Be Excellent To Each Other

Heh, another couple of largely Tube-specific characters sprang to mind this morning:

"Mr Bobby B.O." - fat sweaty bastard with unfeasibly strong B.O., often complete with visibly sweaty pits - just the job for the evening crush. It's like being assaulted by a barrowful of rancid onions that someone's pissed on.

"Ms Garlic Breath" (or other halitosis, such as the I-haven't-brushed-my-teeth-for-a-week "mothballs") - similar to above but even worse. I can't stand bad breath and although a lover of garlic myself, intense curry-breath on the Tube come breakfast time makes my stomach do flip-flops.

"Mr I'm not moving for no twat" - able-bodied inhabitant of Priority Seating who, despite being literally hemmed in by pregnant women and old people, totally refuses to move and makes like he hasn't noticed, staring into whichever few square mm of 'unobserved real estate' is available.

I had one this morning who was a special combo. She was a forrin who talked loudly in forrin into her phone, she had loud clicky noises for texting and boom-tish headphones for music.

HOW?

Is it a spreadsheet?

The trains have numbers on the side.

This is not really about commuting as such, but slightly realted so I'll post it anyway.

Whatever happened to common courtesy? I’m sure it used to exist, but it seems to be on the way out. As an expat I used to think this was a German thing, so when I got my head bashed in by some twat with a rucksack on the train/tram I didn’t think it was unreasonable to expect something along the lines of “oh,sorry mate”. That would have been fine, but it never happened. The one time I dared to comment I got a death stare from a fellow passenger as if I were the baddy.

There seems to be some “cooler than thou” thing going on where having a perfectly reasonable moan about bad attitude and shit behaviour is worse than the actual incondsiderate behaviour. Another example, with neighbours, saying something like “oh, and I suppose you never listen to loud music, you smug “I know better” twat. Well, yes I do like loud music, which is why I have headphones so I don’t have to impose it on you. It’s really not rocket science.

I really like the idea of morality that says “try not to be more of a cunt than you absolutely have to be”. And as usual, I’ll regret posting this after crawling out of my pinball niche into the big bad world of real stuff.

*drum........................drum..............drum.drum.drum.DRUM.DRUMDRUM!!!!
*MrC: "Oh no, it's a Cave Troll!"

Actually, to be fair, your post is entirely fair comment IMO.

Only signed back in to see what pic you posted Cavey....don't get it TBH, but that might be just me living out of the UK for ages, my sense of humour is tainted....

If I was being picky, and I am, I would point out that said picture is of a Balrog and not a Cave Troll. But the point still stands.

It's probably more to do with the fact it was a shit joke on my part mate (at my expense btw), I wouldn't worry about it.

Picky is good, I'm picky, but Mr Stupid (that's me) is still none the wiser.

Very true, on both counts I'd have to say.

I love shit jokes, just didn't get that one....no matter, and I don't worry about anything on here, as you're all clearly lovely (most of the time)

If I were being pickier still, I'd like to point out that it's really strange that cave trolls are "taller than the hill trolls". This makes no sense. It'd be a lot more advantageous to be smaller in a cave and taller in a forest. Normally, troglodyte creatures are smaller than their outdoors counterparts, aren't they?

Well the Welsh are generally taller than English so I am not sure if that holds up...

Since I am Welsh I feel I can get away with the above sweeping statement, which obviously has zero scientific foundation.

Yes, yes they are, vertically at least.

More: http://wharferj.wordpress.com/2012/08/2 ... lla-signs/

The TFL boss has said that commuter trains are "shit".

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015 ... rains-shit

Also, it took me four hours to get home last night, after some genius tried to cross a train track while a train was coming at Hendon.

Doesn't hold back, does he?

Also, that's what you get for living in a field.

I totally reckon I could get to St. Pancras before you if we both left our houses at the same time.

Ooh, dunno. 10 minute walk to the northern line then 40 minutes on the tube. And your train is nine hours.

10 minute drive then 40 minutes on the train.

The nine hour one is only at nights - so we'll do it at 4am and see who wins

After July I'll have 24 hour tube!

We need to do the race before that, then

Also, if it's 4am I'm just getting in a cab

I have a new commute nemesis, but the most annoying thing is that he doesn't know he is.

Fat guy, gets on the train at the same stop as me, sits in the same carriage, spends all his time on his phone. All ok so far.
Gets off at my stop, walks through the train station, still glued to his phone the whole time, with no spatial awareness. The usual randomly speeding up, slowing down and meandering that all phone walkers do.
Waits for the same tube as me, in front of the carriage doors that I get on. Hasn't once looked up from his phone yet.
Tube arrives, he is standing in front of the doors... and he decides to wait for the next tube if it is slightly busy... but doesn't get out of the way, blocking the people behind him from getting on, ands the platform is pretty crowded and he is a big guy, so you can't exactly walk around him.

He has done it to me twice now, so I know to avoid standing behind him, but I hate him. I hate how oblivious he is to everything and everybody around him.

Also, why do people feel the need to rub their oyster card on the reader? I've never seen anyone rub their credit card when doing a contactless payment in a shop, what's so special about an oyster card reader that makes them do it?
If anything it seems to slow down the card being read, rather than speed it up, which is what I expect they think it does.

Also also, just get out of the way in fucking general, nobody cares that you need to have a last kiss with your boyfriend before you go your separate ways, certainly not the 200 people trying to squeeze past on the platform.

If someone is literally blocking the way I'd have zero qualms about physically pushing past them while 'muttering' "fuck sake" loud enough for them to hear. I can thoroughly recommend doing that instead of being quietly raging.

I'd be doing that a hundred times a day in London. It's just easier to quietly tut and seethe inside.

This would make me seethe. Nothing makes me quite so angry as the ones who just have the eyes glued to their book/kindle/phone/iPad Fucking Pro while they're walking along. They're effectively saying "Fuck all of you, I'm walking this way, it's up to you to ensure I don't crash into you."

I've failed to acquire a true bete noire on my commute, nobody has been truly egregious on a regular basis (apart from the train companies, natch. But that's too predictable and tedious to go into, though it has been truly, spectacularly awful since the timetable change. All the strikes were a walk in the park compared to this.)

Aren't you lot grumpy.

Less grumpy now i've vented.

Generally, I'm easy going. Aside from the guy who used to take the same bus as me on the way to school. But not a bath. Or a shower. Or a trip to the laundry shop. Ever.
Words cannot describe how vomit-inducingly awful it was when he got on the bus (And the time he sat infront of me he nearly got it all over his back. He robably still wouldn't have washed). Although you could tell he had before he came up to the top deck from smell alone and prepare accordingly. Once you knew.

Although on the commute back from Epsom there was a crazy old guy would would mutter under his breath how much he wanted to kill me. For the sin of being next to the door that dropped you closest to the station exit.

In other commuting news, my train home has 12 carriages, the first stop is half an hour into the journey.

People are always crowded into the vestibules, standing up in the last half of the train, with the rest of the seats all taken.

I'm currently sitting in a six seat section, all on my lonesome, because I walked down to the front of the train and got on the second carriage. Same thing happens every day.
I'm not complaining about my oodles of space, I just find it weird.

It's the fear of the doors closing without them getting on that makes that happen, I think.

People who try and avoid that by walking down the inside of the train though *shudder*

I get to the train about 18:05 and the closest carriages are already full to bursting. The train leaves at 18:13...

People are idiots, I guess?

I assumed it was idleness, not wanting to walk all the way down the platform, but surely if you are that idle you want to be sitting down for the journey?

Maybe they have never been this far down and think it is packed in every carriage, that would make sense!

On my train in the parts where there are three-seater bits people will tend to sit with a gap between them. Which is fine and understandable when the train isn't full, but after that point it's wasted seat. The weird thing is though that other people will then almost never dare to sit in these spare seats. It's incredibly rare that I need to stand during my commute because even at a point when the doorway and aisles are full of fucking idiots standing up there's usually loads of these spare seats; and I've got no qualms about pushing in between two fannies and sitting in one of them. I find it deeply odd: there's a spare seat, why stand instead of sitting in it? People are fucking weird.

If no-one else does it... maybe you're the weird one

Statistically it seems I am. Behaviourally though I'd argue they are.

If all the two-person seats in a carriage have one spare seat each, I will pick the one with a bag on it.

100%

Or if they're sitting in the aisle with a spare window seat.

Though I was thinking about Trooper's unaware nemesis on this morning's commute. What if I am unwittingly someone's hated nemesis? What have I been doing wrong? I found myself getting weirdly wound up about this hypothetical antagonist.

Or people want to stand next to the door that lets them off by their relevant station exit.

I generally go and stand in the carriage that will drop me off exactly at the right point to swiftly swan off out of the station.

That said, I don’t think any of the carriages on my train are at all empty.

Good point, but it's a 30 minute journey, would you stand for half an hour, just to get out the station 30 seconds faster?

Last time I came back to the UK after a long break, I sat in one of those middle seats on the One/Anglia service out to Hertfordshire. Bloke next to me wasn't happy, he spent the next 15 minutes with his elbow in my side. He wasn't especially big, but perhaps felt the middle was his. I was too culture-shocked to say or do anything - nothing remotely comparable had happened to me anywhere else. After Heathrow tube station and blank-faced people in everyone's way as we tried to get in, it was quite the come-down welcome back.

I had a minor win, mind. At one point I glanced at him and he immediately piped up with a leer, and "alright?" I smiled at him and said "yeah, just fine, thanks".

But still, those 3-seats are just on the thin side of big enough to actually seat 3.

I nearly always sit in the aisle seat with the space by the window, I put my bag on that seat (cleaner than the floor) so if I fall asleep, it's harder for someone to try and steal it or get anything from it. It's also easier to get something out of the bag if I need to.

If the bus/train is busy I'll move the bag to between my feet, and if someone needs to sit next to me, they can have the window seat and I'll keep the aisle seat.

Much rather that, than be hemmed in by them. I also try and sit on the right side, so I can stretch my left leg into the aisle if I need to, as that knee often gets twitchy.