One thing I did enjoy was trains. So, my parents often had to find the nearest attraction that was based on such transport. National Railway Museum, ride-along Thomas the Tank Engine, classic train collections; chances are if it travelled on rails, I'd visited it before the age of 5. Fuck knows why, maybe it was the sense of security that travelling by rails provided. Or maybe it was the fact my childhood hero was a bright blue train with a massive face. Although looking back, Thomas' face is absolutely terrifying.
So I've always had some sort of strange love affair with trains. I took a weird interest in the London Underground, concluding that trains travelling underground was either sorcery of the highest level or some sort of transport nirvana.
But just like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' marriage, all good love affairs have to come to an end. Whether the trains have been practising an offbeat 'religion' that centres around stories made up by a man with Aspergers syndrome is another matter. Naturally my divorce lawyers will be looking into it.
For the past two weeks I've started 'proper' commuting. This is where one rises out of bed at a time that in many cultures is considered illegal, gets onto a train packed tight with fat bankers and attempts to smile as your spleen is crushed as more and more desperate souls throw themselves onto the tight cylindrical radiator.
Many have tried commuting, only to come to the realisation that beating yourself round the face with a spiked club is infinitely more preferable than having to sit next to a man who smells like a vomit-covered ball of faeces. On many of the less-well maintained train carriages, these vomit-covered shit balls can be found dotted about on the floor, leading many commuters to wonder a) why has no one cleared them up and b) where on earth did this writer come up with the idea for such a dastardly concoction?
Alas, having spent what feels like half a millennia riding on these steel dragons, I've observed the British male and female transform into their neanderthal counterparts in front of my eyes. The life of a commuter is far more primitive than any Amazonian tribe, and were there not so many security cameras, I strongly believe commuters would descend into cannibalism so as to survive the two minute wait for the next tube.
So when they're not throwing spears and humming a series of intimidating chants, the commuter is staring at the regular human being with a look of complete abandonment. I'll admit, I've developed such a hatred of those not sprinting around the station that some of the thoughts running through my head is quite frankly, worrying. I fear that next time a person's Oyster Card is rejected at a ticket barrier, I'm going to spiral into such a fit of rage I might roundhouse kick them in the ear. A small punishment for delaying a busy human by seven seconds.
It's a wonder anyone gets any work done. I seem to spend my whole day thinking about trains and their prospective timetables. "If I leave now I can get this train," I might conclude at a totally unacceptable hour to leave work. "If the Central Line is delayed, how will I get home? Will other lines be busy, or will I need to ride on one those awful rickshaw things?" Travel-related stress is a killer, the BBC needs to consider creating a Sport Relief-style fundraising event to combat it.
In many ways, like the poorly constructed title of this post suggests, everyone is equal when it comes to trains and commuting. Normal social barriers are deconstructed as barrister and bricklayer combine to wedge themselves into any last remaining orifice of the train.
And that ladies and gentlemen, is where Britain's next social revolution is going to come from. At some point, people will stop tutting and start throwing bricks. Then we'll be able to say, it all started with a bright blue train with a creepy face.
#bullshit
