuters. I am one of them in fact. But I did it properly. I consider myself a high six or low seven in the looks department – hair, weight and general upkeep dependent, the teacher (my other half) I reckon to be an eight and a half. It is because I am a good man and stump for dinner and wine that I have bagged an eight point fiver – this is not unheard of, quite common in fact.
What is uncommon is a differential above five. And this is what I concerned myself with while the tube chugged onwards. The couple were young. Between 23 and 25 was my guess. He was sallow skinned, with brown hair cut without style. He wore a dark coat and nice jeans. His shoes were a little shit. He probably smelled nicely. He was a six all over. (If he doesn’t watch his tummy though he’ll soon be a four) Perhaps he’s aware of the rules and is trying to reduce the differential because she’s a one all over.
I don’t want to sound like an uglyist because I’m not. Some of my best friends are ugly. In the past I have been hideous and am quite sure I will be again at some point. But this girl would win awards. She looked like a girl Timothy Spall with red wine thrown over her face. She had no neck. Her hair had clots of dandruff that for a period resembled lice. As with most of the ugly she was also quite fat.
It’s nice really but I still don’t understand what that guy sees in her – I’m guessing they met travelling when she was going through a thin and tanned phase. Those days are long gone now and yet there she was all happy and in love, even when she’s being sick and annoying.
It’s shallow but also reassuring, in a chick flick kind of way, and it’s what I saw on the tube today.
* London Underground provide free poetry on some advertising spaces as a gesture of cultural goodwill to those forced to suffer and wait miles beneath the soil everyday. I love the idea but is this the best they can find? Where have all the poets gone?
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