It's A Commuter Thing You Know

It is the wonders of modern technology that are allowing me (a little like Lemon Pillows) to compose this on the train. Not only do I find something terribly exciting about looking so professional as to have a little laptop to entertain me on the train, but I feel even better when I can look pensive as if I have something important to be typing. In reality I’m typing this.

I do like trains, because while they can be super boring, there is something terribly ‘suffering artist’ like about travelling by public transport. Of course, now that they have replaced Northern Ireland’s old trains with swish new ones, it doesn’t have quite the same kudos, but there is still that element of people-watching lonely-people people-watching.

In today’s train I have an old woman who keeps smiling a bit disturbingly at me. She has also started talking to herself, about what I’m not fully sure. She has a pleated skirt, a blue rinse and a bag worthy of Mary Poppins. (I was going to say Maria from the “Sound of Music”, but I can’t remember if nuns are allowed bags. Surely that is vanity?)

Also in this carriage is a slightly hairy, tobacco smelling, aging rocker type. He is now shouting ‘Did I waken ye?’ into his oversized mobile phone. I can’t make out the rest of his conversation. I am avoiding looking at him.

That is, so far at least, all the company I have. It would appear everyone else has the sense to drive. I am beginning to wish I brought my personal alarm with me. I’m sure aforementioned old woman has one somewhere in her bag.

One of the perks of our new posh trains, is that there is a voice to tell the dumb people which station is theirs. I can’t help feel that the person who recorded these voices was having a bit of a laugh, because, as each station passes, her voice appears to get all the more seductive. Given present company, there is no need for this.

I shall now meander off into other computer tasks. This is stopping anyone from engaging in conversation with me.

Only another 9 stations to go.