High on life

I have had a spate of weird journeys recently. Here's one of them.

I get on the train from Oxford to Birmingham New St. It is a Sunday afternoon. Nothing particularly bad is happening on the network and I sit down in a seat with a reserved ticket on it. The table to my left is occupied by four people: a man with a beard; a trendy, slightly alternative-looking young man; a woman with flicked hair and expensive-looking highlights; and a woman dressed almost entirely in beige, wearing large glasses.

As the journey progresses, it becomes increasingly obvious that these four people should never have been allowed to meet. They should stay behind the barriers of age,politics, gender, and class, where it's safe for them and for the rest of the world. But they don't. They start talking to each other, each conversation foundering near, but not quite in, an argument.

"They've ruined The Telegraph," remarks the woman in beige, whose large spectacles make her look like a disgruntled owl. "They put far too many pictures in it now. It's not suitable for a serious newspaper."

The trendy/alternative-looking young man offers her an unopened copy of The Independent, which she refuses.

The ticket inspector (or, Train Manager in the world of privatisation) comes round and the woman in beige complains that the announcements aren't clear enough. "He needs to speak more loudly and put his mouth nearer the microphone," she helpfuly suggests. The Train Manager promises to have a word, rolling her eyes to heaven ever so slightly. Clearly this is the latest of many helpful suggestions.

There has been a mix-up with the seat reservations. Three people have been booked on the same seat. On the opposite side, two people have been booked on the same seat. Watching people trying to sort this out is excruciating: the battle between politeness and repressed anger.

"It's poor management and organization," pronounces the woman in beige.

The trendy young man suggests that people in this country wouldn't be happy if they didn't have anything to complain about. then things get even worse. I suddenly realise that he is really quite good-looking. This is really too much. (I have a theory that there are more good-looking women in the world than men. The basis for this rather controversial statement is this. While I was living with the Other Gremlin and the Dutch Squeeze, we went on an outing to sit by the canal in Bristol to have a drink and to give the Dutch Squeeze a chance to look at ladies. This made me realise that through a combination of marriage, laziness, despair, and perhaps bad luck, I assume that 1) no-one will look at me, which is mostly but not always true 2) the only attractive men in the world live on television and in magazines. So, for about an hour and a half, I watched to see if anyone attractive walked past. And nobody did. The Dutch Squeeze was better provided for, I think.)

Who needs drink and drugs when you can get high on the weirdness of sitting near a quartet of people having a conversation which could make a great episode of The Office, mixed with the unnatural sensation of sitting near someone who you find really attractive?

"I'm driving next time," pronounces the woman with the highlights.

"Perhaps you should get the coach?" suggests the very good-looking young man, who still is very good-looking.

"Don't talk to me about coaches," says the woman in beige. "I nearly lost the will to live."

The Train Manager returns and is questioned about the mix-up over the seat reservations. She patiently untangles the muddle: the woman with highlights is travelling on the wrong train and the other confusion is due to a computer error. She invites the man next to me to do what she first suggested (which is move to first class). I silently applaud her for not saying the words 'first class' , since I imagine this would be like a red rag to a bull to the woman in beige. The man next to me wonders if he is still on Planet Earth. I say I believe I am on a train between Oxford and Birmingham and we are somewhere in the Leamington Spa area, but I have my doubts. He goes off to the safety of First Class and my reserved seat is claimed by another passenger. I politely move saying that it really is no trouble. The woman in beige kindly offers me a seat next to her and opposite the good-looking young man. Even worse. I desperately hope neither of them will talk to me, and stare fixedly out of the window. The good-looking man glances at me once or twice out of very blue eyes.

I stagger off the train at Birmingham New St, hoping that no-one will talk to me on my journey to Queen's Moor, wondering, yet again, if there is something wrong with me, the world, or both.