Grumpy Meets His Waterloo. And his Clapham Junction

Train travel used to be so glamorous.

I may come over like an idle bugger, but now and then work rears its ugly head¹. Hence today: I head to the heart of the sprawling metropolis, and being a public-spirited citizen, I take the train. The service is run by South Western Railway. Never heard of them? Why, they are none other than SouthWest Trains who have rebranded at humongous expense, which is why my ticket costs as much as a small car.

I take the 9:19 (no you can't use your discount Railcard, sucker, off-peak hours are between 2 and 3:15 p.m. every other Friday²). I sit in the Quiet Zone, which means everyone is yelling into their mobile phone, so they can hear over the heavy metal being pumped into their shell-like ears via their high-output iPod or whatever.

At Winchester, home of the famous cathedral, and rifle, some bloke sits in front of me. He has overwhelming BO and sniffs loudly every five seconds. Sniff. Sniff. Sniff... The malodorous booger-fest continues all the way to Waterloo, where we arrive ten minutes late, as usual. Grrr.

Instead of taking the tube, I walk, to calm down. Good call, and good meeting; lots of coffee, startlingly fattening biscuits, and a great deal of splendid talking. You know the sort of thing.

Home again, home again, lickety split, and we finish early so I get to Waterloo for a train about 4:30 p.m. It's mobbed. I wander to the front of the train, which is so long I feel I should get a discount for walking part of the way home, and find one of the last few seats, at a table, with the seat facing mine empty! Bliss!

Ten seconds before we leave, and someone runs through the door and flops into the empty seat. It's the SAME BLOKE who sat in front of me on the way up. Yes, Mr SniffSmell. What a coincidence! Oh how I laughed. And he turns out to be MR. SniffSmellHalitosis. Luckily I am sitting near the toilet, so the fumes from that overpower his awful breath, and armpits.

I think about a refreshing pick-me-up on the train but, quelle surprise, there is no trolley service due to staff shortages. Strangely enough someone still turns up to check tickets though. No early G and T for you UberGrumpy. So, I get home³ at last, thirsty, and exhausted from trying to hold my breath for over an hour, but am I downhearted? No! I find myself not so much irritated, as amazed. Some people do this every day. Every single day. How do they do it?

So this post is for you, commuters of England. I salute you. I salute your fortitude, your tolerance, your patience, your willingness to spend your hard-earned wealth on third-rate public transport, your capacious bladder⁴, your diminished sense of smell, your high-quality noise-suppressing headphones⁵, but above all, I salute your stoic sense of humour. Well, you have to laugh, right?

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1 - Every bloody day actually. Sigh
2 - If there's an R in the month
3 - Ten minutes late
4 - Obviously. Have you tried using a train loo? Yuck
5 - Probably