Mystery Train

Last question first: yeah, when I was on a London bus with my mum when I was a nipper, the conductor didn't get to us in time and so we didn't pay. I was scandalised. Being an East End lass my mum didn't give a toss. I like to pass my time tutting loudly at people until one of them who is equally as stroppy takes the bait and has a row with me. Or listening to music and reading Metro. Or (at the moment) sweating profusely.

Mystery Train: a patchy if entertaining movie.

Drew Barrymore has biography? She's - like - 27. Why don't I have a biography? But to actually answer your question, its prettymuch read, music and listen to radio. I have actually got into listening to Radio 4 a lot on the bus - that shadowy area between Nie & Ten inhabited by Start The Week and the idiots Start The Week (Midweek). If it annoys me Radio One goes on, or if I can put up with him for the interesting London Trivia Robert Elms. (But i so hate Robert Elms).

In the evening I listen to various Drivetime shows to catch up on the worlds news and feel smug that I am not driving. I only read books with chapters on the bus, so I can finish near a chapter end.

Nathalie you surprise me I thought you spent your journeys rubbing up against businessmen ;-)

I read books on the bus but have to keep stopping to look out of the window at women when it gets to Islington.

Very long tube journey into wilds of thames valley hell=exponential increase in reading books, as captured on the tube reading log on 1471 (sorry again). at the moment it is Crime & Punishment, soon to be followed by Iain Sinclair's Lights Out For The Territory.

X = fab Lloyd Cole LP.

Why would people run away from this, rather than crowd around you to listen to it?

Oxford tube is a handy full-length CD ride so it's a good way to get to know albums. Except I always fall asleep. I always take my notebook on the bus or train if its a long journey, rarely use it though the original Blue Lines was all written on the tube (hence the weblog name).

When I had a daily commute I'd buy the Guardian on the way in and read a book on the way back.

I read, but my train journey is only fifteen minutes so I get through books painfully slowly. I've taken to getting the bus to work lately because I'm being a freak at the moment and getting to work by 8am and it's a faster journey at that time in the morning. I try to read then too, but usually get distracted by the world outside my window.

People like YOU, though, are the bane of my life. I really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLY CAN'T STAND IT WHEN SOME SELFISH PERSON HAS THEIR WALKMAN TOO LOUD! I don't take the old lady route, I tap them on the shoulder and ask them if they'd be so kind as to keep their personal stereo personal please, smile sweetly and it works every time. Cabbage and I once danced along to somebody else's walkman on the tube. We were drunk, of course, and he was very pissed off with us. Hahahaha!

I do not play my walkman loudly and I get very pissed off indeed when I am listening to my own music but can still hear some other bastard's music over my own. Grrr.

Playing walkmans too loudly is very bad but it's just as much noise pollution to have a drunken conversation with Cabbage (or anyone else, sorry Cabbage).

The rules of late night drunken travel are totally different from the rules of commuter travel and therefore, Tom, you are wrong, and it is entirely good, if not essential, to have drunken conversations on the tube on the way home from the pub.

The usual: discman (two plays of the Piano Magic single this morning), Guardian on the way in and book on the way home (At Swim Two Birds currently). Playing walkmen too loud is mighty odd. I've just got normal in the ear headphones on the discman and they barely leak at all, even if I'm listening to Shellac at uncomfortably high volumes. And given the poor state of my hearing that's pretty damn loud.

Cabbage and I did not speak. We looked at each other, looked at the NOISE POLLUTANT, looked at each other again and began dancing. Drunken ESP is a beautiful thing.

Due to the magnificence of Routemaster buses, I often wind up not paying for my rides. I figure it's my conductor's job to get to me in the four stops it takes to get me to Centre Point. Rode all the way to ICA on the 38 without charge the other day, and all the way to Battersea on the 19 once, which was just stupid. I mean, why didn't the conductor just put a banner on the side of the bus that said Free Rides Today?

Trains, never, although I know loads of people who skitch Thameslink to Brighton.

Other people's drunken conversations on public transport can be seen as a form of entertainment, overheard muffled drum beats and basslines is officially a spankable offence. That advert on British rail with silhouettes of Liam Gallagher and two other great pop stars of the day said so... Even more disturbing are the people who sing along to their walkman. That's a double spanker.

Billy, wishful thinking. ;-)

To answer Tom et al regarding discman: I was being tongue in cheek. Only twice did I apparently played it too loud. Once with the old lady who was bothered by not only my music but also she didn't have enough room. On the other occasion some tosser said I had to stop/put the volume down. CAN SOMEONE TELL ME IF THOSE WHO GET ANNOYED BY IT, ALSO ASK SOMEONE TO SHUT UP IF SOMEONE'S TALKING TOO LOUD? I don't mind if someone's playing their discman too loud or talking at top volume. Life's too short to bother about such things.

The days of thieving bastards paying £1:50 to get Brighton on the Thameslink are now no more, thanks to introduction of barriers at Brighton end.

I read on trains or watch other people. They are interesting.

My school bus has a radio that is played every single morning. I can't stand it! Destiny's Child before seven A.M. = one VERY unhappy student. I bring a Walkman, but when I can't hear my music over that crap I'm mad. I don't mind noise from other people's Walkmans at all because it could be worse.

Dancing episode was really funny, the bloke was a pompous ass and looked at us as if we were about twelve. Of course this was *very* encouraging. as was his very loud tutting (it had to be loud for him to hear himself do it over the tinny tssch tsssch of his earphones).

I haven't been listening to music on my commutes lately (my cd player eats batteries at an alarming rate) but I do read books, currently Passion Fruit by Daniel Pennac. I have read lights out for the territory that someone (forgotten who, sorry) mentioned and it's a thoroughly good read. Metro often gets read between walthamstow and Oxford circus, leaving me a half hour of book reading. Because my commute is so long I get through about three books a week.

People like YOU, though, are the bane of my life. I really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLY CAN'T STAND IT WHEN SOME SELFISH PERSON HAS THEIR WALKMAN TOO LOUD! I don't take the old lady route, I tap them on the shoulder and ask them if they'd be so kind as to keep their personal stereo personal please, smile sweetly and it works every time

That's perfectly acceptable to me, asking nicely, "I can hear your music and it's distracting me from reading/sleeping/listening to my own music/staring at the wall, could you please turn it down a little?" That's class and I always comply, personally, if asked nicely. However, I have a personal vendetta lately because of the bitchy woman on the Springfield train (detailed in the Walkman/Discman thread, too tired to get into it again), who was extrodinarily rude and wasn't objecting to the loudness (which wasn't very loud) but rather to the fact that I wasn't listening to like Simon and Garfunkle. FUCK YOU OLD NAGGEDY BITCH. Ugh. It makes me bring my Jay-Z CDs with me everywhere to play at full volume lately. I am a vengeful person.

I do take my walkman whenever I'm on public transit by myself, which isn't often because I don't need to take it to work and I rarely travel alone. So, basically, the times I've gone to Mass I've taken my walkman. I take books too but generally the trains are so annoying that it's hard to read. When I had to commute to work, I'd take books with me, finished loads that way and am now stuck on the same book for 6 months as the train was my only reading time. Sigh.

If I'm with other people though we waste our time chitter chattering (which IS worse noise pollution than walkmans, especially considering the company I keep) and doing inane bullshit. The best time was on the 4th of July when me, Manon, Adam and Ramon were going to the Seaport. There was like this car full of some sort of religious youth group that we somehow ended up on, which is hilarious in and of itself, but after a while of us quietly taking the piss out of them and miming their actions (one of the kids was literally sitting there reading the Bible, which we found hilarious), they suddenly all got up like some military operation, the leader woman screamed "WE ARE SWITCHING CARS RUN", and they all took off. We were the only people left in the car, it was absolutely the greatest thing.

But if Brighton is anything like the Guildford line, the station before (in this case, London Road, which is apparently really close to Guildford station) has no barriers, and due to a lack of ticket inspectors, you get a free ride anyway.

The train rarely stops at Preston Park, but there are plenty of ways round the Brighton Barrier.

I got caught skanking down to Brighton once. I pretended to be a refugee with large man-breasts and he let me off. On theroutemaster which goes to Cricklewood (I forget the number) the conductor does not go upstairs as a matter of course. Yardies do though.

The Thameslink used to be the finest skanking service int he world. Visit my parents in Borehamwood for free nearly every time. Last Friday I waltzed on using a bus pass....

Took the waterloo-shepperton train once, no inspectors, no barriers. on way back, had to change at wimbledon, but the cunning thing with wimbledon station is, once you're inside the barriers, you can get to all the platforms. I think in general SouthWest Trains only check on big lines like london - bournemouth so they can make major profits there, they just have the other lines so they could get the main lines.

I read, listen to a discman and if i am with others talk.

My favorite are the guys shimmying around and humming to themselves and you look over and they don't have a walkman.

South West Trains have been known not to check once during the entire Weymouth-London journey: I once got on at Upwey (first station on the line, northern fringes of Weymouth: unstaffed, no barriers) and went all the way to London FREE. However there is normally one check during the journey (the longest I'm aware of on SWT though I guess it might take longer to get from Waterloo to Exeter via Yeovil Junction) which makes me suspect that they skip it altogether on the suburban lines.

I usually take about four books to read on the train and waste most of the time reading the Guardian and Independent in more obsessive detail than I would at home. Something I do find interesting is seeing what newspapers other travellers have, it usually fits *incredibly* to cliche!

SWT also GRATE for laughing at discarded copies of the Evening Standard and Metro when coming back from London: nothing like seeing exactly what Max Hastings thinks London needs (and disagreeing with almost all of it) without actually having to buy the thing. Saving grace: Victor Lewis-Smith's TV reviews (sometimes).