I am livid

Until some media mogul offers me a six-figure deal for the contents of this blog, and my additional life story (note to potential publishers - I am willing to include the life story bit for free), I will continue to use public transport.

It is far from ideal, admittedly, and mixing with the proles is not something I like to do when preparing for important meetings and that. That said, it does provide certain moments of entertainment, whether it be an unexpected brush with nature, or like today, a brush with an impatient arsehole.

Having departed the Northern Line train at Angel tube station I made my way, along with the masses, to the escalator. Escalators are great things, when they are working, and of the three available only two were moving. One going up, and one going down. It was also the Tube’s version of the perfect storm, i.e. when a north-bound and south-bound train arrive at exactly the same time and all the exiting passengers arrive at the escalator at the same time. I was in no hurry, so like fifty or so other passengers I was perfectly happy to take my place in the queue.

However, the suited city gent behind me clearly was not.

“Oh for God’s sake” he began, looking at the masses gathered at the foot of the stairs, “This is ridiculous!”

He decided that rather than wait, he would barge passed a couple of people and make his way to the empty middle escalator, the one not working. After all, it is only a few stairs isn’t it?

He reached the foot of the escalator and stopped.

Now, for people who do not use the London Tube network it is worth pointing out that the Northern Line is approximately four miles underground. I do not believe he was aware of this fact.

His posture changed and with the second audible, “Oh for God’s sake!” he slumped to the back of the crowd and behind the twenty or so people who had arrived since he jumped out of the queue.

I laughed (out loud), I am not ashamed to say. The guy next to me laughed too, and so did the woman in front of me. For the briefest of moments three random strangers were united in rejoicing at the misery of a city gent in way too much of a hurry to get to a probably-not-very-important-anyway meeting. It was a beautiful moment.

I will miss interactions like this when I am internet millionaire.

I was practically sat in the seat opposite him on the train before I even noticed him. In truth, I barely recognised him without the bear.

I got out my phone and sent a brief Twitter update, “Sat on a train opposite Roger de Courcey!”

Luckily for Roger I have always believed that celebrities appreciate members of the general public making a bit of an effort in their greetings to them. It must get very tiresome being heckled with, “Hey! Aren’t you that whatsisname off that thing on that channel?”

“I suppose it was just a waste of money to buy a ticket for Nookie then?” I quipped hilariously, simultaneously breaking the ice and letting him know I was not some run of the mill member of the public. It was clear that I care about my introductions to celebrities.

“I’m sorry?” replied Roger.

“I’m just not used to seeing you without Nookie bear, you know.” I added, whilst doing my best impression of Nookie Bear’s googly-eyes and moving my naked hand like a puppet.

“Hang on, do you think I’m Roger de Courcey?”

“Umm. You’re not?”

“No! He must be at least twenty years older than me!”

To be fair he had a point. My mental image of Roger de Courcey and Nookie Bear is based on their mid 1980’s television appearances. I suppose it is not unreasonable to assume that in lieu of selling his soul to the Devil, Roger de Courcey has aged somewhat since then.  Plus this man in front of me did look a lot like the 1980’s Roger de Courcey. And he did not have a Nookie Bear anywhere in sight, which should have been a dead give away. If you are famous for having your hand up the arse of a bear it makes sense that you would ensure to have your hand inside him at all times so people would know who you were.

“I’m sorry,” I finished, apologetically. “It’s just that, you know, you do look a bit like him.”

I sat back in my seat and sent another Twitter update, “Ok. So it’s not Roger de Courcey, and he’s a bit upset at the implied resemblance.”

He returned to his newspaper, and we continued our mutual journey into London in uncomfortable silence.

I am back, and in one piece, which I am sure you are all absolutely delighted to hear. I had a very nice week away, mostly, and it was heartening to see the second podcast so well received. I am particularly grateful to those of you who took precious time away from making the world a better place to tell us how shit you thought it was. It is appreciated.

I am pretty sure that we will be doing another one in the next week or so, especially after peaking at number 59 in the iTunes comedy podcast chart, and being officially funnier than Danny Baker for three whole days. Which was nice. Fat Jim and I would like to discuss your emails in the next one, so if you have something you feel would benefit from dissection from Fat Jim and I, then you can use the email in the sidebar to the right.  We promise a namecheck for all the amusing ones.

Anyway, now onto my week away.

On the Saturday of my departure I wandered around Gatwick North Terminal for a while, whilst waiting for my departure gate to be announced. I meandered over to Dixons, as though I am definitely not a geek, I do quite like looking the new gadgets. Particularly impressive were the noise-cancelling headphones, but the staff in Dixons could not guarantee they would work when, with depressing inevitability, I was sat next to a screaming child on the plane.

Then I had a look at the massive televisions. It is a sort of self flagellation ritual, whereby I punish myself by seeing how much the prices have dropped in the twelve months since I bought mine.

Then it struck me as to how strange an item a massive television is to stock in the departure area of an airport. I can understand headphones, iPods, cameras etc., but who wants to take a huge television away with them in their hand luggage? I already get enough funny looks when the security people remove open my bag to examine my perfectly legitimate video surveillance equipment.

Selling televisions at airports is not something I can imagine being a particularly lucrative business venture. You are relying on people buying on spur of the moment, but I will bet that most of them realise when they leave the shop that they are actually on their way to board a plane. I bet they get absolutely loads of returns.

“Ah yes, this television. I forgot I was about to fly to the Alps so I don’t really have space for it in my hand luggage, what with my specialist magazines and tissues. I’m going to have to return it.”

After seeing the televisions for sale, I was drawn to all the other large items on offer. Especially the luggage, but I did not see anyone carrying a fortnights worth of clothes in Tesco carrier bags, so I do not know how many of those they sold either.

So it is time to fess up. What is the biggest thing you have bought in an airport?

I receive a text message.

“Hope you had a good weekend? Are you around today? If you are, what are the chances of a lift to pick up my car in Old Windsor about 4.45?”

It is from a friend down the road, and her request is both friendly and quite polite. As it is, I am at home all day anyway, and old Windor is literally just a couple of miles away, so I agree, knowing full well that I will have a favour in the bank that I can use for something much more valuable than a three mile lift to pick up a car. Like when I need a kidney transplant or something. I text back in the affirmative.

Shortly afterward, I get another text in response.

“You’re a diamond!” it begins. Yes, I am a diamond, and it is nice for that to be noticed every now and again. I am not averse to helping out a friend in need, but I do not like to brag about it in a public forum, and so it is heartwarming to see this character trait being acknowledged so enthusiastically.

“If you just cross the M4…” the message continues, utterly unnecessarily.

I know where she lives, so this is strange. She lives not three hundred yards away. Why on earth would I head out to the motorway?

“When you get to the A4 head west for…..” it continues, sounding much like instructions you would give to a rally driver, except with traffic lights and pubs used as reference points. It strikes me that I am not being given the scenic route to her flat, but to a different destination altogether.

“…then swing a left and the office is right in front of you.” the message concludes, making it blindingly obvious that I will be picking her up from work. Of course, it is too late now to change my mind as I will look like a right tight-arse. So I seethe quietly and begin making lists of all the body parts I will want donated as compensation.

Later, as the storm hits east Berkshire hard, I bravely follow her instructions, like the diamond I am, and pick her up from work.

We begin to chat as we drive the SEVERAL MILES back to Windsor.

“So,” I begin, conversationally. “You never actually mentioned you wanted a lift from work.”

“Didn’t I? Oh, sorry about that.”

“It’s just that, with it being a lift to pick up your car, I thought it was a safe assumption that you would be working from home, you know, car-less, and almost next door to me.”

“No, I had to go in. It’s not a problem is it?”

“Well, I’m here aren’t I? It’s just I like to have all of the facts available to me when deciding whether to help someone out or not. It’s not that I don’t like you or anything, it’s just there is a limit to any sane persons generosity.”

“So you wouldn’t have picked me up if you’d known I was at work, and not at home?”

“Possibly not.”

“Fuck off!”

We continue the journey in silence.

I had still better get that kidney.

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.

My Mom was recently in a car accident. Well, she was in a car. The other driver was in charge of a bus.

She is fine though, just a bit of whiplash, a few broken ribs, some bruising etc. Nothing to explain the steep drop in the level of service I have come to expect when I recently stayed with her. I even had to make my own breakfast one morning.  Disgraceful.

Whilst discussing her accident she described how the bus had changed lane and hit her head on, knocking her back thirty feet and writing off her car.   She felt lucky to be alive.

“I tell you, God was looking out for me that day.”

Well no, He wasn’t really, was He?  If He was looking after you, then wouldn’t He have made the bus veer in the opposite direction and miss you completely?  Driving a bus into you is a pretty irresponsible way to treat one of his children.  In fact, in today’s society that type of behaviour is enough to get you a pretty uncomfortable interview with Social Services.

“Why did you make the bus drive directly into one of your children?”

“Well, errr, it’s er, my mysterious ways and that?” 

Of course, I did not say this to my Mom, as she worries enough about my eternal soul as it is.  No need to worry her any more about my rapid descent into Hell.   But really, ‘mysterious ways’ is a pretty shocking way to  explain away incompetence.  Can you imagine if it became the norm to use it as an excuse in other walks of life?

“Prime Minister, inflation is sky rocketing, unemployment is at an all time high, and record interest rates have pushed the housing market to the brink of collapse.  What do you have to say?”

“Well, New Labour moves in mysterious ways you see.”

“Oh, right.  A bit like God then?”

“Err, yes.  Exactly like that.”

“Good.  So long as you’re not fucking everything up.” 

Of course, I could be completely wrong about all of this, and the accident was merely a way of teaching the bus driver a lesson in respecting little old Irish ladies.

The first sign that something was wrong was the flashing blue light behind me.

The police car pulled alongside me and the policeman signalled to me to pull over, which I did immediately, by meandering out of the road and onto the pavement, where I stood perfectly still.

“What exactly,” began the policeman, “do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m, err, going home. Well, to my parents home.”

“You do realise it is 4am on Boxing Day morning, don’t you, and what is that?” he said pointing at my head.

“It’s a fairly poorly fitting santa hat.”

“And those?”

“Oh, they’re my jeans, which I have rolled up to the knees.”

“Why?”

“So I can play football.”

“Football?”

“Yes, err, keepy-uppies. Whilst walking home with my brother. You see I beat him at Wii Sports earlier on this evening, so now he wants to prove that he’s better at real sports, and what better way to do that than whilst walking home on Christmas Day evening after spending fifteen hours drinking? He’s the one staggering up ahead by the way. The one with the football, and no Santa hat. This is my trophy from earlier you see.”

“Right. Well, if you could be on your way and try to and keep the ball out of peoples gardens, that’d be great.”

“Thanks, and Merry Christmas!”

Happy new year to all the old internet people and especially to the new people off of iTunes (oh yes, yours truly is officially “New and notable” according the nice people at Apple - if you have iTunes I can be found here). To think some of you thought that the inaugural I am livid podcast was shit and that I sounded a bit like a gay Steve Coogan. Thanks for that.

This time last year I did a bit of a ‘review of the year’, but to be honest, it took fucking ages, and I can not be arsed to do all that reading back through the blog again this year (even though this blog is now officially two years old, happy birthday to me and that). This is why the archives are so helpful.

You want to know what I was doing in the second week of May? Go and find out. You don’t need me to tell you.

Anyway, I have a few tales to tell from the Christmas period, so without further ado, let’s get 2008 under way.

*********

Ker-chunk, ker-chunk, ker-chunk.

This is not a good sound to hear. Unless it is coming from a room in which James Blunt and Jade Goody have been imprisoned with just an axe between them. Even then you would probably want at least a few muffled screams to accompany it.

Unfortunately it was coming from my car, the day before Christmas Eve, just as I was hoping to get started on the Christmas shopping. So I did what any normal person would do in this situation, I called the AA.

“I am afraid you do not have a Homestart policy, so we can not come out to you unless you are a quarter of a mile from your home.”

Now, my car was not right next to my flat, but I am not sure even the most visually-challenged AA man would describe it as being a quarter of a mile away. Unless you were to extrapolate most men’s inability to judge, and tendency to exaggerate, distances of under six inches. Then I suppose you could describe the twenty meters as being almose a quarter of a mile.

“…but you can join for £39 and a one off £20 charge to join today.”

I considered this. For about £60 they would come out and take a look at my car, with no guarantee of getting it working. If only it had broken down 1/4 a mile away!

Then a thought struck me.

“Errm, if I were to go and get my car started now, and then it broke down, you know approximately one quarter of a mile away, say, then you wouldn’t charge me to come and look at it?”

“Well, no.”

“Right, in that case I will terminate this call as I have a feeling it’s going to start this time.”

A quick phone call to a couple of friends, and we were able to jump start it with ease. I drove around the block a couple of times and then parked up approximately one quarter of a mile from my home.

I turned off the engine. And started it again.

And turned it off. And started it again.

I had fixed it myself!

I have read stories of people who have special healing properties in their hands for things like back ache, acne and bad Aids, but I did not realise you could get it for cars. I am truly blessed. The irony is that I do not know one end of an engine from the other, but that is not necessary now, as all I have to do it lay my hands on it.

I look forward to using my new found gift on a rainy M1 hard shoulder some day soon.

The weekend proved to be as alcohol fueled as expected. An extra late night due to the Ricky Hatton fight meant that we did not leave Butlins until midday. The friend giving us a lift said he had to pop in to see his Dad in Chichester, and so, shortly after one o’clock, Fat Jim and I found ourselves enjoying a burger in a bar across from the Cathedral.

“I don’t feel well.” whinged Fat Jim.

“No, I don’t suppose you do. Eighteen hour drinking marathons will do that to you.”

“No. I mean I really don’t feel well.”

“Oh, you REALLY don’t feel well eh? Well I still REALLY don’t care. Eat your burger.”

About an hour later we were en route home in a friends car when Fat Jim piped up again.

“You need to stop the car, I think I’m going to be sick.”

The driver duly obliged and Fat Jim paced the verge looking for a suitable place to vomit.

“Don’t look at me! I can’t do it if you’re looking at me!”

I had never heard of this phenomenon  before. It was always my belief that vomiting was the body’s response to being poisoned. I did not realise it would hold the vomit in if someone was looking at you.

We drove forward 50 yards to leave him to it, like the good friends we are. As soon as he bent over to begin the vomiting we reversed 50 yards to arrive back where we started. Right next to him.

“Look, I can’t do it if you’re there. Seriously.”

“OK, if you can’t vomit when people are watching you, then surely it’s safe to get back in the car? I promise not to take my eyes of you for the next hour and a half, no matter how unpleasant that is for me.”

He got back in the car and off we went. We stopped a further three times, and only when we were within five miles of home did he finally chuck his guts. We did not watch, but we definitely heard. And smelt.

It pissed down on Wednesday. I mean really pissed down. I had been in London buying myself a new toy (a Macbook) and upon arrival back at Slough train station, the heavens opened. They say it rains when God is crying, well clearly one of the angels had just told him that James Blunt has released a second album. The downpour was not quite to the level of John Betjeman’s bombs, but it made Slough even more unpleasant than it is normally (which is distinctly unpleasant, for the uninitiated).

As I waited for the torrential rain to stop (so I could walk my new Mac back to my car without getting it wet), I watched people come and go. People in the rain are funny, especially when the rain is so hard and the winds so high that even those with unmbrellas were getting piss wet through. Some people say they could watch heavy rain for hours. I could watch fuckwits in the rain for days.

After about ten minutes there was a break in the weather so I decided to make my way to my car. I was parked in the overflow car park, so I had a brief walk before I could get my new Mac into the safety of the boot of my car. I wandered towards the overflow car park down the narrow road, enclosed by a fence on one side, and a small embankment on the other. I had reached about halfway when I noticed her.

She was driving a silver golf, rather quickly, and directly at me. Now, in normal circumstances I would simply step aside and let her drive past. However, the inclement conditions had created Berkshire’s first great lake on her side of the road. And it appeared she had not seen it.

At times like this millions of years of evolution have granted us an excellent fight or flight response. Fortunately, I had long enough to decide not to try and fight a VW Golf. So flight it was.

I looked at the fence to the right, which led directly to the live train tracks, and then to my left, which offered a muddy, and extremely slippy embankment. I was left with no option but to behave like any other rational person would in this situation.

I began frantically waving at the woman, whilst also pointing at the massive puddle on her side of the narrow road that she was about to reach. Like just about every stereotype you care to mention, she was utterly oblivious to my plight. As her car began to enter the puddle my protective instinct kicked in and I pulled my Mac close to my chest and turned my back to the car to protect it from the elements. Much like you would for a small child. Unless you didn’t know them, in which case you would watch them get wet them write a hilarious blog post about it.

The puddle struck me as if someone has emptied a bucket in my direction. The expletives came freely and loudly. It left me with drenched jeans and coat, and as the icy water began to run down my neck I turned in the direction of the car as it made its way towards the end of the puddle.

Fortunately, she had now realised she was in rather deep water and so had slowed down to prevent any permanent damage to her car. It was at this point that she noticed what she had done, as the wall of water had clearly concealed me as she drove past. She held up a hand in my direction in acknowledgment of her complete and utter fuckwittedness, and I held up one finger in her direction to signal my agreement in her assessment of the situation.

I trudged back to my car and spent the next seven hours playing with my new toy.

I am currently planning a few long haul flights, and part of that process has involved looking closely at the various baggage allowances offered by different airlines. I have mentioned this before, but baggage policies seem to be increasingly unfair on people like me.

I mean people who are not fat.

Why I should I have the same baggage allowance as the portly chap sat in front of me? He weighs more than me and my 23kg allowance put together, so where is the financial justice in us paying the same amount to cross the Atlantic?

It is bad enough if you have to sit next to one on the actual flight itself, but knowing that you have also subsidised their trip is beyond a joke. Plus they probably steal your in flight meal when you are not looking.

How hard would it be to come up with a system where we take the average weight of passengers (85kg according to Google - or 13 and a bit stone in UK money), add 23kg, and then allow passengers to use that weight as they see fit.

I might choose to take some extra clothing, books or even a set of dumbells. Fatty may decide not to leave his man boobs at home.

We could even have some form of offsetting market in weight allowances, with skinny people selling off their extra kilos to the rotund travellers. If it can work with carbon emissions, surely it could work here?

OK, it might be seen as being a little bit fattist, but we picked on the smokers and now people are giving that up left right and centre.

I mean, it is clear that being hideously unattractive is not enough to make them lose a few pounds, so maybe a hit in the wallet each time they fly might be enough to make them take the stairs every now and again?

“But is that the real value proposition? I can definitely see the cost saving potential, but convincing the client may be a little more difficult. Do we have access to the key decision maker? Because if we do, then lets get them in the pub to discuss it further. I’m sure we can determine a unique selling point if we can spend a bit more time with them.”

As I sat on the train and listened intently to her conversation it became clear that this was a deal they were not going to win. I felt that I should contribute my views, and explain that the value proposition should be market wide, Features and Advantages remain the same, it is the Benefits that you personalise from organisation to organisation, but I am not in the habit of giving away free consultancy.

What I found more compelling was the way she was using her phone. Or more specifically the hands-free kit attached to it. It was one of those old fashioned wired contraptions that look like half a set of normal headphones.

She was using one hand to keep the ear piece securely in place, much like a secret service agent in a noisy crowd, and the other to hold the microphone piece close to her mouth.

The concept of hands-free was clearly lost on her.

It got me wondering what she did on the street when she got a call. I could not see a third hand that she could use to hold the phone or press the button to answer it.

“Hand on a second, I want to write this down.” she continued.

I knew instantly that this was going to be good. Something was going to have to give. But what?

She dithered for a moment, clearly torn as to which part of the device was going to have to suffer in order to make these important notes. Then, with a decisive motion she let go of the microphone and picked up her pad to begin writing.

“CAN YOU STILL HEAR ME? I HAVE HAD TO LET GO OF THE MICROPHONE…..REALLY? CAN YOU?…..JUST LIKE BEFORE? AMAZING! IT’S NOT EVEN NEAR MY MOUTH ANYMORE!… SO, WHERE WERE WE?…”

I often wonder what would happen if you brought someone forward in time from the Victorian ages, and how they would cope in todays society. This little vignette was a small glance at what might happen when someone finally invents the Flux Capacitor.

I have been in Manchester for a few days with work, and what I have learned, above all else, is that Manchester’s tram system carries an altogether better class of mentalist.

In the many many trips I have taken on London’s tube network in the last ten years I have seen drunks, tramps, mutterers, fat people, students, Americans and even one guy who tried to get naked in rush hour.

But I have never seen someone have a conversation with the person next to them, whilst that person next to them was completely ignoring them. When the huge mentalist sat down next to the man I now understand to have been his victim, I assumed them to be friends.

“Alright ar kidda! Didn’t know you’d be on here.”

The victim just stared ahead.

“Yeah!” continued the mentalist, laughing as if he was responding to a question, “Just been out for a beer like. Now goin’ over to ma birds, though I’m not gonna tell her I’m buzzin’ man!”

This to and fro of imaginary question - response - imaginary question - response - continued for several minutes.

I caught a glimpse of terror on the victims face. I could almost hear his internal dilemma. What do you do when a six foot five shaven-headed mentalist sits next to you on a tram and starts having an imaginary conversation with you? It is not like you can get training for this type of situation (though I have not looked at the Open University prospectus for a while).  Should you just let him carry on? I mean, it’s not like he is actually forcing you to contribute, and it appears he thinks you are quite the conversationalist.  But what if he conjures up an imaginary response in which you were rude? What then?

Of course, this was his problem, not mine, although I felt a great deal better having done my bit by empathising quietly with him for a few seconds whilst avoiding eye contact with the giant Mancunian mentalist. If only everyone was as community spirited as me the world would be a better place.

I got off the tram at Sale with the one-sided conversation still going strong.

(continued from (the day before) yesterday)

Yes, yes, I know I promised you the conclusion to this story yesterday, but I had to make a quick work trip abroad with work. Unfortunately, the country I went to does not appear to have any Internets that you can use. It is a very nice place to look at, but the language is pretty much indecipherable. Fortunately, most of the locals have a passable grasp of English, despite a quite ridiculous accent when attempting our language. If you fancy taking a trip there yourself, take a look here.

Anyway, the story. I have never slept in a train station. It is not a life experience I was particularly looking forward to, but this was the reality of the situation. I was a bit drunk, and I did not want to get robbed or bummed to death in my sleep, so I did what any normal person would do and put my wallet, phone, and change into my underpants. Then I did my belt up as tight as it would go, and tried to get some sleep.

I could not sleep though, due to the morbid fear of someone managing to get into my pants and thinking that the loose change was some sort of payment for services not yet rendered.

Also, the seats in Paddington are not conducive to a restful nights sleep. Which is understandable, if you are trying to stop vagrants from setting up home, as I suppose Paddington is. But I am not a vagrant, I am just a spectacularly stupid man who wanted to sleep for a few hours.

As I sat there with my head bowed, trying for all the world to get just a few moments sleep, someone sat next to me.

I smelt him long before I saw him, and as he sat he mumbled something in what I assumed to be Arabic. He would get up every few minutes, go for a walk in his tramp suit, then come back and mumble again. Imagine your most annoying fidgety ex-girlfriend and then make her smelly and homeless. It was just like that, but without the spooning.

About halfway through my stint in the chair, I was awoken by the mumbling tramp.

“Hey, HEY, where my stuff?”

“You got my stuff? Where my stuff?!”

“I do not have your stuff.” I answered, assuming he was referring to the plastic bag he had been carrying earlier.

“WHERE MY STUFF!”

“Look, I do NOT have your fucking stuff, so fucking stop asking me the where the fuck your fucking stuff is, I do not fucking know!” I wittily retorted, as I do not do well with a lack of sleep.

With that, he wandered off again, I assumed to look for his stuff.

A few minutes later I was again woken, but this time by someone altogether more pleasant.

“Excuse me Sir, sorry to bother you, but this gentleman claims that you have his stuff?”

“Officer, I assure you I do not have his stuff.” I responded to the two policemen now stood in front of me, “Trust me, if I was going to steal something it would be something good, like jewellery or a phone, not a tramps carrier bag.”

“Where my stuff!” added the tramp.

“Sorry Sir, we’ll leave you to it.” concluded the policeman.

With that he an his policeman colleague took the tramp in a suit away, and out of the station.

The remaining hour or so was uneventful and I bought a coffee and boarded my train home. Everything seemed to finally sorting itself out, right up until the point where I got fined for having a now out-of-date train ticket.