Strangers on a Train

"Perhaps it would be better if we all stood up"

Every now and then you hear people say that we should be 'encouraging more people to use public transport'. Hmmm.

Have you seen those pictures of trains in a far flung place which are bursting at the seams? With passengers not only inside but on top and hanging out of the sides? I can't say I've been to the places where this is supposed to happen, so I've no idea whether we are talking cliche or reality. However, I feel sure I've seen it on a Michael Palin documentary so it must be true; 'say no more' - as he once said in a different life.

Well the 6.15pm from London Kings Cross to Cambridge is just like that... and the 5.45 and the 6.45 .. okay .. okay .. you get the picture. As we've mentioned before; it's one of the great benefits of privatisation.

Last Wednesday, Everyday Eavesdropper was on a short round trip to central London.

It all seemed so comfortable on the way down. Mid afternoon. Laptops out. Competing well; EE's the newest and slickest lappy and of course his work by far the most important. Yes, EE was saving the world from the dangers of social and artistic isolation, whilst those around were only dealing with such trivia as engineering and technology.

Three hours, a game of table football and a project design later it was time to head back.

One of my most distinctive memories as a child, was our first hearing of the new stereo system my Grandad bought. So significant an event was this, that the entire family sat around one evening and listened to an LP (how quaint that sounds now) which demonstrated the wonders of stereo sound. I remember there was a track of an underground train coming into a station. Sitting between the speakers, we listened in awe as it appeared to move right through the room.

This was all the more remarkable for my brother and sister and me because we only had an old mono record player at home. And we only had three records: Hey Jude, These Boots Are Made for Walking and Je T'Aime (the comic Je T'Aime by Frankie Howerd and June Whitfield, not the naughty original). Funnily enough, Hey Jude had been stolen by my father from Auntie Fran - and actually the record player was borrowed too. You might think that we were deprived as children, and we were ... but this has nothing to do with poverty - because we were actually very affluent (but let's talk about my parents' ascetic materialism on another occasion).

That early fascination with the London Underground has continued with Everyday Eavesdropper into adult life and it seems he's not the only one: check out Annie Mole's excellent 'Going Underground' blog for everything under the ground.

These days, not everyone feels positive about the Underground. After 7/7 you can't help but wonder if you are about to be blown to bits by a padded stranger or shot by an over-eager police officer and it was only a couple of years ago that EE was travelling with a companion who had a panic-attack when stuck in a tunnel near Oxford Street. Great.

Anyway, the Underground part of the trip worked okay on this occasion. It was the overfilled 6.15, which travels over land which was the main problem.

****

Everyday Eavesdropper (EE) was relatively early and careful to choose the least crowded carriage: least crowded - but with no seats left. As water finds its own level, so the carriage filled up, until there were four standing and two sitting in that little bit at the end of the carriage by the doors.

As everyone jockeyed for position, one of the standing men commented: "perhaps it would be better if we all stood up" - addressed at the floor sitters - and very reasonably in my opinion - but seemingly unheard by them. The train set off on time, which was good because it stopped anyone else attempting to get on.

In that situation it really is very difficult to do anything. EE tried to work out how many people were on the train (about 700) whilst listening out for interesting bits of conversation. There was the usual inconsequential mobile phone chatter: "I'm going to be in at Cambridge about 7 and then I've got to get a train to Ely and change there for Peterborough .."

Some had managed to get their reading materials together: The Turn of the Screw, some kind of report on housing development (difficult to read upside down) and a rather intriguing looking self-help book with a chapter heading which said:

Honesty + Enthusiasm = Success

That sounds like a strange equation to me. Does it mean that

Success - Enthusiasm = Honesty?

Meanwhile, from the same man who had been giving advice to the floor sitters, came this snippet on the mobile phone:

".. I'm afraid my father is dieing."

Are we now so used to the idea of hearing the intimate affairs of strangers in public? EE was standing right next to him - yet the bloke would probably have found it rather weird if people started offering sympathy and talking to him about it. Isn't it Interesting that EE would be seen as the weirdo for asking, rather than he for divulging his family matters to strangers on a train?

On arrival in Cambridge, EE did feel like saying something - probably flippant - like 'phew .. thank God we got through that unscathed' and it probably would have generated a few smiles of bon homie, but EE didn't and everyone filed out in silence. Next time though ...

The Day Today

"I have no idea what time or day it is."

It's been a disappointing week for your eagle eared reporter. Just when it seemed that Everyday Eavesdropper (EE) couldn't step outside the front door without someone revealing a fascinating insight or two within earshot, it all dried up. There were promising moments. In an arts centre in the East Midlands for example, two young women talking about clothes (I think): '..and then when I got over to the car, I could tell it was virtually see through ..' which sounded good and only this afternoon in The Pickerel (a pub), someone was to be heard bemoaning the fact that 'you just can't find a good place to have a secular wedding.'

There was potential here, yes, but they moved away so we heard no more.

The good news is that this means EE has been able to spend quality time dedicated in the pursuance of establishing his small time arts consultancy business this week. Work which, at one point, took him to WH Smith (a slightly untrendy sort of newsagent come stationers) to buy a couple of notebooks (one for work and one for jotting down interesting conversations - naturellement) when a couple of University students were catching up with each other - very loudly - at the end of the row.

What is it about students these days? Nay, what is it about Cambridge University students that makes them so damned confident? And here, I would like to let you into a little secret: when I was a student, I dedicated a great deal of energy trying to cover up my middle class background. You see, I studied sociology .. so it was necessary. And that was why I wore the donkey jacket.

Anyway, these (female) students didn't have the same bashfulness about their backgrounds. No, that was there for everyone in WH Smith to appreciate.

"...how are you anyway? I can tell you how I am. I'm all over the place. I've no idea what time or day it is! and I haven't even had breakfast or lunch and I was supposed to be meeting Andrew ... " Of course, EE didn't know for certain that they were students, it was just a hunch.

"... so I decided it was time to get a diary." EE was struck by the quaintness of the approach. New technology was not to be deployed on this occasion.

There's nothing to beat a good paper based diary, and I feel this is a wonderful excuse to let you know about the 'datada' thing. According to my father, and one of his sisters (Auntie Janet) the 'datada diary' was something they bought each year (at the turn of the year I presume). We're talking the 1940s or '50s here and I believe these were the kind of diaries which, in the US, they would call a 'journal' - which people used to use in the olden days to write down their innermost feelings about a day's events before blogs were invented. The manufacturers of The Datada Diary probably put a great deal of thought into the title - datada - the idea being that it would be pronounced 'day to day'. For years though, this obvious fact did not dawn on my father or Auntie Janet who, apparently, insisted on calling them - 'duhtardah diaries' (I'm sorry I can't write phonetically - I hope you get the idea!).

I've always thought that that was so lovely and so like life. I am a bit naive sometimes and frequently it takes me ages to get the point of obvious ad campaigns and puns - 'we won't make a drama out of a crisis' etc.

The 'datada effect' then, for me, serves as shorthand to describe those things we think we understand, but really we don't - which, when you're listening in, happens all the time.

I left the students to find a better way of organising their lives. I hope they do, because they'll probably be running the BBC/Government/City (delete as appropriate) in fifteen years time ... and yes, I suppose I'll probably still be writing about them!