political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Saturday, August 23, 2008
How to Annoy Your Fellow Passengers...
Mike Rouse has an entertaining piece about his bank holiday rail journey to Wales, full of witty observations about his fellow passengers and their rather irritating activities...
8 comments:
Anonymous
said...
What was the point of that piece? We have all been on a train. What he describes is typical of a present-day train journey. Nothing funny or enlightening about his description.
I suppose next week he will write about Waiting at a Bus Stop, followed by the Supermarket Checkout Queue.
Are there actually trains running then ? Hereabouts the whole of the network has closed down until Tuesday morning(you hope !) and we have been transferred to the "delights" of that slow bumpy hell - the "Rail Bus"
Mike has recorded those otherwise throwaway moments that make up so much of life. Life isn't edited or fast-forwarded to the interesting bits: that is the job of memory. All the characters he introduced have interesting lives to imagine from the snippets of information provided. Doesn't everyone wonder about their fellow passengers on train journeys?
Reminds me of a brilliant book called 'Pains on Trains' that I got some years ago. Full of every conceivable acts of irritation listed under such titles as 'The Lovers', 'The Nutter', 'The make-up artist', 'The Gaggle', 'The Broadsheet' etc..
It seems he doesn't travel by train much. I experience much, much worse each way Mon-Fri from Ashford To Charing cross. There you get the arrogant professional woman shouting loudly down her phone the entire way, punctuated only by the long tunnels en route, the boring twat banging on about some dreary domestic matter finishing up saying "....anyway i'll see you at the station in five minutes...." - what will they have to talk about during the long evening together now? The other completely boroing drivel from others who seem to have no understanding of what they are doing, about their privacy and about how most of us really don't care. Then there are the little chavs that usually get off at Paddock Wood having 'shared' their current musical favourites (awful American black warbling R&B- as it called) via their mobile phone internal speakers, which of course they aren't listening to, too busy talking nonsensical gyppo gibber/polari/ downtown LA rap speak punctuated by the word 'Fuck' at every opportunity, or my least favourites in the morning, they get on at Paddock Wood (a very shallow gene pool indeed) the gay couple, one a pleasant enough chap, dressed alike, the other a nasty little rotweiller suffering from short man syndrome and continuous disappointment in life, nasty, rude and aggressive. I loathe travelling by train, after a hard boring day the last thing you can do is relax. Great word verification for me - wynqe
People still use trains outside the weekly cattle truck runs to work?
Gosh, I thought they were for the great unwashed who don't have cars making their yearly outing to the seaside away from staffing the lower levels of dealing drugs, consuming benefit payments and mugging grannies.
I have a small mobile phone jamming device which I bought on ebay. It provides hours of amusement (and peace and quiet) just watching the faces of these bores when their vital lifeline is cut off. For the really desperate cold-turkey cases, I suggest that they go down to the end of the train where they will be nearer to the mobile phone mast. Works a treat!
Usually to complain about the worst 'music' is likely to lead to accusations of racism or a threat of violence.
As are any complaints of people sitting on one seat using the one opposite for their feet and the one next to them for a bag when the train is crowded.
He should try eight hours on a virgin train with no working toilets.
8 comments:
What was the point of that piece? We have all been on a train. What he describes is typical of a present-day train journey. Nothing funny or enlightening about his description.
I suppose next week he will write about Waiting at a Bus Stop, followed by the Supermarket Checkout Queue.
Are there actually trains running then ? Hereabouts the whole of the network has closed down until Tuesday morning(you hope !) and we have been transferred to the "delights" of that slow bumpy hell - the "Rail Bus"
Mike has recorded those otherwise throwaway moments that make up so much of life. Life isn't edited or fast-forwarded to the interesting bits: that is the job of memory. All the characters he introduced have interesting lives to imagine from the snippets of information provided.
Doesn't everyone wonder about their fellow passengers on train journeys?
Reminds me of a brilliant book called 'Pains on Trains' that I got some years ago. Full of every conceivable acts of irritation listed under such titles as 'The Lovers', 'The Nutter', 'The make-up artist', 'The Gaggle', 'The Broadsheet' etc..
It seems he doesn't travel by train much. I experience much, much worse each way Mon-Fri from Ashford To Charing cross.
There you get the arrogant professional woman shouting loudly down her phone the entire way, punctuated only by the long tunnels en route, the boring twat banging on about some dreary domestic matter finishing up saying "....anyway i'll see you at the station in five minutes...." - what will they have to talk about during the long evening together now? The other completely boroing drivel from others who seem to have no understanding of what they are doing, about their privacy and about how most of us really don't care.
Then there are the little chavs that usually get off at Paddock Wood having 'shared' their current musical favourites (awful American black warbling R&B- as it called) via their mobile phone internal speakers, which of course they aren't listening to, too busy talking nonsensical gyppo gibber/polari/ downtown LA rap speak punctuated by the word 'Fuck' at every opportunity, or my least favourites in the morning, they get on at Paddock Wood (a very shallow gene pool indeed) the gay couple, one a pleasant enough chap, dressed alike, the other a nasty little rotweiller suffering from short man syndrome and continuous disappointment in life, nasty, rude and aggressive.
I loathe travelling by train, after a hard boring day the last thing you can do is relax. Great word verification for me - wynqe
People still use trains outside the weekly cattle truck runs to work?
Gosh, I thought they were for the great unwashed who don't have cars making their yearly outing to the seaside away from staffing the lower levels of dealing drugs, consuming benefit payments and mugging grannies.
Learn something new every day...
I have a small mobile phone jamming device which I bought on ebay. It provides hours of amusement (and peace and quiet) just watching the faces of these bores when their vital lifeline is cut off. For the really desperate cold-turkey cases, I suggest that they go down to the end of the train where they will be nearer to the mobile phone mast. Works a treat!
One of the better train journies then.
Usually to complain about the worst 'music' is likely to lead to accusations of racism or a threat of violence.
As are any complaints of people sitting on one seat using the one opposite for their feet and the one next to them for a bag when the train is crowded.
He should try eight hours on a virgin train with no working toilets.
Post a Comment