Snow white and the seven commuters

I have worked out, (and it might be something to do with my alright A levels in Sociology and Psychology, that there are seven main types of London Tube commuter. Yes, sure, you can be a cross-breed, but try not to be; it's dirty.

1. The Fan.

Now, the fan loves nothing more that to get intimately acquainted with your belongings and body. These people are easy to identify, simply because you will feel them. When there's plenty of space in the carriage, or even a spare seat, they will still prefer to stay close, inhaling you, fingering the tassels of your bag (don't be crude please), rubbing up and down your...Enough! Essentially, they will sexually assault you, and claim it's accidental.

Tips - They're frightened off by direct eye contact. They have no balls (though oddly no issue with trying to find yours).

2. The Pretender.

They act exactly the way they would in the comfort of their own home. They are the ones who:

-Read their paper on your face (pretending you are not there)
-Let there kids climb up you/on you (pretending you are an empty chair)
-Board with a massive backpack, and insist on dramatically spinning round at regular two minute intervals and smacking your bitch up with it. (pretending they're not actually wearing a backpack)
-Hold onto the pole with their hand over yours (pretending you are the pole).

Tips - Kick off, go completely nuts over it. They can't ignore you if you push them into the gap between the train and the platform. It's especially effective, if you lean over their broken body and choose then to say, 'Ha. Mind the gap.'

3. The Dramatic.

Normally teenagers. You will find them:

-Alternating flawlessly between French and English, and find yourself absolutely fuming that your parents never armed you with any real life skills.

-Using the top bar of the tube for a series of pull ups.

-Vomiting. To be fair, it's normally more a thick trail of saliva hanging down from their lolling head, held by a mate at each armpit.

-Singing. Oh yes, and it's always the men. They tend do opt for a Diva classic.

4. The Zombie

I'd say this is the most popular type of commuter, and place myself firmly in this category. We're the ones who've shut down such a huge proportion of our brains in order to endure the trip, that we can hardly respond to anything. As we step on the tube, we say to ourselves, "Okay, the thirty minutes have begun. If you spot a seat, take it. Sit in it. Stare at things. That will be all." On cue, as we approach our destination, we begin to charge back up, slowly regaining our more impressive motor functions and speech. If you try and engage with a Zombie during this process, they will either:

-Jump out of their skin, and drop everything they were holding
-Initially reply to you with noise - along the lines of, 'Watghcfdf', before clearing their throat a few times, and giving conversation another go.
-Get incredibly angry. You have after all, interrupted their perfected survival state, and once more, brought them back down to the horrifying reality of where they are. Shame on you.

Tips - Leave them well alone.

5. The Sleeper

Easy mistaken for one of The Pretenders, the sleepers are closest to the fun-time loving animal, we have entitled - The sloth. Fascinating to observe in their natural tube environment, Sleepers will promise themselves for a few stops, that they are merely resting their eyes, before eventually drowning in a deep, mouth wide open, sunk in the seat sleep. Ah, bless. If you are lucky enough to spot one of these during a long journey, they will be the regular subject of the following exchange:

A "Do you think we should wake him up? He might miss his stop."
B "No."

Tips: Take a photo. I hear they last longer.

6. The Fighter

Has someone just punched you in the back of the neck? Is there no room in the carriage, but a woman has launched her small body at you, in hope that the sheer force of impact will create some? Is that man using his arse as a brutal, yet effective weapon? Then my friend, you're in the presence of a Fighter. Usually they:

-Have been commuting in London for five plus years, and no longer have any feelings whatsoever for their common man. In the early days, they wouldn't challenge a pregnant lady for the only available seat. But now, well, she's just collateral damage in the narrow tunnel of their goal.

-Look really, really angry. It's not a front. They will take you down. Try not to look weak. Try not to get in their way. Let it happen.

-Will hurt you. Yes, they're not about gently manoeuvring you round with little shimmies. It's brute force. It's elbows. It's a sharp kick to the shin. They've been training for this for years.

7. The Tourist

The Tourist has no idea what's going on. They might genuinely be a map wielding, tour of Europe Russian, but just as equally, they can be an established Londoner. The Tourist doesn't know any rules, not just the unspoken rules of the Tube, ANY rules. They move very slowly and never know where they're going. They consult each other and their phones at the most inconvenient of places. When their Oyster card isn't working, they remain at the barrier for a sustained period of time, pawing at it, shaking their little, clueless heads. 

We've all been The Tourist, but it's very important to grow beyond The Tourist.

Tips: Help them. And to enhance this tip, I'll share a personal story with you. When one of them tried to get on the train before I'd gotten off, I stepped very close to her face and aggressively asked, 'What are you doing?' and my words pushed her back onto the platform so that I could pass.

CROSS-BREEDS

The Fan-Fighter - Molests you aggressively for a brief period of time.
The Zombie-Sleeper - Fakes sleep for escapism purposes
The Sleepy Pretender - Will happy let everyone bash them around, like driftwood in a strong current.
The Pretending-Fighter - Passively dominates. E.g. Wears a 'Baby on Board' badge without actually being pregnant.
The Dramatic Fan - Assaults you with the unnecessary size and scope of their gestures.

Others available.

VomitGate

Now, before I moved to London, I assumed that a good 70% of evenings experienced by Londoners' were painfully cool.

I thought, they probably can't help but glamorously sip away at Mojitos in Soho, on a sunny Tuesday night, then accidently wander into a Kasabian after party. It's not their fault. That shit just happens to them.

I've spent the past eight months patiently waiting for my quintessentially London moments. Did I nearly have one, when a fat woman hit me in the nose with her arse? Sure. Was I almost there when I walked passed Les Dennis, and my friend said, 'There's Les Dennis!' And I said, 'Who's Dennis?' Pretty much.

And then it happened, and it was sexier, and more fabulous than I ever thought possible.

Don't get jealous. It's one of those emotions that rots you from the inside. Nasty stuff.

I'll set the scene. (Have also changed names to protect identities).

Five of us are out on a girls' night in Shoreditch. We've reserved a private table, and we've booked a taxi. (If you haven't noticed, things are already bang on, stinking of London awesomeness).

There's GingerNinja (please note that the woman in question has no martial art abilities which I have witnessed, or has even shown me evidence of stealth, but I like the rhyme.)

BarbicanBabe.

I'm really struggling at this point because there's a second ginger girl. *Bashes head*. We'll call her StrawberryBlonde. The final character (aside from moi) in this night of almost unbearable London chic, is called ZumbaQueen.

I know that they all sound like really bad nicknames on a dating site (some of which would have drastically more success than others), but you'll just have to deal with it.

SO

It's 7:30pm. BarbicanBabe has already knocked one of my six White Russian Happy Hour cocktails onto the floor. But it's okay, because we're in London, and we just don't give a shit about anything.

10pm. Happy hour has ended. ZumbaQueen is busting some serious moves. We've made friends with a group of men. I don't know where they're from. They don't speak much English. Roll on, good times.

11pm.  BarbicanBabe has had to evacuate the premises because she can't stay awake.

11:30pm. We're in the nightclub, in the basement. StrawberryBlonde and I have the dance floor to ourselves, and we look like we've attended numerous professional dance lessons. ZumbaQueen is laughing. That's okay. Let her laugh. We can't all be Queen's of Zumba. It occurs me, as we step up our routine to counter accusations that our moves are more hilarious, than they are smooth, that ZumbaQueen might merely be shaking as she throws up.

This is indeed the case.

It seems she has thrown up next to our pile of coats.

Sadly for GingerNinja, her coat had slipped to the floor, and is, as she herself described 'marinated'. ZumbaQueen is asked to leave, and we loyally escort her out. StawberryBlonde puts her coat on outside and discovers that it too, is covered in sick. She wears it anyway. It's very, very cold.

12pm. GingerNinja emerges from the bathroom. In trying to clean the coat (which it turns out is borrowed from BarbicanBabe), she has thrown up. Goes back to bathroom.

Vomited - 2
Wearing vomit - 2

12:05am - Man with strange plaited hat approaches StrawberryBlonde and says, 'Why did you look at me like that, you c**t?' Then turns to me, 'And you, you smiled at me.'

'Yes,' I say, with the level of confidence that only Gin, vodka, wine and rum can provide. 'I smiled, because I like your hat.'

'Are you joking?'

'No. It's fantastic. What do you do?'

'I decorate prisons.'

GREAT. After twenty minutes of telling him, in very specific detail, why I like his hat, he hugs us, and leaves.

12:30am - We've been in a pub for 5minutes. Someone says to me, 'Your friend is throwing up outside.' I go take a look at ZumbaQueen.

Vomited - Still 2
Wearing vomit - Now 3

I decide it's time for ZumbaQueen and I to depart.

And it only takes us three buses, and two hours to get home, which is lovely. Mostly it's lovely because ZumbaQueen passes out, and I hold her, so she doesn't fall into aisle, and get some time to reflect on how far I've come in life.

Number of girls who were not sick, or had sick on them/their possessions - 1/5

My secret weapon, is that I was sick the night before, and thus probably got it all out of my system.



It's almost too much.

That man is dead!

Hellloooooo..........

It's never a good start to a night out, when a man pretends to be dead.

It gets even worse when you end up in a morbid pantomime with the police.

To explain (for I fear those details alone don't quite provide the full story), myself and a friend were on the tube, no doubt nattering away about climate change, political unrest, or the like, when the driver stopped the train and made this announcement.

'To the ladies and gentlemen in the same carriage as two police officers, can someone please check if the man in the black puffa jacket is okay? He doesn't look very good.'

Thus began a series of moments, which would be quite nicely paired with a fast-paced, farcical bit of music, and Kenneth Williams.

The policeman were standing in front of the man in question, and struggled, for a sustained period of time, to locate him.

At one point (despite how much I really do hate the real thing) a few of us genuinely yelled out, 'He's behind you!!'

I suppose it didn't bode well, that the driver himself chose to ignore the policeman, and direct his plea for help at a bunch of London commuters, (which lets face it, would take your seat if you fainted and slid off it, by climbing over your listless body).

When they did manage to figure out where he was (having lost out on any chance of saving his life, had he been in need of it), they then tried to wake him up.

He did not wake up.

Collectively, as a carriage, as a cohesive unit, which required no words whatsoever, we all decided:

'He's dead'.

In my mind, I'd already attended my first support group. We'd hugged the woman next to him, understanding that she was suffering the most.

We'd even comforted the Policeman - 'There's nothing you could have done. Well, except maybe been a bit quicker in finding the only passed out man in a puffa jacket, instead of walking in tiny circles around his seat, staring at one another.'

When he did finally wake up, which was incredibly sudden, the rest of us exploded into a kind of hysterical laughter. We clapped our hands, and made friends, 'Did you think he was dead?' 'God, I was sure he was dead.' 'Hurrah, he's not dead!' It was lovely.

And trust me, when the standard interaction on those things, is having a large pair of breasts pressing into your back, experiencing the slow, wafting dance of someones BO around your nostrils, or being smacked round the head with a rucksack full of books - you fucking appreciate.

Dying to Write

So.....I've accidentally not written here again for over two months. But on purpose I have:

-Run off a tube after one stop to throw up on the railings

-Attending a writing group for half the session and quit

AND

-Mildly Assaulted a Policeman whilst crying

I believe those things more than make up for my absence

To get you up to speed with the ever mounting, relentless barrage of things I can mess up:

I also signed up for Movember run in, you got it, November. As I over slept, the only way to make it on time, was to run there.

I think my favourite part of the event, has to be when myself, and about seven other late people, were all running through Battersea, so that we could register to then run 5k.

I turned up exhausted, slapped the time tag on my trainer, pushed up my vibrant orange Movember headband, and joined in the twenty second count down.

As it was my first race running alone, I wondered how my mental stability would hold up. Luckily, every few minutes or so came a roar, along the lines of 'NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Batman!'. Then a midget Batman (or a child, whatever way you want to slice it) came zooming past me.

Who else beat me?

Superman, a crowd of 118, Mario and Luigi, people dressed as crayons, and a man in tight green, latex shorts (to name but a few).

It's the only time I can remember thinking, 'If I looked more ridiculous, I would feel better about this.'

ALSO

I eventually got round to signing up to a Writer's group, and felt very smug indeed. Firstly, It only took me seven months of living in London to join one. Go me! Then, there was a three week waiting list, thus ensuring it was top notch quality.

Turns out however that it was not, as I had interpreted to be 'A lovely, normal bunch of people' and could be much more suitably classed as 'A lovely bunch of Psychopaths.' In that, they were lovely, but they were also MASSIVE Psychopaths.

I already feel quite bad about sharing this with you, but I think that they would say, my creative outpourings are much much significant than their reputations.

And if they do Google me, and find this, I just want to say, that I'm really sorry, that I thought their manners were excellent, but I just happened to be consistently terrified.

PSYCHOPATH ONE

Had no skin on his knuckles. Announced he was going to draw. I looked over. What's he drawing?

Oh, pretty sure he's drawing me.

PSYCHOPATH TWO

Polish.

Asked if he could observe me writing. Sat next to me and watched me write for ten minutes. Got very angry that no one wanted to critique his novel about Soho Bouncers. Left without saying goodbye.

PSYCHOPATH THREE

I thought, 'Great! Someone who looks relatively well adjusted!'

Told me he was clinically depressed

Told me nothing he writes will ever be good enough

Told me about his Dad (linking in to the mind set behind above sentence.)



I did stick it out for 1.5 hours, before muttering some excuse and running away.

I'm pretty sure they won't Google me. I didn't do too well myself, having answered a few questions like this:

"Do I consider myself a 'Writer?' Well, I'm not sure. I mean, what do we really mean when we say 'Writer' anyway...?'

And my personal favourite:

'My story? Oh, it's about this little boy, who kills this little girl.'

BOOM!

Long time no blog

I'm back, hurrah! Pretty confident this carries approximately the same impact as Arnie's once promised, then eventual return!

Where has she been, you ask. Scaling mountains? Trekking through the Amazon? Qualifying for Mensa, and attending weekly Mensa meets!

Well, no, not at all. But thanks for assuming such incredible feats for me.

I'm pleased to say I've actually achieved very little since writing my last blog. And if you must know what's been occurring since then, I've:

-Queued for an hour to attend a Bonfire Night extravaganza, to then not make it in, and see how many fireworks? How many was it? NONE.

-Become a laughing stock at work for believing a colleague's pearls were her Grandmother's, recovered from the Titanic.

-Had two large plastic bags, simultaneously blow across the street, attach themselves, one to each foot, and found myself, what I can only describe as 'fighting' them in front of a crowd of eager spectators.

-Been knocked into a fence by a dog.

-Overheard this fucker on his phone: 'And how much did he lose? Twenty thousand? We much be the most gullible bunch of billionaires going!'

-Applied for one volunteer writing job, in an attempt to resuscitate my pathetic wisp of dream, and been IGNORED.

-Accrued a ton of never-ending bruises from attempting to slot my bum between the brutal seat handles on moving tubes.

-Told everyone I was signing up for a half-marathon, and then didn't sign up. (Try it, it's great - All the praise, with none of the effort).

-Got diagnosed, by a Doctor, with hyper extension body.

Let's explore this last one:

When I say 'Doctor', I refer to Ginger Beard. For any new readers (as most of my recent audience is based in Bulgaria), Ginger Beard is my very fortunate boyfriend. Once upon a time he completed a Phd, and now considers himself more a Doctor of the world, than a Doctor relating specifically to the very narrow boundaries of his thesis.

But I digress. So when I say, 'Diagnosed', what I'm inferring, is that we were waiting for a train yesterday and he said, 'That's so weird.'

And I said, 'What?'

And he said, 'Your leg. Look at your leg.'

I looked at my leg, and I said, 'Huh?'

And he said, 'It's hyper extended.'

And I said, 'Like how I can twist my arms round each other many times, and dislocate my thumbs, and my jaw.'

And he said, 'Yes.'

Thus, ladies and gents, I've come to the logical conclusion that I have hyper extension body, or hyper extension bodimous if you'd prefer in in Latin.

If you Google it. You get this:



It's really no wonder that I've never felt like I truly fitted in. I have always felt different, and that, that difference, would inevitably hold me back from achieving my full potential. Thanks for listening.

Forgive me lord, for I have sinned.

Okay, okay, I'll confess.

I did it.

It's not the kind of thing I would've done at 25.

But I've just turned 26, and BANG - the compulsion was there.

And I admit. I could've backed off a lot earlier, said to myself, 'Hey, enough calm down.'

But It just kept on happening.

I realised that there was a safe place, an understanding place, where I could admit the horrible things I had done, and not be judged. Right here.

So....

It started with the blackberry bushes. So many of the bastards. They took us by surprise when we wandered into the Common seeking out a picnic spot. When we finished our salad, we wiped out our tupperware containers, and picked berries for an hour.

CRIME 1 - Wanting to have a picnic, and more specifically a salad picnic.

CRIME 2 - Owning tupperware.

We arrived home with about 1.5kg of berries.

CRIME 3 - Weighing berries.

And this is where it gets really nasty. Don't read this until you've eaten your lunch.

With some of the berries, we tracked down a recipe and made a spiced, blackberry chutney. *Gags*

Some of the berries were frozen to make a crumble later *Vomits over own legs*

The rest of the berries were layered with cream and crushed hobnobs to create a layered desert *Commits suicide for the good of the nation*

Today, I *GROSS* had the homemade chutney *DOUBLE VOM* in my ham sandwich. And it was lush.

WHEN WILL IT STOP? I NEED TO KNOW.

I had to sterilise a fucking jar in the oven. Who does that? Why would that ever be something to do?

I FEEL BETTER, THANKS.

To try and address the balance, and counter how disgustingly twee I've become, I've developed a 3 stage action plan for this weekend:

*Miss a phone bill payment
*Listen to my music at a volume which would be considered inconsiderate, on the tube.
*Throw away my collection of spare buttons.

There, I think that should get me back to my typical Rock 'n' Roll self.

Let it out boys, let it all hang out

I'm pretty sure God (other omnipotent beings are available), must have read my last blog, and seen it as some kind of complaint. Specifically, that I was complaining over the absence of crotch related stories in my life since moving to London.

ASK, AND HE SHALL PROVIDE!!

On Monday, on the tube, I was looking for the perfect opportunity to say to this guy:

'Hi, sorry, hi, I see you're incredibly engaged with that newspaper article, but could I trouble you to explain something? It's just that your penis, that's right, your whole penis, has been pressing very firmly against my shoulder, with each gentle sway of the carriage. So firmly in fact, that should you request it, I could draw you a quite accurate picture of its outline. If you could not sexually assault me every ten seconds, it would contribute a real sense of relaxation to my journey which so far, I've been unable to experience.'

But like most men, after five minutes of this activity, he left.

I'M JOKING. I mean he did leave, but the sweeping generalisation  was completely out of order.

Does anyone have people at work who are paid to say hello and goodbye?

How does one break into that line of work?

 I don't think I'd be very good at having to genuinely care about people, but I'd be interested to take a sneaky peek at the salary.

Sometimes I forget that it's not real, because this one guy looks at me with such sincere joy. He wishes that all my weekends be absolutely super, and that each day is totally fantastic and that my evenings are especially lovely.

And I wish the same back for him. Because he's TRICKED me into believing that it's real.

And what folks, is even more devastating than no one smiling at you in reception? Someone whose salary is entirely generated from faking interest in your life.

BASTARDS

For your sake, I hope you don't have to endure this daily cycle of humiliation and lies.