There are signs everywhere warning potential fare dodgers that they will be both fined and potentially prosecuted if they do not produce, when asked, a valid ticket for their journey. Of course, in over ten years of regular tube use I have never been asked, or seen anyone asked, to produce a valid ticket. But I am sure the threat is not idle, oh no.

People tend to take notice of the warning signs, or rather the 27% of tube users that can read do anyway. However, the animal kingdom clearly do not hold any fear of the ’system’. They have been known to regularly flaunt the rules, and I refer in particular to the pigeon that joined my Circle Line train at Edgware Road yesterday.

It flew in nonchalantly as you like, and strode purposefully up and down the carriage like it owned the place.  I moved my bag from the seat next to me, but it was not interested.

A pigeon on a tube train raises everyones spirits, except for those people with an irrational fear of pigeons, but they should clearly not be hanging around on the tube anyway, the weirdos.  A pigeon on the tube is a bit like when a dog got loose in your school playground, though obviously this is in the olden days, because nowadays a dog would be shot, stabbed, or pitted against another dog in a fight to the death within minutes of entering most inner city schools.

So, regardless of the fact that this pigeon was flagrantly flouting the rules, there was a frisson of excitement in the air.

“I want to know where he is keeping his Oyster card”, I said to the utterly bemused gentleman next to me. He just looked at me like I was some sort of Tube nutter. He was clearly not interested in bringing rule breakers to justice. This is what the man on the street (or tube) is like Gordon Brown’s Britain.  No concern for law and order unless it is in his own back yard.

The pigeon strode past me and waited patiently at the door as we approached Great Portland Street (I took a picture and put it here). This was a clearly a mistake on his part, obviously, so I felt it was my duty to correct him.

“I’m sorry Mr Pigeon,” I began out loud, “But you probably wanted to get off at Baker Street and get the Bakerloo line. Now you’re going to have to get to Euston and take the Northern Line down to Charing Cross. Trafalgar Square is but a tiny walk from there.”

He ignored me completely, and flew off the moment the doors opened. Unfortunately there were no tube staff to report him and his ticket-less status, but I had the last laugh, as after double checking my tube map, I was able to confirm that there were no connecting tubes from Great Portland Street to get him to his friends at Nelsons Column, the stupid feathered idiot.