Hey Guys,
It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of my security job, but I'm not going to bore you with more details of that, but what I do wonna talk about is how I get to work.
I commute, I'm a commuter, I have to do this, it's a necessary evil for me,
Now I could ride my bike, which, if your interested is a DMR Sidekick 12 and a half inch frame with ridged folks running on Mavic D521 rims wrapped in 2.6' Tioga rubber supported by Shimano XT hubs driven by Shimano STX RC cranks with a 21 tooth chain ring with DMR 8 pedals topping them off, I use a body splitting Tioga saddle and my stopping power comes from my hydraulic Magura Tomac rim brakes. All in all a very good bike, which I built myself, so it's unique, but it's a trials bike, built for tricks and stunts, not long distants riding.
The journey would be about 9-10 miles and down hill most of the way, which is good for going to work but very bad for going home, I don't do up hill.
So I use the wonderful London public transport network, buses (double decker) and Tube trains (London Underground) and to pay for all this I have an Oyster card, basically a piece of plastic with a magnetic strip ruining through it, I put money on it, like a pay as you go phone, each bus costs me £.90p and the trains cost me £2 to £2.40 in peck hours, so that's two buses and two tube adventures, once your in the tube network there's no extra cost, you can use as many trains a you like, as long as you don't leave the station, so most of the time I need two trains, the second one is a one stop thing, that brings me up outside the Parliament building, but on Sundays I need three trains To get home, which is annoying but not unbearable. So I pay between £5.80 and £6.60 a day in travel, now at the moment Im only working three days a week so it's not so bad, but once I start working day shift I'll need a weekly or a monthly travel card, or even a yearly one, I'll wait and see, but again this isn't the topic of this blog, well the commuting part is.
I've been using buses most of my life and I use the London Underground pretty damn often so it's natural for me, as a bus or train pulls up that I move to the doors I'm going to use to enter the bus/train and then check if anyone is getting off, if not fine but if there is I move to one side, standing by the side of the doors so that the people on board have a clear egress, they can step off and not worry about bumping into me, then they can go about they're business, and I've noticed that when I do that, move to one side, everybody behind me kinda does the same, they get out of the way.
So why is it that every time I get to my tube station and there are people waiting on the platform ready to jump on, why do they just stand there, all huddled together like Empirer Penguins trying to stay warm, then they all look at me, they don't even try to let my off the train first, they stand in a semi circle around the doors waiting to jump on and snatch up a vacant seat, it's all about the seats.
I remember a few weeks back, it was a Monday morning I was heading home for the last time that shift and this happens, now it's like 7 in the morning and im tired I've been up since 1pm the day before I just want to get home and get some sleep without the alarm clock interfering, I'm thinking about 8 to 9 hours of sleep, but when I go to step off the train there are people and they're not moving out of the way so I bump into them as I do so, The train ain't going nowhere yet people it'll still be here when I get off, like a herd of cattle, one of them starts to move and they all follow suit, it's all about the seats,
If you ever visit London, and I hope you do because I love this place, even it's faults, remember those words if your ever on the London Underground, ask Paul he knows, he's been there,
~ITS ALL ABOUT THE SEATS~
I actually said to these people "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY, FOR FUCK SAKE", I'm not usually like that but it's really annoying, especially when you make a conscious effort to let people off first before even trying to get on, I've heard somebody say that London is the only place where people can let you off a train while moving forward to get on it, I doubt that's true, but I do see it every time I use the London Underground.
Another thing that annoys me is when a person looks at you, makes eye contact and then doesn't make any effort to even move just a little bit to let you pass, this goes for trains, buses, stair cases and streets in general.
If you do visit London go to Oxford Street, one of the busiest streets in Britain and try to walk it without bumping into anyone or being bumped into by another, it's impossible.
I used to walk behind a friend of mine, Anthony Profitt, he's a big fella about 6"6' and large around the middle, I let him take the lead because I throught people made an effort not to bump him, I mean it's not like you couldn't see him coming, so I'd hang back and walk in his wake, it's like a comfort zone of clean air with nobody to bump into, but if somebody did bump him he used to say that he wishes he had a shotgun it would of been easier to clear a path, I used to think, not so much clear as scatter a path, but then you'd have to deal with sirens and police and it's just to much hussle really.
Although I had that thought today as I stepped off the train and nobody moved to make that easier, I thought that if I had a shotgun and shot someone with it I wouldn't have that problem, people would see that im exiting the train, maybe a little disgruntled, and they would want to let me pass.
As I imagined this scenario playing out in my mind as I bluntly pushed through the crowd I walked to a small gate that's leads to the stairs, and a group of people were filing through it, I waited for a brake in the flow of people to again push past, the shotgun seemed like so much more fun then this, I started up the stairs and these two blokes (bloke - A man, British/Austrailian slang) were talking halfway up, one was leaning against the railing the other was standing about halfway across the stair, this man looked down at me and then turned back to his friend to continue they're chat, needless to say I had to hug the opposite railing to get past, saying "don't worry I got it" I heard a tut as I continued up the stairs, so at the top I round the corner to my left and make a bee line for the gates, a man who works in the station is standing in front of it, I approach and he doesn't move, my first thought was 'cunt' the second drew me back to the shotgun idea.
Anyway I pass the gates by swiping my Oyster card and moving to my desired exit, which is the afore mentioned Parliment Building, I wrap up my coat because it's cool and I leave the tube station behind me only to meet a crowd of people outside taking photos of the castle like structure of Big Ben, now even though I call it Big Ben it's not called Big Ben, Big Ben is the name of the large bell in the tower behind the clock, and apparently it was made by the same company that built the Liberty Bell, but don't quote me on that, The shotgun again at the front of my mind although taking pot shots at tourists outside a government building isn't the best idea, that place is crawling with armed police and I wouldn't last very long.
So if you commute to work every day and you hate it, you have four choices;
1, Drink your milk and eat your vitamins, and then make people move by acting like Mr.T.
2, Learn to fly, yea okay that's pushing it a bit I know.
3, Become Chuck Norris, frankly you stand a better chance of learning to fly.
4, Get a shotgun, that should clear or scatter you a path to move through.
Alternitivly, you could get a city friendly car or even a Vesper, but where's the fun in that?
Your friendly commuter,
~Jay~
Shotgun free for 7 months and counting.
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