Observations From A Mid-Morning Train

Today I caught a train back home just before 11.00. It hardly seemed worth going into work for little more than an hour and a half, but sometimes you just have to. Travelling outside the peak period is something of a luxury, and it's nice to be able to board a fairly empty train and get the pick of the seats. This train admittedly was busier than other off-peak journeys I've made recently, but it was still reasonably quiet.

As it was still 'work time', my trusty mobile and BlackBerry were within easy reach, and I needed to return a couple of calls that had come through when I was on the Underground. One of these was from my manager, a huge personality with an even larger voice, and I proceeded to call him back. It was just a general catch up on a few things and a bit of a natter about our respective home lives. He's one of those rare managers I've only had the privilege of working with twice in my career that you can talk to as a mate and also as more of a colleague than employee.

Anyway, he and I were talking when a middle-aged couple boarded the still-empty train, and, just inside the sliding doors, stood there prevaricating - quite rambunctiously - as to whether they should take a seat in the carriage I was in, or whether they should head through the train to another carriage toward the rear of the train; such indecision would result in a serious castigation from we impatient commuters, but with it being so quiet there was no-one uptight enough to administer such a reprimand. I wish someone had though.

So, after about 600 years they chose the seats in front of mine, and proceeded to attempt a resolution to their next Big Dilemma - who was going to sit next to the window? As if it matters! They weren't kids, who I can imagine would probably fight to the death over who should have the marginally greater honour of a window seat, or passengers on an airline where the windows are so small that the passenger next to the window is the only one who gets the view (of what? Clouds? Don't see many of those generally, do you?); these are big glass train windows and everyone can see the things whizzing by, so quite why I had to listen to their indecisive pondering I don't know.

After an eternity, the lady of the couple elected to take the window while the man scratched his head wondering whether their miniscule suitcase a) would fit on the glass luggage rack above the seats and b) whether the rack would be strong enough. Honestly, naïve tourist travellers with their cheap day return tickets, they are a funny bunch. Of course the bag did fit and of course the glass didn't smash under the unsubstantial weight of the gentleman's case.

Now all settled, the man flopped down into his aisle seat, and the couple proceeded to have the very commonly-heard exchange of near-simultaneous sighs and expressions along the lines of 'Phew, glad we made it,' and 'I thought we weren't going to make it in time,' even though the train wasn't due to depart for a further ten minutes; with such novice traveller behaviour abounding, I was sorely tempted to point out that rushing for a train can be avoided by simply leaving earlier, but instead I sat there smugly reflecting on my comparative superiority as a regular train user.

So there they both are, comfortable in their seats, when the lady turns to her husband and asks whether he wouldn't mind reaching up and grabbing the day's newspapers from the front pocket of the case. And so, up he goes again, his head glancing off the luggage rack as he does so, even though he has spent the last few minutes fixedly staring up at the shelf with his neck craned to see if the glass is likely to shatter, down comes the bag, out come the papers - one is not surprised to see the Daily Mail - and up goes the bag again.

Now, though I am a mere male, I'm pretty adept at multitasking while talking on the phone, and so I was quite competently chatting to Sean whilst observing the couple run through their comedic inept traveller routine. I'm a quietly spoken individual, often to the frustration of others, and whilst I may naturally talk a little louder than usual on a mobile, it's hardly megaphone-esque. 'I'll drop you an email about the November conference,' I said, referring to the outputs from the morning's meeting. And with that, the woman whipped her head around and literally spat out a sharp retort.

'Looks like we're having a business meeting then!'

I was genuinely dumbstruck by this. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. Time seemed to slow down to a treacle-esque pace, my paralysed mouth hanging open like Munch's Scream with fear replaced by befuddlement.

'You still there?' said Sean into my ear, suddenly shaking me out of my frozen state. As I responded and the conversation continued, the woman, who had by this time snapped her head forward again and began coughing - and it was a fraudulent cough of the most transparent variety, mark my words - intermittently so as to put me off talking. I very quickly hung up, fully intending to point out that this was not one of the mobile-free carriages one often has on longer-distance trains, that I wasn't talking exceptionally loudly and most of all that they could see I was on the phone when they boarded the train, so they could easily have found somewhere else to sit.

But of course, Britishness prevailed and I elected to say nothing, noting that the husband was wearing a gold stud in his left earlobe, thereby subtly conveying that he was a hard bastard who shouldn't be crossed. Even though he was about sixty. Something about her comment just made me want to do a very cartoon-esque thing and retract my head into my chest to prevent my extreme embarrassment from being made public.

With my phone set to silent and resolutely ignored for the remainder of the journey, I began to ruminate on what had just happened; meanwhile, the lady and her husband began a conversation chiefly centred around what they were reading in the papers - the McCartney divorce, immigration ('Look at this picture,' she said, stabbing the Mail with a garishly-painted red fingertip. 'They're all bloody African!') and other anthropological delights. Occasionally one of the three other suits around them would begin a business conversation, and the couple would begin a ridiculous, co-ordinated routine that went a bit like this: the two would look at one another, shrug and laugh the kind of laugh that a Bond villain would be proud of if he'd been raised in suburban Northamptonshire instead of some inner-city gangland drama, then they would take turns to cough in the manner I have already described above in order to not-too-subtly point out that they were both listening and unimpressed by the business conversation being held in adjacent seats.

Which, in a round about sort of way, leads me to my thought-provoking enquiry; why is it that a conversation on a mobile is considered more annoying than a conversation where both parties are actually present? The couple were talking at precisely the same level as the guys on their phones, in fact I would suggest at an even louder volume, and yet they deemed themselves to be behaving with a more acceptable etiquette despite holding a conversation which would have offended anyone within earshot that didn't hold court to such right-wing opinions. Would I therefore be within my rights to ask them to pipe the hell down, or would this in fact be considered an unfair infringement on their civil rights?

At least I can take some comfort in the fact that they were at least as much the embarrassed Brits - content to moan but too scared to actually do anything - as I was, preferring to make half-whispered swipes and fairly innocuous coughing noises than actually saying something. Much as I did later the same day on a train to Wales where someone was sat in my allocated seat - my name and destination clearly labelled for all, including the fat old bird who thought it was clearly free, to see - and instead of saying something (goodness, no) had to find a spare seat elsewhere, muttering under my breath in case she should hear.

Apparently, according to today's papers as a nation we are scared of teenagers, presumably because we are scared of getting stabbed - I read elsewhere that something like a third of all kids have taken a knife to school - or mugged, or in some parts of Britain, actually taking a bullet; put up or shot up, indeed. Not that the dizzy old cow in front of me with her Mrs Bucket-style barnet would have been the type to pack a pistol. That might be some way off yet.

This wasn't intended to come off like a social commentary, and so before we get too bogged-down in politics and the state of the nation, I will leave you with this more lightweight dilemma - how are you supposed to pee on a tilting train without compromising your masculinity and resorting to sitting down, something the average bloke hasn't done since potty training?