.
it was early july a couple of years ago and i got on a bus to find some knob taking up 2 seats with a big rucksack. i asked him to move it and the dickhead wouldnt so i had to fucking stand. atleast he got what was coming to him.

p.s bindun??
(PaulGadd -, Fri 30 May 2008, 21:37, 5 replies)

The wife
doesn't do travel by road particularly well, unless she's driving (in which case I don't do it particularly well...). Her arch nemesis is the roundabout and anyone who has ever travelled between Oxford and Cambridge by National Express will know there are thousands of them. Towards the end of one journey, nearing Oxford, the contents of her stomach stirred up into an explosive, fizzing mix, she chundered into the lap of the poor chap sitting next to her. All over his notes for an admissions interview.

Oh well, it was only Oxford.
(Dr. Scambolic, Fri 30 May 2008, 21:06, Reply)

People with reserved seat train tickets:
Why do they still insist in sitting in their reserved seat even when the carriage is virtually empty?
Secondly; whats wrong with people these days? Nobody wants to talk to each other anymore, just keep stuck in their own selfish little world. Not that I go round bothering people, but just an observation. I blame consumerism and society!
Thirdly; Why do do business people think its their right to sprawl their work/company laptop across a table?
Fouthly; When you try to get off a train why do people on the platform thrust themsleves into the breach like a marauding army before you have the chance to set foot upon firm ground? Do they think there's a prize for whoever gets the 'best seats'?

Well I've had my say at least.
(Super Saladin Theres tiberium growing in my garden!, Fri 30 May 2008, 20:59, 2 replies)

Stinky old bloke
Happened not a few hours earlier today... catching the bus home, there's an empty seat besides me as a dishevelled old geezer gets on, so I shuffle around a bit, move my bag, you know, just making enough of a distraction so he sits elsewhere. Which is in front of me- with an open window in front of him. The draught helpfully wafts the stench of stale piss backwards, right into my face. It was so strong it was as good as pure ammonia.

The poor girl who he sat by faced the window for the entire journey but got off a stop before me. I'm sure she got off and waited for the next bus, looking a bit green. Now that's pretty scummy, so someone has to leave the bus to get away from you.
(randomstupidname would really like this signature field to be bigge, Fri 30 May 2008, 20:47, Reply)

Not traumatic for me as such but I nearly gave myself a hernia laughing.
Sheffield gets a lot of bad press regarding its public transport system. To be fair as if you don't live on the tramline you're stuck with First (the worst) Buses.

Being fortunate enough to live slap bang in the middle of the City Centre I am able to catch trams to just about anywhere that I may need to be.

Right so having begun the trip out towards the cinema just outside the City Centre I am happily sat upon the tram as we pass through the outskirts of Sheffield. As the Tram arrives at the Attercliffe stop for whatever reason the driver has pushed the wrong button in the cab and both sets of doors have opened. Nothing overly fascinating in that. My attention is drawn away from the extra set of open doors to an elderly lady in her mobility scooter. The tram platform and the entrance to the tram are about level, occasionally there is a lip of a couple of inches.

As the lady is trying to get the scooter on to the tram she is hitting the lip. The conductor makes his way down and utters the immortal line.

"Jus' rev it me duck, you'll be reet"

She follows these instructions with aplomb. Backing the scooter up about ten feet. She hits the accelerate and becomes a blur. She hits the little lip buggy bounces up into the tram. Sadly she didn't apply the brakes as quickly and promptly shot out the (mistakenly) open doors opposite landing on the opposite side of the track and crashing into the platform.

To this day it is probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

The conductors reaction was just as funny. After looking through the doors to make she was ok, which she was, he simply called after nher

"Look here Penelope Pitstop, this is a tram stop not the start line in Wacky Races"

I have never had the misfortune to simultaneously wet myself and soil myself but i was pretty fucking close that day.






Length she went a good six feet past the tram before she landed.
(kickstandrich last had sex with your mum/sister/wife/daughter on, Fri 30 May 2008, 20:42, 5 replies)

Train fun
Due to my Capri having a hissy fit and spitting the contents of it's sump everywhere, I once had to get the train from Banbury (where I lived) to Liverpool (where Mrs. Scouserspet lived). The journey from Banbury to Brum was uneventful, but things took an iritating twist when I got on the Brum to Liverpool train. It was packed and I ended up sat opposite some cockney wanker who had a then very much novelty mobile phone, which was about the size of an African nation that you're sure you've heard Bob Geldof talk about once, or something, maybe they're at war with someone, you know the place, got lots of Z's in the name. Anyway, he was yakking away on this thing, seemingly only ever saying "Yeah, nice one bruv!" in an increasingly annoying manner.

This was really getting on my tits, I was tempted to just chin him, but there would probably be repercusions. While I was plotting his doom in my head, I spotted the "buffet trolley" (do they still have those? I haven't taken the train anywhere since I stopped being poor) making it's way down the aisle.

Then the plan occurred.

Did I mention me a cockney wideboy were in the aisle seats? Well we were. So what I started doing was staring intently up the cariage. At first I looked puzzled, then slightly disgusted, finally switching to really quite ammused. After me staring at nothing and pulling faces for a good two minutes, wockney canker's curriosity gets the better of him and, with perfect timing, he sticks his head into the aisle to look up the carriage, just in time to get a trolley to the face.

I did laugh.
(ScousersPet, Fri 30 May 2008, 20:29, Reply)

Left Luggage
Despite being a self-centred and grouchy sort of chap, I used to acknowledge freely that the train companies were doing a fair bit to make travel easier for myself and my spiffy blue wheelchair.

Note the past tense. This all changed last December, when (after both ringing ahead, and altering the train crew to the fact I'd need a ramp) I was left on the platform for 2 hours in London because the train I'd booked to travel on couldn't find foom for me. Finally, I got on a train, bound for Newark, and figured that I was pretty much sorted.

Train arrives in Newark on time. Doors open. No-one arrives to help. I sit wondering whether to chance a desperate leap for freedom. Too late: doors close, and the train moves on.

With great restraint, I point out to the conductor that he and his company are, in fact, elegantly kidnapping me. He - with commendable efficiency - radios ahead to Doncaster and arranges for a taxi to take me home.

Which crashes. 5 miles from my destination.

A short visit to the NHS to have bits of windscreen removed from my face, and I make it home 2 days late.

Next time, I'll just tie the chair to the back of a lorry and enjoy the ride.
(incongruous, Fri 30 May 2008, 20:10, 1 reply)

Toe trauma
I fell asleep on a nighttime flight from Zürich to Bombay, and when I woke up, my wife was nowhere to be found. (This is before we were even dating, but that's not relevant to the story). The flight was fairly empty, so I glanced around at the nearby seats and found that she had moved one row up, and across the aisle. I stretched my leg out, and tapped her on the shoulder with my big toe. At that moment, I looked up and saw her walking down the aisle towards me, returning from the lav. Cartoon style back-and-forth of the head...if...she's walking down the aisle...then...who did I just tap with my toe...in the middle of the night...on a flight to a place where feet are considered quite offensive?

The old Indian woman who I had woken was not pleased.

Surprisingly, though, my wife has never given me the slightest bit of grief for mistaking an old woman for her.
(chase, Fri 30 May 2008, 19:35, Reply)

When I lived out of town
I used to travel by bus for 45 minutes each way to work every day. Oh, the excitement when the old "Eastern Scottish" introduced an Express service. Which missed a few stops and a bus station, cutting about 5 minutes off the journey. Woo and indeed hoo.

Some of the buses were incredibly old but every now and then you got a new one. They had this weird design where the steps went up and over the driver's head, coming out at the very front of the bus. This meant a row of three single seats on the left. No-one ever sat there unless the bus was full.

One night, my friend and I were going home rather later than normal, having partaken of a few sweet sherries to celebrate the end of the week. Oh alright, then, the best part of a bottle of bacardi. Chased down with a chippy. As you do.

The last bus home, always an adventure, even if it did leave the centre of town at a scandalously early 10:30pm. There were no night buses, so the alternative was £20 in a taxi. Or a drunken phone call to my big brother at silly o'clock .... but I digress.

So, three stops after we got on, the obligatory "singing drunk" boards the bus. We used to joke to the drivers that if one didn't get on, he'd have to do the singing instead. Occasionally we even raised a smile! The drunk falls at least once while scaling his personal Everest. At the beginning, all we can hear is a low sort of humming as he stumbles around the front of the bus, eventually falling into one of the aforementioned single seats.

He settles himself into the seat, leaning against the window, and launches into the world's worst ever rendition of that 80's classic, "I should be so lucky" by a certain Ms Minogue. Except he only knew that one line. So he repeated it. Over and over again.

Despite several people yelling at him to shut up, he continued with his one line murdering until he fell asleep.

Approaching the half way point, there's a rather sharp left turn, at which the road also tilted slightly. The bus drivers all slowed down markedly, but the height of a double decker means that it's always going to lean on corners. More so on this one.

The drunk fell off the seat. We all laughed.

Not much further, there's another sharp left turn. He fell off again. We all laughed again. Between the scene of the first oopsy and the end of the line, he fell off the seat four times in total. We stopped laughing when we realised that on one of these occasions he'd lost control of his bladder and there was a river of piss flowing up and down the bus. Many windows were opened, many feet were lifted off the floor.

The full horror soon dawned. We had to get off the bus soon, and as neither of us had ever learned to fly, we'd have to walk through it. I was wearing suede boots. Fawn suede boots.

The other passengers were disappearing one by one and our stop was approaching. I decided to spend as little time as possible with my feet on the floor, and stood on my seat, then climbed onto the one in front, and the one in front, until I ran out of seats to stand on. My friend did the same. I managed to get to the stairs and down them balancing only on the stilleto heels, thus not ruining my brand new boots. My friend was less lucky.

Poor Carol. She slipped stepping off the last seat and landed on her arse. I compounded the insult by walking five feet away from her all the way home, complaining about the smell. I'd like to think I'm a better friend these days. I didn't even offer her a scoosh of perfume. So, rather belatedly, Carol, I'm sorry. One day I may even tell her that to her face. If she ever lets me tell the story in her presence without threatening bodily harm, that is.
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Fri 30 May 2008, 19:16, 2 replies)

The Poker Face
During my student years I regularly used to get the train from Newcastle to Sheffield, and being chronically disorganised I would always fail to book tickets early. I would check ticket prices online, whinge about how expensive they were and decide to make the trip for free. As neither station has gates I would usually either buy a ticket that would get me half way then pretend to be asleep (incredibly stressful, especially when the possibility of actually falling asleep and missing my stop was factored in) or not buy a ticket at all and go for the old 'expressionless mask' whereby you simply ignore the conductor when he comes along the train checking tickets (ridiculously stressful, not remotely worth it). I finally decided to start paying my way when the conductor fell over on top of me as the train rounded a corner while he was checking tickets. He then went to open the doors for the next station and on his next round he asked for my ticket. While I was going to my pocket to get my non printed ticket that I saved for emergencies (would never, ever, work) he said "Oh aye I've seen yours, I fell over on you didn't I", I nodded and realised that I'd been given a warning. I now buy a ticket for every journey, not least because when you have one and a good book public transport is an incredibly nice way to travel (if you're not on it during rush hour). Still dodge the fare on the Metro though, that's just too easy. Having said that I once vaulted over the platform wall to avoid ticket inspectors and fell about 12 feet into some bushes. In my haste to avoid paying the £10 first offence fine I almost broke both my legs. Worth it.
(Pete_G, Fri 30 May 2008, 19:10, Reply)

Apparently I have a reservation in the afterlife..
A recent one for me, happened about two days back. Not really a nightmare experience, but the most notable I have ever had.

Left work and got on the bus to go home, and about halfway through my journey, a girl across from me suddenly pulled out a bible from her bag (stormtrooper alert!), and then started to read passages from it, out loud, to people on the bus.

At this point, I gave a small smile, laughed in my head, and went back to listening to music.

About 2 minutes later, she turned to me, and started shouting about the fact I was going to go straight to Hell, and then proceeded to list the reasons why. And my reaction was instinctive and unstoppable, I laughed hysterically in her face, and apparently this didn't go down well! This gave her many more reasons as to why I was going to hell much sooner than before.

At this point, I luckily reached my stop and left the bus before the Prince of Darkness came up personally to take me to my final resting place!

Gotta love the crazies!
( Pixieelf got his 1st front pg. when MJ died! Double Whammy!, Fri 30 May 2008, 19:06, 1 reply)

Making new friends
The N29 has always been a nightmare, but a couple of years ago the buses were "upgraded" from capacious double-deckers filled with seats to the new spontaneously combusting bendy buses, with their "increased capacity" consisting of three seats in total and a lot of standing room with not enough things to hang on to. I dislike bendy buses at the best of times, but using them at 4am on one of the nightclub - student ghetto routes just crosses the line. Owing to the impossibility of wedging yourself into a corner seat and minding your own business on a bendy bus, within the first year I'd had my phone stolen twice and my wallet stolen once, I'd been frequently caught in the fallout of uncontrolled vomiting and several people had fallen onto/into/over me, with various results. And it's really hard to read your book.

Despite the above rant, I actually had a seat on the night this story takes place.

It was a Friday, I had staggered out of the Electric Ballroom in Camden at around half past three and, stopping only for water and Tic-Tacs, made my way to the bus stop. The fates were clearly smiling on me and I managed to collapse into a seat and dive into my book in an attempt to block out the horrors around me. All was going well, until the person sat next to me departed and was replaced by someone I could tell was going to be trouble. Clearly chav-curious at the very least, and of the particularly unleasant scrawny, weaselly breed, he entered the bus with two much bigger friends who took up flanking (and CCTV-blocking) positions before sitting down heavily next to me, forcing me up against the window. As he twitched against me like a nutter, I buried my face in my book and desperately hoped I'd be able to avoid a stabbing. Then I felt something... else.

Being a filthy nu-metallist (at least occasionally), I was wearing enormously baggy trousers liberally covered in random zips and buckles. My new neighbour, under cover of his jiggling, had opened a zip at random in hope of interesting things to steal, sneakily reached inside and wound up with a handful of my knee. In full view of his colleagues, both of whom were now failing to conceal smirks of amusement. I looked at him, he looked at me with dawning horror. I grinned and raised one eyebrow, one of his buddies started sniggering and the other cracked up. I looked down, and only then did he remove his hand.

He stormed off the bus at the next stop, his associates following and loudly questioning his sexuality. I had a Tic-Tac, zipped myself back up and went home to bed.
(wellgroomedwookiee is a filthy-minded hobgoblin, Fri 30 May 2008, 18:04, Reply)

Old People
After a pretty big bit of root canal work at the dentist, I shuffled onto the bus to get home, to wait in misery for the ache and numbness in my jaws to go away. Of course, grunting and gurning your fare to the driver is a chore at the best of the times, so i tried my best, drooling and spluttering the words out.

I go down and sit down behind a pair of old ladies. One promptly turns, looks at me, looks at her friend beside her, and says, "They shouldn't let them out by themselves, should they."

Mouldy old bitch.
(reech, Fri 30 May 2008, 18:02, 1 reply)

Iarnrod Eireann...
...the Irish equivalent of the old British Rail ... some of their new lines/rolling stock are absolutely fine but some of the old stuff is a minging embarrassment ... just over five months ago i had to hop a train from Dublin to Clara ... left Dublin okay then after less than ten minutes of slow rumbling through the city the train stopped ... no announcement, no explanation, and no electricity - the lights went out ... and there we sat for, ooh, 30 minutes, baffled

then the train juddered forward and off we went again ... (with the lights back on) ... needed a pee so went to the toilet at the end of the carriage ... blocked with shit, foul, stinking, hideous ... turned on my heel, walked back through the carriage to use the other nearest loo ... also blocked, foul, stinking, hideous ... had to pee in it anyway

since the train had come in from Galway (?) to Dublin then headed back out again, I think it meant a particularly shitty run into the capital and no time for cleaning (Galwegians, lovely people, full of shite tho')

eventually we got to Clara over half an hour late (a pain since someone was collecting me) ... and for those who have never been Clara is a bit of a one-horse station at a one-horse village in the wilds of Co Offaly ... I was the only person who got off (in a dark December evening) ... I walked the length of the platform (empty), tried the ticket office (empty), the car park (empty) and finally found an Iarnrod Eireann staff member who helpfully said, "Now are you sure you've got off at the right station?" ... fortunately the lift arrived a few minutes later but until then Clara station had all the charm of a scene from Night of the Demon ...
( writerblock ... embedding disabled by request on, Fri 30 May 2008, 17:57, 1 reply)

How a windscreen wiper brought down my plans
When travelling around the States, I was going to visit Yosemite national park. I was staying in San Francisco at the time. To make the most of the day (and the transport-schedules), I caught a bus at 5am in the morning. Because there was no-bus-shelter and I wanted to make sure the bus driver saw me waiting in the dark, I had to wait about 10 minutes standing outside in torrential rain.

When I got on the bus, I thought I could spend the time until I had to change to my connecting train catching up on some sleep. I’m one of those people who feels more relaxed whenever the vehicle I’m on is moving so when we came to a stop in the middle of a motorway, I knew something was amiss. The bus-driver got out, did something and then got back on again.

Now if your bus-driver exclaims “SHIT!” you know you’re day isn’t going ahead as planned.

It turned out that the windscreen wiper had broken down, and the rain was making it hard to see through the window. Not wanting to get into trouble, the bus driver parked the bus in a petrol station. We waited two hours for a replacement bus to turn up. While waiting, the bus driver told us some stories about her most memorable bus journeys (e.g. How she was worried her bus was constantly being followed by a car, called the police on him (this was just after 11/9 so she was a bit jumpy) and when the police questioned him, it turned out he was following his girlfriend to make sure she arrived safely – now it wasn’t as if he suspected her of being unfaithful, they were all over each other when she got off the bus).

When the replacement finally arrived, the driver of that bus quickly fiddled with the windscreen wiper and got it to work. When I got to the station, I had missed not only the train I was meant to get but the next one too. I would have caught that one even if I had gotten the following bus. Needless to say, the following train didn’t leave for ages and I wouldn’t have had much time to visit Yosemite national park, so instead, I just jumped on a train to L.A.

To this day, I’ve never visited Yosemite national park, and this I blame on a windscreen wiper.

Length? 3 foot and swings back and forth over the windshield.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 30 May 2008, 17:43, 1 reply)

11 miles in three hours
Getting to see my mates in Enfield (north London) to see my other half in Stratford (east London), looks fairly straightforward on a map. 11 miles as the crow flies.

On a Sunday, using the rattling, clapped out, eye-bleedingly nipple-pink cans of piss known as ONE Railway trains, it used to take anywhere between one-and-a-quarter to three hours...with such excuses as signal failure, train failure, overhead cable failure, door failure, driver failure...

Soon after I found I could cadge a lift off my Enfield mate and by car it would take 20 minutes.
(Straightbane is useful! I'm having a wonderful time!, Fri 30 May 2008, 17:37, Reply)

Tube escalators
Ancrenne's post reminded me, but this is the other way round.

Does it ever annoy the complete fucking bollocks off you when people dawdle around at the top of an escalator going down?

The last time I was in London I experienced this at Barbican station. There was a rather fat woman swivelling her flabby body from side to side because she couldn't work out which foot she wanted to use to step on the escalator.

When she finally did get on, she jumped on like there was a huge chasm between the escalator and the floor.

I mean, really, why? Just get on the fucking escalator, woman. It's not going to kill you.

I had a serious urge to boot her up the arse with my steel toecaps.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Fri 30 May 2008, 17:25, 2 replies)

teh fear
Oh fuck, now i remember. When i was very little, P1 or P2, i used to have to get the school bus to and from school. On one particular day my dad told me he was going to come to school and pick me up and take me to the cinema to see the Kojak movie. I was delighted. being small, we got to leave early. On this day i waved all my classmates off and waited on my cinematic treat......

....and waited.......

..................and waited

the cunt never turned up. so i was forced to get on the big boys and girls bus. it was a double decker. as i stepped on, a girl on the top deck puked down the stair well all over my head and into my hood. i had to go the rest of teh journey stinking and completely terrified as i didn't know any of teh 'big people'.

Got home, stinking and vulnerable and the cunt was lying in his bed.




Length, havent seen him for about 20 years
(Cancer Joy was short lived, Fri 30 May 2008, 17:23, Reply)

A friend of mine's mother is 70 years old, about 5 foot tall and looks like yoda
Her trick to get a free seat next to her on the coach:

As the coach approaches the next stop, she will dig in her handbag and pull out the biggest, chunkiest woolly bobblehat ever and put it on her head. As the passengers board and walk down the aisle to find a seat, she searches to get eye contact with them. As soon as this happens, she gives them the biggest smile she can conjour up.

Works
every
single
time.
( Dixipoos Bye Bye Blackbird, Fri 30 May 2008, 17:01, 2 replies)

Praise the Lord??
I'm not much of a storyteller, but here goes. I lived in London 20 years ago & one day when I got on the tube (Victoria Line, heading for Finsbury Park, standing room ONLY) there was this absolutely drop-dead GORGEOUS chinese girl in her mid 20's looking & smiling at me on the other side of the carriage. I (obviously) smiled back & she proceeded to make her way through the packed carriage until she was standing right in front of me....me of course thinking "I've pulled here". Before I could open my mouth, she started singing GOSPEL songs at me & everybody on the carriage stopped what they were doing & looked at us. I could even here one or two people sniggering. To cut a long story short.....I jumped off at the next station & (thankfully) she did NOT.
(Stashie is plotting against his blender on, Fri 30 May 2008, 17:01, Reply)

*bing*
i fell asleep on the top deck of the bus and woke up with a sudden jerk of the neck that made my head swing back, twatting the metal bar that you hold onto when you're walking down the aisle. it made a loud high-pitched *bing* noise that earnt me an instant burst of laughter from the school girls sat at the back, which kind of peaked and troughed for around 20 minutes.

another time some drunk sat next to me on a crowded bus and, noticing i was wearing headphones, spent the entire journey shouting in my ear 'ay.. AY! DO YOU LIKE JEAN MICHEL JARRE!?'
(westhead, Fri 30 May 2008, 17:01, 2 replies)

Not me but...
the driver of the school bus when I was but a wee nipper not only getting pulled over for speeding (we have a 40mph limit) but then being asked quite seriously by the straight faced motorbike copper whether "these children are all yours?". The silence seemed to last longer than the journey did. It would have traumatized the lot of us if he had said 'yes', I can tell you!
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Fri 30 May 2008, 16:56, Reply)

Too many worse experiences to mention, so I offer you my best one.
The Metrolink in and around Manchester city centre. Trial by endurance usually - but it did produce this one bright spark for me several years ago.

I was going home from a United game (the line runs not a million miles from the ground) when I noticed TV's Gordon Burns sitting with several friends - clearly having been to the match themselves. It wasn't the first time I'd seen him on there in such circumstances so I didn't pay much attention (and, admittedly, it was ONLY Gordon Burns. Might have been different had it been Lucy Meacock).

Anyway, cutting to the chase, a young scruff was doing his monkey bars routine on the holdy poles, a true Salford born Nadia Comaneci. Gordon pipes up in his best strained tones;

"I think you'll find this isn't an adventure playground."

To which our young hero replies;

"Nah, it's the fookin' Krypton Factor, innit?"

Nothing else amusing has ever happened to me on public transport. Ever.
(Mattblack Has a Program Alarm, 1201, on, Fri 30 May 2008, 16:48, 2 replies)

buses
total methhead walks onto the bus and sits next to me he then started screaming at me saying i was einsteins daughter.
(PaulGadd -, Fri 30 May 2008, 16:43, 1 reply)

Buses are primitive mud huts on wheels
I'm consistently staggered how quickly normal civilisation breaks down once people are confined on a crowded bus. I travel by bus every day. The other day I was on the top deck with my work colleague. Across the aisle from us was a rather spaced and puffey faced looking chap who proceeded to sneeze very wet sneezes continuously without making any effort to cover his nose. He next proceeded to to perform the classic but savage nasel clearing technique involving pinching on notril whilst blowing through teh other. This resulted in, not surprisingly, a pool of disgusting ichor forming at his feet. The poor (but obvioulsy stupid)lady that was sat next to him looked vainly around the bus for some sort of support. My friend asked if he'd forgotten where he was. Luckily he confirmed that he was aaaaaall right. This is a fairly typical occurance on the bus to and from Peckham. Not suprisingly I'm now taking a different bus route.
Buses! They're a microcosm of society's ills.
(The Woeful Shirker Pass me my thinking grenades..., Fri 30 May 2008, 16:41, Reply)

Trains -
I've been travelling 14 miles back and forth to work on the same train service for the past god-knows-how-many years... It never fails to amuse me how thoughtless people can be.

I'm quite a gentle soul in everyday life, with a very even temper. But when I get riled, then I get loud, very loud.

One day on my way home (pre-children) on a hot sunny day, I got the pleasure of having to sit on the window seat of a train - the guy had stood up and made me sit there, even though I only had two stops to travel. That wasn't a great start, but hey ho - the sun was shining, I had a great book to read and it was nearly the weekend.

The guy placed his burgundy rucksack on the tiny back-of-seat table and removed an A4 sheet of paper to read. Then he put it away, brushing against my arm and left breast with his elbow. Now I'm not too bothered by this - it was likely to be a complete accident.

Until he did it again, with the same A4 sheet... twice.

At which point, I picked up my book, stood up and said very loudly "Can you stop touching my tits and pretending to read that sheet of paper which you have had out of your bag three times". He got up, embarrasssedly snuggled his backpack to the front of him and head down disappeared down the carriage and out of my life.

I got a few funny looks, but mostly I could tell that the other commuters respected me for speaking out. I think it raised a few smiles, and possibly whithered something else that had been raised.
(surfergirl is riding the wave of luurvveee, Fri 30 May 2008, 16:37, Reply)

Tokyo Trains
I loved the trains in Tokyo.

The seats are opposite each other like on the London Underground.

Now nature has blessed me with a fantastic set of boobs and I tend to wear low cut (but too low) tops.

I was wearing such a top one evening on the train going back to our hotel in Tokyo. Japanese ladies don't tend to wear tops quite as low as this.

When we got off the train Mr Liveinabin said 'that bloke opposite was staring at your chest for the entire train journey.'
'Well did you not give him the "stop looking at my bird" look?'
'Well I figured he'd had a hard day at work and he deserved a treat'.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Fri 30 May 2008, 16:37, 1 reply)

erm
i might just accidentally have spent £750 on a mulberry handbag over lunchtime.

if ANYONE on london underground spits on/touches/steals/breathes on/looks at it, i WILL kill them.

also, the taxi journey there took 45 mins to travel about 2 miles. why are there so many people/lemming cross-breeds wandering around london? why aren't they at work? surely they can't all be going to the mulberry sale? what are they all doing?

also had to get the bus home the other night, which is usually more pleasant than the tube if i am stuck at work past about 8pm. i was the only person on the top deck, which was nice. i also like that seat right in front of the stairs so noone can sit behind you. nice and anti-social.

or so you'd think. next stop and this horrid old leper lurched up the stairs and sat next to me. why do nutters do that? quite literally an entire empty bus top and they always squish themselves on the seat next to you.

i'd love to be like hugh laurie in "friends" when he eyeballs rachel and pointedly jams his earphones into his ears. but i am too polite. i end up listening to some rambling shite and singing the contents of my ipod in my head. anyone got a better alternative??
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 30 May 2008, 16:28, 52 replies)

Trans-Siberian dinner-ladies
When me and a friend were doing the Trans-Mongolian journey a couple of years ago, the longest leg of the journey was a four-day train journey from Moscow to Irkutsk. The train journey itself was OK – the scenery was utterly boring but we met many interesting people in the train whom we shared many vodkas and Baltika beers with.

The problem however was obtaining food from the dining car. For a start, the opening hours were pretty random. Russian trains have the annoying habit of always using Moscow-Time no matter how many time zones the current location is ahead of Moscow (Irkutsk is five hours ahead). Yet the dining-car seems to be immune to this temporal anomaly and can close down without any warning whatsoever. And then, there’s the dinner ladies…

For a start, none of them could speak English, so communication was patchy at best. There was one particularly unpleasant one who we’ll call ‘Satan’ – for that was the name we gave her. She had no social grace whatsoever and had the habit of barking the one word of English she knew whenever we spoke to her – “SIT!” She had an assistant who had no fear whatsoever. At one time, I saw the assistant chase out an army guy for reasons I still don’t know. Seeing an angry dinner-lady chase out a chap in full army-uniform is one of nature’s wonders! Not once did either of the dinner ladies smile.

The language-barrier just made things worse. Ordering food was sort of like a lucky dip. We never knew what we had ordered until it was ready. My friend managed to somehow order three full meals for himself.

There was however a third dinner-lady. She was actually nice but seemed permanently drunk. One of the things she did for us was to open up the dining car when all the other staff-members had gone to sleep, put on some music and turn it into a party-zone.

Length? 5153km
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 30 May 2008, 16:23, 6 replies)