Sunday, August 27, 2006

Trains

Hello hello to The Mighty Evans and Caitlin (who is of course equally mighty), with whom I shared noodles and a viewing of excellent superhero spoof 'Mystery Men' last night. Both TME and EMC are off to China next week, and judging by the brochure that just turned up from their travel company promising to show them the best places for 'steamed dumpings', they are due to have a fine old time.

The train journey up was very odd, the highlight being a elderly man who seemed to have based his schtick on Jimmy Saville (long white hair, equally white tracksuit, jewelry) only, and this is the clever bit, being just that little bit creepier. Parents were dragging their children away from him at one point. Best quote: 'I've been on planes! I've seen things you wouldn't believe!.'

Then a family sat opposite me with their dog, which was very small, and wearing some kind of stripey t-shirt over dungarees affair. I was sorely tempted to take a photo for posterity, but the mum (florid, emotional) might have mistaken my need to catalogue her crime for some kind of endorsement of her behaviour, and then I would have had to shout 'NO MADAM, YOU HAVE HUMILIATED AN INNOCENT CHILD OF NATURE AND SOME DAY I MEAN TO SEE YOU HANG!'.

The dog itself seemed quite sweet-tempered though. I accidently (but gently) brushed its tail with my foot as I moved my rucksack closer to me to keep it away from the madness, and it merely looked round and sighed a little, as though to say really, what is one more insult against so many?

Then a girl got on and listened to some kind of thumpy-tisk dance music very loudly on her walkman, then her friend rang on a mobile (the ring-tone was, I think, something by Mariah Carey') and she said 'yeah babes' over and over again. As I was sitting in the first class carriage I joined my fellow passengers (the not-mad ones) in frowning as hard as I could to summon the ticket man, who would surely dispatch her to her appropriate station asap. Only when he came along, it turned out she had purchased a cheap ticket upgrade what with it being the weekend, and I sighed and tutted at a system that would allow the breaking-down of classes in such an uncalled-for and Bolshevic fashion, then realised that was exactly what I'd done.


Don't stop commenting on the previous ad-blog post by the way, I want to put all the comments up as another post at some point.

13 comments:

realdoc said...

Close encounters with Joe Public can be horrible but count yourself lucky you just had to share a train carriage, not examine their nether regions.

Anonymous said...

That poor be-dungareed pup... as sick as I am, I don't think I could dress my cat up.

...my KITTEN, on the other hand, is a different matter. I think she'd suit the beret and boots combo.

Word of the Post: "tgwkai", which reminds me of my new hobby: learning Disney songs in different languages. Ah - I love the Japanese versions, I do.

SAL said...

Can I just say that I went to the Chinese opera when I was there last year where I was treated to a feast of 36 varieties of dumpling. They're really not as good as they're cracked up to be. Oh apart from the ones shaped like Pandas. (Obviously)

Chromatin said...

"Où oh où oh où est mon corbeau?"

Erm, in the underground, eating the escalator, saying 'nevermore' perhaps?

Not strictly relevant to the post at hand but it has been on my mind for a week or two.

So if you have ads, will they be for handsome leather 'man-bags'?

Anonymous said...

Maybe that's the same Jimmy Saville clone who used to stand by the Oval station news stand wearing shorts in the middle of winter. Is he still there?

Rose said...

Jimmy Saville licked my friend's face.
And my ringtone is the Green Wing theme tune.

I don't think I meant to tell you either of those things, but there we go.

Hamilton's Brain said...

anonymous - I'll check tomorrow...

rose - I once smelt Edwyn Collins1, and my ringtone is Party Fears Two as covered by The Divine Comedy.

1 Oh, and chuffed at Sarah Jane Smith.

Word Verification: nmebyrce - the leading competitor of melodymakervsitapro.

patroclus said...

What did Edwyn Collins smell of?

Hamilton's Brain said...

Salt & Vinegar.

Anonymous said...

Hamilton I've been waiting all this time to find out if J Saville was still there standing at the Oval? Did you look?

Anyone remember his 'Clunk Click Every Trip' TV belt-up ad catch phrase (showing my age here). At the time I thought he said 'Plum cake every trip' until my mum dragged me off to get my ears syringed...

Hamilton's Brain said...

My apologies. The black dog has been with me most lunchtimes of late. If I came across a Savillike in that mood, all heck would break loose.

Anonymous said...

OK

BiScUiTs said...

People on trains look really weird don't they? I thought it was just me who thought that but obviously not. It's like entering some sort of odd world.