On Mondays, I do my ten hours of penance for sins committed over the weekend. Today's misery was not expected to be any different, right up until I decided to take the fucking Tube into central London. Upon entering Sloane Square Station, I was rudely greeted by a brain crippling noise, issued from what seemed to be the bastard son of Nostrodamus and a tramp. All I remember of the encounter was the word “Oysters” and the whiff of petrol. I feebly kept moving forward towards the a queue of commuters, eventually reaching the starting gate, where I inserted my travel card to be allowed into the cattle crush. I followed the herd to the escalators and, good Lord, there was a stomach-churning, steep drop down to the train level. I had to concentrate very hard on not becoming dizzy and falling down a very long way. I was also acutely aware that I might have been dribbling.
I had, rather shakily, made it to the bottom of the escalator and instinctively turned left to my platform. Here I found myself amidst a crowd of undefined bodies with porcine faces. Still shaking, I stood silently alongside the great unwashed, waiting for the train. I again had to concentrate very hard on not falling forward and causing mass murder. I started to ponder the case for the defence:
"Yes, My Lord, the defendant had, on the night previous to the day in question, consumed a vast quantity of gin and tonic. On the day in question, he suddenly fell forward on platform three, knocking the fat man onto the tracks in front of the train, taking three small children and an old lady with him. Yes, My Lord, gin and tonic is still considered a girlie drink. He says he was drinking it as a preventative measure against malaria. Yes, My Lord, he was in Sloane Square tube station."
Thankfully, a sudden gush of wind and noise snapped me out of it before my evil and twisted little mind had a chance to terrify me with scenes of prison showers and a mouth stuffed full of sport socks. No one got off and everyone got on before I did. I was left standing near the door between the carriages. I steadied myself by leaning against a door I knew would not open and glanced down the length of the carriage. Bollocks!
Now, you must understand, I have no problem with the French if they are female and between the ages of something-teen and twenty five, for they have no morals and they never say no. Sadly that was not what I saw. There before me was a sea of itinerant French runts with matching rucks
I closed my eyes and held my breath until we came to the next station. Two minutes and 21 seconds away. Like rats abandoning a sinking ship, they scurried away, and were duly replaced by the pasty masses in shirts, ties and woolly skirts. A hairy man wearing what looked like forty coats with forty pockets stood next to me and shoved a magazine titled 'The Big Issue' under my nose. I had heard that this magazine is sold by homeless people to make a bit of money. I expect a homeless person's magazine is full of advertisements for guns with their serial numbers filed off and locations where one could acquire speed that isn’t cut with strychnine.
I grunted, shook my head and he moved off to the woman seated in front of me. She was hard to miss, being on the right side of thirty, with platinum blond hair and a body that would steal away the inheritance of an oil baron's loin-fruit. He did something no other man could: he gave her a skip and went to the hipster next to her. The hipster had obviously just armed himself with the knowledge of words and witty quotations from some 59 cent app on his iPhone and said something that made him smile. Self appreciation might be 59 cents cheap, but homeless person spit is free, as is the TB and Old Brown Sherry it contains. This was nearly the high point of my day. The top heavy blonde leaned forward as she rose from the bench when we approached the next station, revealing A LOT of cleavage. This was the high point of my day.
A swarm jumped ship and even more come aboard. Standing room only. I was now hemmed into the corner by the crowd, one of whom was right on top of me. I think he might have been lost because he looked like he should have been steaming down a canal or steaming up the bar in a land locked yacht club. I didn't like him being that close to me, and I didn't like being forced to inhale his Albatross aftershave. I had come to realise that sailing is not just about chapped lips, wind blown hair and navy blazers with impossibly large cuff links. On Mondays it is about riding the Tube, enjoying a riveting phone conversation (for all to hear) with your friend Tarquin about seeing Emily last night for wine and a deep discussion about Lady Gaga and The Killers, whilst wistfully staring off into the distant recesses of the carriage from a lofty perch atop my fucking foot!
I would not bring him to the attention of the Asset Forfeiture Unit, nor would I call the Inland Revenue hot line and have him audited for cuff links, lip balm and metro sexual hair products, but I just may have ankle tapped him as he stepped out of the carriage. As I understand it, Section 49 of the Criminal Procedures Act (The Use of Deadly Force section, giving you the right to shoot a fleeing suspect simply because he would otherwise escape) is unheard of and therefore not abolished in the UK, so I had no qualms in helping him off the carriage.
More rolled off, more rolled on. This time it was the turn of a religious group who took a wrong turn on the way to Lourdes and ended up on the Piccadilly line bound for central London to take over the carriage. The last thing I needed today was a herd of moon-calves wailing, banging tambourines, and smiling at me. So, I held my breath and closed my eyes until the next stop. The train stopped, my eyes shot open as I gasped for air and got, instead, a lungful of tea tree oil that was literally dripping from a Renaissance fair escapee. She might have had her cuddly unmentionables on fine display and in my face, but she was in my way and I was getting off there that second. Feeling weak and light headed meant that I couldn't motorboat my way out of the carriage, so I reverted to an old trick I had learned in school. I held my hand over my mouth and feigned imminent vomiting. The swarm parted and I found myself on platform two, Piccadilly Circus, and a mere ten minute walk from my meeting with someone who had wanted to give me money for something. My mind had stopped computing after she had muttered the words "give you money".
I strode forward and up the escalators, each bound becoming stronger with each molecule of fresh air, the closer I get to the surface. I spied daylight. I had reached The Top! The travel card was deftly fed into the cattle crush, and before I knew it I was on the surface and breathing in fresh bus fumes and elbowing street urchins in the face. I almost felt good enough to strut. Suddenly the phone rang and it was a woman informing me that that day's meeting was cancelled, and that she would call back sometime later in the week with a new appointment. The only thing left for me to do was to openly weep, and venture down into the Tube station for the lengthy trip back to Sloane Square
