Lesson nine - Stand clear of the droning bores
OK, so it's not an official annoucement but it should be. What normally happens is you get on the tube and you see a spare seat, make a beeline for it, sit down, and only then do you wonder why the seat was empty and people are looking at you strangely. Then you smell the alcohol, then you realise you've sat next to a drunken bore.
Comments like "All right, how are you, then love?", "Fancy a swig", and "You lot are a miserable bunch" are hurled at you. Particularly annoying is the "Cheer up it might never happen". Now until you got on the train and sat next to this man (sorry to be sexist but it's usually a man), you never realised you were miserable in the first place. However, you certainly are now and you try to avoid eye contact and read something. But the drunken droning bore will not be deterred. "What's that you're reading then?", or "Come on darling give us a smile". The only thing that works here is to give as good as you get and drone onto him about how you would be miserable if you hadn't had a drink and had just left the office or were on the way to the office with a mountain of work in front of you, and then there's the mortgage and don't you feel old running for the train, and don't policemen look younger and younger these days, and isn't the price of lager ridiculous etc, etc. You get my drift. Just make sure they can't get a word in edgeways and with a bit of luck they'll fall into a drunken slumber or leg it off the train to avoid you.
Lesson ten - Don't talk loudly on the tube
A message from uk.local.london newsgroup which I sympathise with
"I think it should be "illegal" to talk on the tube (or the overground train for that matter). The last thing I want to listen to in the morning is other peoples' conversation at 110db. My journey to work takes about an hour each way and this is time which I need to either read up on stuff or catch up with email.
"I don't want to distracted by people chatting to each other in loud voices or, even worse, "shouting" into their mobile phones (just a tip to those people who insist on using the damn things for non-urgent and lengthy calls .... IT ACTUALLY MAKES THE QUALITY OF THE CALL WORSE IF YOU SHOUT... YOU DON'T NEED TO DO IT. SO DON'T). Sure have a chat, to each other or on the phone even - but keep your voice down please.
