A Tube Journey of the Most Interesting

I was on the tube on Friday. Yep, I really was.

I like travelling - there is something very peaceful about it :) Well, yes, before I get side-tracked I'll tell you what I was going to tell you about the tube.

Everyone knows that sometimes druggies (what? What would you prefer me to call them? Medical addicts?) or students come onto the tubes and do something to try to get money.

Well, so there I was sitting on the tube (unusual in and of itself, me sitting) and two Irish guys who reminded me very much of someone I met recently, got on and began to address us.

One got out a violin, the other one got out something like a tamborine/guitar - do I mean a ukele? and they began to play Irish waltzes (or it might have been)

It was most interesting. No-one took the slightest bit of notice. No-one lowered their newspapers, not a single soul raised an eyebrow. It's an unspoken English rule - pretend people like this do not exist.

But I felt really bad. Had I been anywhere else, I would have clapped at the end, and said thank-you and really enjoyed it - it took an edge off the montony of the tube ride, but no.

Nothing. No-one noticed, everyone was selectively deaf.

At the end of the song some American voice shouted "Thank you guys!" and began a round of clapping.

Now, I'm English I'm not astonished by people who see right through you and pretend you're not there, so when the round of clapping turned really loud and even the old guy across from me who had displayed the tiniest bit of emotion (annoyance) was clapping his heart out, I was really quite shocked.

Hmmm, very unusual. I suppose it was Friday, so there might have been some extraordinary circumstances.

The next song comes up. Silence again. Blank faces. Everyone looking everywhere but at these two Irish guys....

Of course, I had to pretend I wasn't noticing them too, or everyone would have thought I was a mad American (lol), so began to look at the phone that the woman sitting next to me had.

It was a nice phone. A T-Mobile G1 that these adverts are all about. (The ones where everyone says they have been singing and dancing with half of London. That would be miraculous. Anyway...)

Then I noticed the guy on the display picture.

Everyone familiar with that Muslim fellow who has a hook? He makes mad speeches in England about how we should all be dead or Muslim or posssibly both.

Yes? Well, I could have sworn that was him. On the front of a mobile phone.

I began to edge away from the woman next to me very slowly. . inspecting her luggage at the same time, and came to the conclusion that if she was about to blow us up, there was a bomb in her handbag, which as everyone knows, are made big enough nowadays to carry a 2 yr old baby, forget a bomb.

I was happy the next stop was my stop :)

Maybe her husband just had the unfortunatatily (new word!) to be like the man with the hook, because I haven't heard of any circle line trains blowing up, but I'd rather not have stuck around to find out!

So yes, a tube journey out of the ordinary. Not one I'd actually like to repeat, but interesting :)

Till next time,

Cxx