Rate the people sitting across or next to you on public transport

I know, but you had to be there to realize quite how weird it was, though I'm so old fashioned I would never have a personal conversation of any kind on public transport.

oh god no, i can barely even bring myself to talk to my wife when we’re together in a quiet waiting room or whatever

I recently heard someone at the back of the bus loudly explaining the dynamic of how people who are not "grassers" get falsely accused of being "grassers". And it went something like(with lots of fucks + fuckings): "When people can't afford a bottle of cider and are bored at home, they just go on facebook and make up fucking rumours about people, I'm fucking telling you pal!". When I saw him getting off he was a severe looking brute and I totally avoided any eye contact, lest I become a "grasser" suspect.

i just can't deal with taking calls on public transport. sadly a lot of people i know absolutely do not get this. 'Can't speak now, I'm on the train' / 'So? What's the matter with that?'... Just makes me feel like the Dom Joly sketch with the massive phone

Bell-end who stood right up against me on a half-empty tram: minus several billion for being a dick

― You are wrong (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 23 September 2008 13:44 (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

inexplicably i still remember this

Hugely intolerant of people who double-strap their backpacks and then don't take them off in packed carriages.

there are several types of people for whom public conversations, on the phone or in person, have a performative aspect - they want your attention

my 11 year old daughter double straps her backpack on packed carriages bc otherwise she'll get crushed or will risk having her pack stolen---that's life on her daily commute (which she does by herself) on two of Europe's busiest metro lines.

I've found that driver again! He's on the 124 this time. Singing some sort of devotional prayer and drumming along. It certainly adds something

twats who insist on standing at the front making getting on and off a hassle even tho there are at least half a dozen empty seats -infinity/10

sitting in the aisle seat with your bag on the window seat DIE DIE DIE

this is why i travel everywhere on my own private hovercraft

Sitting across from a stranger at the crowded local lunch spot. I assumed she would be on her phone or something so I wasn’t eating my fried chicken very elegantly—sort of wolfing it down. Looked up and saw she did not have a phone and was looking directly at me.

0/10 even though it’s my fault for eating like a barbarian

twats who insist on standing at the front making getting on and off a hassle even tho there are at least half a dozen empty seats -infinity/10

― drugs don't kill people, poppers do (Noodle Vague), Monday, 5 February 2018 06:23 (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

their look of genuine surprise when you have no choice but to barge through them almost makes this worth it

almost

Here he is!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsQAm3eXano

:D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CjWvPsmHDQ

to have been driven by him twice in three months having never noticed him before is pretty cool

Black American driver of 176 stopping at Camberwell Green at 3am and walking round the bus shouting "I WANNA SAY THIS REAL CLEAR SO Y'ALL DON'T HAVE TO KEEP ASKIN ME - THIS BUS WILL TERMINATE AT DULWICH LIBRARY. IT AIN'T GOIN TO FOREST HILL. IT AIN'T GOIN TO SYDEN-HAM. IT AIN'T GOIN TO FUCKIN PENGE. IT TERMINATES AT DULWICH LIBRARY" - 10/10

― That mong guy that's shit, Monday, 17 March 2008 12:13 (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A big weekend coming up. I still think about this often.

Sorry about that username tho

discovered last night that 'penge' is Danish for 'money' fyi

any time Fred B makes a good point we could refer to it as GOIN TO FUCKIN PENGE

well at least we won't be using that phrase then

headers and volleys

Penge is where the dude from Denmark Hill kept his cash, famously.

guy who sat on the set of three sideways-facing seats near the front and laid his wet umbrella across the other two seats

you get -3 out of 10 for taking up three seats, which I am going to double for making them damp for future passengers, so -6

make it -7 for coughing repeatedly without covering your mouth

I am of course an exemplary 10/10 passenger myself, apart from being fat, and having no sense of balance, and a miscalibrated sense of personal space, and having a big tatty seat-encroaching coat with needlessly bulging pockets, and... er, never mind

Are you all on the same bus?
― Michael Jones, Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Passenger in carriage 1 with big hairy dog 0/10
Passenger in carriage 2 with big bunch of smelly flowers 0/10
Passenger in carriage 3 with noisy kid playing noisier iPad game 1/10

On another message board there's a 0/10 for the crying, sneezing, angry guy who keeps changing seats.

i don't even specify quiet carriage any more when i book a train ticket because i think i get more stressed by the inability of chimps to keep quiet in that carriage than in the others

those train chimps in full

http://www.ewillys.com/wp-content/uploads2/2012/12/1950-chimpanzee-stlouis-zoo-jeep-train-postcard1.jpg

i ask myself if people just have a different sense of what "quiet" means, like as long as you're not playing a full one-man band ensemble or doing a bit of impromptu drilling then sitting there chatting bollocks for an hour or phoning somebody to tell them that you're on a train is quiet.

Embroidered “Unknown Pleasures” patch on back of jacket, patchy chinstrap beard, geometric below-ear tattoo of some kind, otherwise inoffensive, 5/10

I'm back on the bus with the drumming singing driver :D it's the 124 again

Pyramid hat guy is opposite me right now. Well-dressed businessman, probably late-40s, in tweed jacket, with faraway air

Pair of strangers at front of the bus having a loud convo about Supermarket Sweep, dead celebs and NHS waiting times for scans 8/10

On the bus this evening there was a guy wearing a baseball cap with what appeared to be 'cuck' written across it. I looked closer and it actually read 'rock', but in a terribly stylised Gothic bro font like on some brands of energy drink.

generally commuting in this morning everyone looked on point and well dressed and i was in random shit i’d flung together. everyone else 10/10, me, 4.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DdAuZQ9VQAA2YIL.jpg

nobody is coming out of that with any credit tbh

Dear bored-looking student solving a neon-colored Rubik's Cube at lightning speed, then dropping it back into her neon-colored purse, you are a 9.5/10.

Dear gang of Belgians chatting to the guy with the super-English accent who looks and sounds kind of like someone I vaguely know (hope it wasn't),

I appreciate that you don't want to carry your wheely suitcases upstairs, but the downstairs of the bus is full and the upstairs of the bus is 99% empty and you're sitting on the stairs goddammit do you not see a problem here

0/10, or if I feel generous 2/10 and everyone with a seat and no infirmities on the ground floor docked 2 points for not moving upstairs for you, but it's the hottest day of the year so I don't feel very generous

Dear blonde guy called Lars with a Richard Spencer haircut, a mauve lurex blazer, a designer jute bag, and Laura Ashley patterned shorts, drunkenly chatting up every Arab-looking man on a late night commuter train, you get eight points for chutzpah and minus nine for style.

Daerest fattey chewing out three public servants on behalf of your unemployed boyfriend, then breaking up with said boyfriend over a minor quibble, over the phone, in a matter of twenty minutes, while munching down a bag of chips, you live your life to the fullest and I respect that. 8/10

Sitting in a railway waiting room in Crewe right now. A man comes over, "Is it Kevin Price, a rock band, Amen Corner?". Me, "Sorry?. Man, "Like Liverpool, like battle fort". Me, "Sorry, I've got no idea what you're talking about'. Then he goes to the bar to buy a pint of Caffrey's, from a very doubtful barman,, having demolished a pint of cider already, leaves it on a table, goes to the door, turns round and points to a man who just come in and says to me, "He's Amen Corner drummer eleven". Then leaves, no sign of him returning as yet.

... so I'm back in Crewe and he's here again, I've been here 20 minutes and he's on his third pint of Caffreys - fiver a pint in a railway bar, they must love this guy. No Amen Corner related outbursts as yet.

... third pint finished, up for his fourth, all of them paid with by ten pound notes. I've got a train to catch.

you are yet to assign this gentleman a score

Old lady punching my arm and shouting at me for holding a tram door open for a straggler: you are mentally disturbed and I understand your plight. Also, you’re an asshole. 4/10

Teenager casually informing me, weeks later, at a similar occasion, that it’s enough to step on the tram’s footboard to hold the door open, no actual door-wrangling required, before laughing maniacally and running off across a rush-hour lane: just as crazy, not an asshole. 8/10

(None of those actually sat across or next to me tbh)

Haven't seen Caffrey's for years, perhaps he travels a long way for it.

aviator shades / pink linen blazer / chinos / jazzy socks / boat shoes-sporting tory-lookin dude in his 30s in first class carriage, downing one large bottle of doom bar and then spilling a second over the table / floor, staggering to the loo, coming back with blazer off and soaking wet, laying back in his seat, occasionally twitching, then after many hours of this, getting off at motherwell: 2/10, one point given for keeping the shades on well into the gloaming

Person playing reggae on the top deck of the bus, 8/10 cause I'm in a good mood even though I've just carried a screaming toddler for a mile and a half. Dropping to 4/10 when red red wine by ub40 started.

Woman spraying multiple perfume samples and eating multiple boiled eggs: minus infinity/10