I’ve been commuting into London on a daily basis for the last three years. No matter the method used, it's a painful journey and takes a couple of hours each way. For a while I took the train, until I succumbed to a car/bus combination. Below are the many reasons why...
While the drive to the train station and subsequent train journey (which is followed by a stint on an underground train) can be tiring, it is not the worst aspect of the trip. I’ve written about my disdain for public transport before but that was before I’d discovered a whole host of new irritations which I’m delighted to regale you with.
So, what hacks me off? Oh, where do I begin? In no particular order:
People lacking any kind of spatial awareness should be punished for this by being pushed off a platform. It seems quite fitting. If I am walking alongside someone, in the same direction, and they suddenly veer across my path then my shoving them in front of a speeding locomotive should be viewed as self-defence. It’s logical.
Umbrellas are designed to keep you dry in the rain, not to be used as some kind of medieval battlefield weapon to clear a space around you with the clear intention of blinding people.
Lack of personal space. Please don’t lean against me, continually brush against me, or rest your arm against mine when sitting next to me. Definitely don’t sit so that your leg is touching mine. I shuffled into the corner of a seat on the train recently, leaning towards the window. The guy next to me took it as an invitation to spread out further. No!
If you need wheels on your laptop bag then you should exercise more, carry less crap or get a laptop which wasn’t made in 1991. These people drag their bags a few feet behind them, completely oblivious to the carnage they cause when they zig-zag across a busy platform, leaving a trail of commuters sent sprawling in their wake. I’ve considered kicking the things over (when they dart across my path) but I figure that a 1991 Dell laptop which is heavy enough to require wheels is probably more than a match for the bones in my foot.
I understand better than most why someone would deploy their bag on the empty seat next to them. They don’t want to sit next to anyone, I get it; me neither. However, when the train is rammed to capacity don’t look at me like I just shot your dog and burned your house down when I ask you to move it. Alternatively, show me that you bought two tickets for your journey.
Bicycles can be great and I understand why people take them on the train. I have no issue with that. This one’s less of an annoyance and more one of complete bewilderment. Can someone tell me why these cyclists, who are commuting to a desk job, are geared up like they’re about to embark on a particularly gruelling stage of the Tour de France? They’re cycling to work – they don’t need to be fully geared up in so much Lycra that they look like a walking advert for a fetish convention. (Maybe that’s where they’re going?) Do the improved aerodynamics allow them to arrive at their desk three seconds earlier? Pointless. Also, they certainly don’t need all the additional bum bags and enough kit to survive a trekking expedition across the Himalayas.
During winter it’s especially amusing to watch the light shows. It’s like a cycling commuter competition: “I notice you only have one rear light on the back of your five-gear Halford’s special, you amateur. I have more flashing lights attached to me and my bike than the space craft from Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.
On the subject of bemusing sights, I'd like to ask the women wearing smart business attire/suits why they wear completely mismatched trainers on their commute. Surely picking some shoes to wear which don't cripple your feet would alleviate the need to change. As for the men doing it, pack it in. You look stupid.
I’ve nothing against a train’s designated quiet carriage; in fact I love the idea. To be fair, 90% of the people who normally populate them are fine too (if they’re not sitting next to me). However, there are always (and I mean always) one or two people who are either blind, ignorant, oblivious or a combination of all three. Maybe the “Quiet Carriage” signs need to be written three times their current size in flashing neon letters. How can someone not think it’s odd when they sit chatting to their friend while the other forty people in the carriage glare at them in stony silence, their morning snoozes interrupted? Yes, challenge them, enquire whether they’re illiterate etc. but I tell you now, be prepared for the wave of indignation which you’ll receive in return.
Noise was always going to be an issue for me (and I’ve written about my misophonia elsewhere). It’s not as bad as you might think, but there are some irritations. People who eat noisily should be ejected from the train (at full speed… into a tree). People who whistle the letter ‘s’ when they talk should have their face cocooned in gaffer tape and anyone with a newspaper should be forced to translate it into Mandarin once they’ve finished reading it. The latter one is really bugs me. I’m fairly certain that I often commute with a bunch of finalists from the Newspaper Rustling World Championships. It should not take twenty seconds to turn a bloody page and it definitely shouldn’t occur at five second intervals. If you’re flicking through it so vigorously because you can’t read the big words, I suggest something with more pictures or, preferably, a different train. The same is true with food containers: only someone with an IQ lower than a deckchair and the dexterity of a hippo needs an eternity of rustling in order to fish out a single crisp from the bag.
Snoring should (and does) bother me immensely but I try to rein in my rage because I’m positive that I’ve done it on a train at some point. Exactly the same is true when the person sitting next to me shares the upper frequencies of whatever music’s playing through their headphones. After all, I might complain about a lot, but I try not to be a hypocrite while I’m doing it…
Of course, the obvious answer to all of this is that I should drive. Unfortunately that process is more time consuming and, marginally, more expensive. Moreover, I’d still have to deal with moronic members of the public, albeit in a slightly more detached environment (and I have already ranted about people’s driving standards). Clearly I need find a way to work from home, where the commute is roughly twenty seconds and the only traffic is likely to be my daughter frantically searching for teddy or my wife verbalising her confusion as to why she’s always late (for the four hundredth time). That way the only numpty I’d have to encounter is my kamikaze 3-year old son and I’m beginning to think that even he is less selfish than the average commuter.
