Tales

The sorry soul of an alpha male

Piccadilly line, 9.51pm. I'm heading west from Leicester Square, stood at the end of the carriage by the emergency exit.

At the next station, Piccadilly Circus, a tall man gets on and stands next to me. He is facing the opposite way, solemn, staring straight out of the lowered window of the emergency door. He is wearing wraparound sunglasses - an object that would have looked odd at any point during today's gloomy October day - let alone at nearly 10pm. This however, is not the most beguiling thing about the man.

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Let it all out, son. Just not over my trainers.

I'm on the Piccadilly line at about 11pm, Saturday night, heading west from central London. I'm stood at the end of the carriage next to the emergency exit.

Directly in front of me in the nearest seat is a man in his late 20s, quite tall. He's so deep in sleep that he's leaning sideways over the armrest. The next seat is vacant, thankfully.

I've had a couple of drinks but I'm of sound mind. I'm reading a book on my phone. A few stops whizz by. We're in the Knightsbridge / South Ken area.

I don't notice the guy wake up, but I soon find out what has prised him from his slumber. He's hunched forward, his hand over his mouth, vomit dribbling through his fingers. His cheeks are swelling up like he's engaged in a real-life homage to Hungry Hippos.

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"Shoosh!" Said the Alpha Arsehole

It's a weekday afternoon. District line to Edgware Road. Sunny and bright, still in the midst of the heatwave. I'm sat in business class of course.

To my left are the double doors and then four more seats. In the furthest of these four seats, a woman makes a telephone call.

I'm not quite sure what the rule is regarding phone calls, and it's evident that no-one else does either. She's being quite loud but it's an inoffensive call, so people are sort of mustering an opinion rather than definitely having one. They look; they look away; they look.

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Tube picnic

Man sat across from me on the Piccadilly line, heading west at about 9.30pm. Shorts and a Watford football top on. Squash racquet between legs. Nobly eating a post-sport fruit salad.

Noble that is, until he follows it up with an entire pack of Haribo Tangfastic.

He is shovelling the tangy morsels into his gob but has a glum look on his face and is staring into the distance. Clearly in thought. Or maybe that's just his normal Tube face.

Anyway he's not pulling any of the funny faces from the ad.

Actually he's also got lots of empty Pret packaging too. Think he's offset his sport by now.

Inspector Sands

Over the years I have heard this TfL automated message several times. It sounds like it was recorded a long time ago. Male voice.

"Could Inspector Sands please report to the control room"

Or something to that effect anyway.

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Post length

I often sit down to write a tale of a couple of sentences and invariably they extend to several paragraphs. They get better the more you describe.

This one's obviously quite shit.

The dot matrix

Northern line platform at Leicester Square. Man and woman in their 20s, smart casual, wandering towards me while looking up at the "dot matrix" (as TfL staff are prone to calling it). It's the display that says when the next train is coming.

"5 minutes..." The man says with a prolonged, agitated grimace.

London: the only place where you can be annoyed at a train being further than 2 minutes away.

The only thing better than this is when you see someone get massively irate at missing a train... when there is another one two minutes behind it. 

It's all relative though. If you're going on a 10-minute journey, is it alright to get annoyed about a 2-minute delay? Potentially yes. Yes.

The textbook shun

Kentish Town, southbound platform. Sitting on a bench waiting for the train, there's a weirdo a few seats away. A bit trampy.

I'm buzzing a little bit from a gig that I've just been taking photos at. Almost singing along to the music that's now playing in my ears (We Are Scientists).

Admittedly I'm breaking some rules by displaying emotion, but it just came out. I mouthed some lyrics. Couldn't be helped.

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Beware of the dog

I have recently started travelling on the tube a couple of afternoons a week. This is on top of my usual rush hour stints, as well as my sojourns across the evenings and weekends. Basically I am now covering all shifts.

From about 11am-3pm during weekdays, things are a little more relaxed. A few Londoners going about their business; tourists who wisely avoid peak travel times; the rich.

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