Something horrible happened to me this morning. My little poddy froze on me just as I was leaving for work. No time to stop to reset it as I was determined to be on time for once; on time for a train that was first delayed and then cancelled.
The trauma of losing poddy for the day meant that I had to face the hour and a half or so it takes me to get from play door to work door without being cushioned from the inanity of my commute by some pleasant tunes. I'll say now that I'm not a great commuting reader unless I'm on a long journey. I do pick up the Metro on the way in and the London Paper on the way out but only for the Sudokus and the rest of the paper I can pretty much finish within three station stops. Reading the free papers in the evening isn't really a great idea because they tend to suck the intelligence from you, especially the London Lite which is the literary equivalent of used toilet paper, although they proudly proclaim that the shit doesn't come off in your hands.
Commuting is one of those things many of us have to do. Dictionary.com defines the word commute as "to travel regularly over some distance, as from a suburb into a city and back". As far as I'm concerned the word commute simply means getting to work. If you have a job that's not at home then you commute, even if it's next door. You're just lucky you don't have far to go.
I don't mind commuting particularly. I get a train, a tube and then walk. It's some time to rest before work, more so if I can mostly cut the world out and listen to some Neil Young. Yeah, the trains are packed, yeah the tubes are packed, yeah the streets are filled with people. That's life in the big city folks, can't go anywhere these days for people. And you pay handsomly for the pleasure. I'm a pretty chilled out human being for the most part and I see no reason why commuting needs to be any more painful or tedious than the travel companies already make it.
And yet somehow, large groups of over-dressed simians manage to rile me pretty much most days, even with the anaesthetizing effects of poddy. So here are my top ten commuting tips to make life better for everyone around you.
1) Escalators are divided with an invisible line neatly down the middle, walkers on the left, standing folks on the right. DO NOT FUCKING STAND ON THE LEFT OF AN ESCALATOR. EVER. If you do, then don't look so surprised when someone tries to elbow past you. Or when one day they push you down the stairs into the wheelchair that'll be waiting for your paraplegic form. This extends to bags. If you have a giant bag, turn it sideways, stand behind it, in front of it; NOT BESIDE IT.
2) If you have managed to walk up or down that magical left hand side of the moving staircase of idiocy, when you get to the end. DONT FUCKING STOP. Really, keep walking right off the end and on to wherever you're going next. If you stop the person behind you stops. And the person behind them and them and them etc etc until everything grinds to a standstill and doesn't start again till after rush hour has finished.
3) After exiting any escalator, trainbustube door, station entrance / exit, remember that you still have somewhere to go unless you're collecting tickets. Stopping in this precise location will block the way for the people behind you. Step neatly to one side, fine a space with a little room to breath that's not in a noticeably public thoroughfare and then pull your map / mobile phone out. If you persist in obstructing the flow of progress one day you will be stamped on in a most righteous manner.
4) Whilst moving across any surface, look where you are going. That way you'll avoid bumping into people or getting run over by a bus even though you probably richly deserve it.
5) Keep your poddy or alternatively branded MP3 player to a level where if I'm sitting three seats behind you I can't actually hear the song lyrics. Especially if you're playing the kind of music that even a Capital Radio DJ would deem to be cheesy shite.
6) If you're travelling on public transport at certain times of day it's likely to be busy. It's like that every day, don't be surprised. Don't pull faces, don't make snide comments, no one cares, and no one wants to be reminded that animals on the way to a slaughter house are treated better.
7) If you're on a tube or train and it's busy, remember that the bits down the middle, between the rows of seats are often devoid of life and therefore make for additional room to stand and breathe. If you continue to cram into the gap opposite the doors and don't move down the carriage it gets really busy and it's pretty hard to get in or out easily. I promise you you won't miss your stop. I often stand in the corridor, often by myself and I've never missed a stop yet.
8) An extension of 7 is that if you do have enough brains to move down the corridor, don't stop after one step, keep those synapses flowing. Stopping so soon doesn't help. It blocks the rest of the way. And when you're there, try to minimize the amount of space you're taking up. Stand side on, everyone wants to get home and making room for one more will make someone else a little happier that they don't have to wait another ten minutes for the next every three minutes Northern line train.
9) The driver of your vehicle wants an easy a life as you and 99.99 recurring % of any delays or problems are unlikely to be their fault. Do not take your anger out on them, that's extremely pathetic and not a little cowardly. It'll also slow down yours and our journey. If you're really that pissed off with the way things are then write to your MP, the Queen, the Pope, God, Satan, Ken Livingstone, take to the streets, organise a mass stay-at-home or find out where the MD of the bus / train company lives and throw paint at their windows. Do something useful.
10) You are a complex piece or organic engineering, surrounded by many other complex pieces of organic engineering. Some of them may be broken, there's not much you can do about that, try and avoid at all possible costs. Chances are the rest just want to get to work and home again as comfortably as possible. Remember that. Do unto them as you would have done to you. Show a little respect. Smile gently. Be nice. Chill the fuck out. Be human. THINK.
Poddy's fixed now.
Watching (and crying from) Channel 4's The Not Dead
1 comment:
top top ten.
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