I was commuting into London yesterday, something that I have to with reasonably frequency for the day job (I apologize for shattering the mystique that surrounds me, yes I’m normal too).

As I normally do, I bought a coffee and a paper at the station, something of a ritual, and then took my seat on the train to catch up on events around the world. That’s when the fat guy decided to sit next to me, and when I say fat, he makes Fat Jim look like that running bird who shat herself in the London Marathon . Now I don’t mind fat people generally, unless they start doing ‘fat’ things, like sweating and wheezing, or in this case, taking up more than their fair share of space.

And that’s when it began.

First it was just furtive glances at the headlines. I clocked him straight away, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Then, despite the fact that we already closer than an Italian election result, he began to manoeuvre himself even closer to me in order to get a good look at the articles. It was at that point it happened. He made a move to stop me turning a page. He obviously caught himself in the act, as he didn’t actually make contact with the paper, but I know he wanted to. Our eyes met, and he could see he’d made a mistake of quite epic proportions, and so the conversation began.

“That’ll be 10p”, I demand. (more…)

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