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Tuesday, July 15, 2008, 13:55
"Sorry"
"The whole carriage can hear."
And so began my feud with the bloke in the spectacles who sits in Coach 8 of the 7:54 from South Croydon to London Bridge.
There was I, happily shutting myself off to the outside world when Bloke In The Spectacles showed me up in front of the whole carriage because my MP3 player was too loud … for him.
Once I realised he was talking to me, I looked around to see every set of eyes within a two seat radius was staring at me with a combination of embarrassment and sympathy.
I'd only been taking that train for a few weeks and got the impression that I wasn't the first person to suffer his ire so publicly.
What really cut my cheese was that I was listening to a podcast … a podcast!
What could possibly be so noisy and offensive as listening Mark Saggers on Five Live or that guy off ESPN?
Anyhoo, I turned the volume down, resolved never to sit next to him again and make sure I give him the skunk eye whenever I see him.
This has proved to be something of a challenge since my natural disposition is to avoid eye contact with complete strangers. After all, I don't know who strangers are.
Bloke In The Spectacles may carry a Price Waterhouse shoulder bag but for all I know he could be a nutter or have gangster friends. It's not only teenagers and ex-Big Brother Contestants you know.
Since using South Croydon Station I've found myself in the unedifying position of having to scramble for a seat.
We get on at the back, wait for the train to pull in at East Croydon and then desperately scramble past all those people getting off while fending off all those getting on so you can grab a seat and relax for the ten minutes before having to drag your reluctant carcass off the train at London Bridge.
The indignity of the melee is further exacerbated by those who have boarded the train earlier and already have a seat but insist on sitting in the aisle seat rather than by the window.
This means that new passengers have to stand there waiting while they get up, let you pass and sit back down again.
Simply budging up to the window seat is not an option. Oh no, they've paid for their ticket, they'll sit where they choose, Meanwhile, a bottleneck of frantic commuters are poised behind him (for it invariably a male) waiting to burst forth and grab a pew before the people getting on at the other doors make it down to their end.
Bloke In The Spectacles is such a man.
I've concluded that my ill feeling toward his sort is due to a deep resentment and envy for those who live further down the line from me.
City workers with big houses who swagger up to their half empty carriages and say to themselves "I think I'll take an aisle seat. There are, after all, so many to choose from."
Some PHD student is probably impoverishing their parents by composing a thesis called Class Antagonism and Alienation on Commuter Railway Networks in Croydon.
No doubt he (yes he) will turn out to be the kind of person who tells others to turn their podcasts down. I hate him already.
*Since writing this I have decided to get the earlier train where I get my pick of a seat.
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