Public Transport Bastards

I’m on a train. Quite possibly the most ubiquitous phrase on Twitter. Do you ever wonder what people did on trains before they had internet-enabled phones and personal music players? No, of course they didn’t fucking talk to each other, this is England, don’t be silly. It occurred to me yesterday, stood on the platform at West Hampstead overhead station, counting how many people that were distracted by their phones, how easy it must be these days for pickpockets. I judged this truism to be so profound that I took out my phone and tweeted it. And then tweeted, “Some bastard just stole my wallet.” Followed two minutes later by, “I’m on a train.”

There’s nothing like tube travel in London to bring out the belligerence in people. That and black bogeys. You know, those bogeys you find when you get home from a tube journey, bogeys that look like they’ve been scraped from the walls of a tunnel and grouted into your nostrils. I’m a self-righteous bastard (you may have noticed) and seconds before the train grinds to a halt, I can’t help trying to identify who is jostling for position with the intention of barging on ahead of the rest of us, from a rear-side or flank position, even before the passengers on the train have seen the doors open fully for them. Once I’ve identified this odious type of bastard, I’m in their way, feeling their tut on the back of my neck, foiled in their plans to grab that last seat before someone elderly or pregnant reaches it ahead of them. Should they employ Formula One over-taking tactics and slip past me, then I have to confess that the foot goes out and I wish them well with their trip.

Sadly, I drive a car with the same sort of paradoxically belligerent counter-belligerence; so in public I tend to be at constant risk of being punched in the face. So far though, the victims of my sanctimonious guerrilla warfare tend to be too cowardly to rise to the bait, which pretty much fits with their initial behaviour at which I am aggressively protesting.

As a consequence of having the polite bastard’s chip on his shoulder, my first act as London Mayor would be to employ train referees, armed with yellow and red cards. Yellow card for rudeness and a red if you make contact in the process. A straight red if you’re eating hot food on the train as well. Particularly McDonald’s. I’d rather put up with someone taking a dump on the seat opposite me, than watch, listen to and smell someone scoffing a burger over the course of half a dozen stops. If you’re on the Northern Line, people tend to do both at once.

Yellow for people who talk too loud as well. Straight red if they sit away from each other and do it. Buses are much quieter places. At least in the provinces, where there is more opportunity for the driver to put his foot down and treat us all to a Thorpe Park experience. That soon shuts you up. Watch out for buses with dislodged fingernails stuck into the metal bars and teeth embedded into the backs of seats. At least it stops people tweeting, “I’m on a bus.”