The british attitude to Public transport
I was in the rush hour commute madness that was the 7.46am Kennington to Old street tube. Around about Borough a young couple got on the train and totally bucked the sombre mood by being loud and chatty. You could sense the uncomfortable vibe in the carriage spreading as we moved off from the station. I glanced across at the people opposite me and gave them a knowing look as if to say 'This is totally unacceptable, don't you think!'. Well I say glance, but it was more like me doffing my head in their direction, but being very careful not to make eye contact with anyone as that is clearly not acceptable (unless you are travelling back from the pub after last orders).

Who were these miscreants flouting the rules of the underground at this hour? Have they no shame? By London Bridge the atmosphere in the carraige was very tense indeed as these wittering buffoons carried on their senseless chatter in some foreign language. I maintained my low steely glare and spotted a chav-like figure opposite me mouth the words 'Why don't you f*ck off back to your own country'. For once I was in agreement with a chav and the sense of unity I felt was perhaps akin to the feeling Ashley Cole felt when Cheryl came home with the 'Mrs Cole' tattoo on her neck.

I wasn't prepared for what happened next and it totally threw me for the rest of the day. The young man leaned over to me as we arrived at Bank tube and asked me if this is where you change for the central line. He Spoke to a stranger on the tube!! The enormity of the situation was not lost on the rest of carriage. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a few old street regulars shuffle off the train and down the platform to wait for the next train rather than suffer the ignominy of being spoken to by a stranger on the tube - and a foreign one at that.

I gathered my thoughts & tried to quell the overriding emotions that lay within. Do I school him in the etiquette of the tube by smashing him in the face with my blackberry? Should I shove his head into a pole? What if I kick him to the ground and stuff a copy of the metro into his mouth until he can't breath? Or perhaps I could rally the troops that had witnessed my public humiliation and mete out a public flogging of this fool using all the implements we had to hand in the carriage. My eyes scanned the surrounding area and I noticed laptop bags, a folding bicycle, handbags, a small cage with an unidentified animal & finally a man carrying a miniature glass donkey. A miniature glass donkey? Yes, well no time for reason now brain, we must press on with the plan.

BEEP BEEP BEEP....the doors were closing. Again he asked. This time I didn't flinch. My brain had done all the thinking it needed to do.

'yes', I replied. Immediately I felt a feeling of hopeless empathy for my own uselessness at the handling of the situation. I could feel eyes boring into my skull as I sat there forlorn and lost in a sea conformity that had just taken me as it's first victim of the day.

That traumatic day still haunts me...
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Thu 29 May 2008, 17:45, 2 replies)

When myself and Mrs Pobblepop go to London, we are deliberately smiley, chatty and laughy on the underground because it's so at odds with the rest of the humans. I can't stand unwritten social rules of behaviour and will mess around at every opportunity to wind people up, because it's their fucking problem, not ours.
( Brandy_Bumwinkle, Thu 29 May 2008, 17:58, closed)

Very funny.
You should have employed the glass donkey, however. It's the only way they'll learn.
( Moey, Thu 29 May 2008, 18:42, closed)