The Harpy

So, as we look back on the early observations of the daily commute, you will recall we met the "Harpy" - the woman who launched a verbal attack of epic proportions on a man who had run over her sandalled foot with his suitcase in the rush to get to the train.
I asked the question: "who was at fault?", and at the time it was hard to call.
In fact, it seems, appearances can indeed be deceiving - at first glance one might think us women should "stick together", members of the "sisterhood".
But continued close observation reveals a more sinister being behind the businesswoman.
For she is no normal commuter. With supernatural skills, the Harpy is the wicked witch of the 1733, disguised as a simple worker on her daily travels. Capable of mind-boggling speed, uncanny strength, and the ability to beat a man down with just a look, she is as Voldemort is to Harry Potter, Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker, or Blofeld to Bond.
An "aisle-only" to the core (see previous entry!), the Harpy has secret powers that ensure she ALWAYS gets what she wants.
She may appear a typical businesswoman, sporting a smart black dress and bleach blonde hair. But her trainers bely another purpose - the need for speed to beat any adversary.
Faster than a fatty to a pie-munching contest, with superhuman strength and a shoulder barge to rival any rugby player, she rarely loses the battle for her seat.
Swooping down the platform, unwitting rivals are knocked like skittles from her wake. As she explodes through the door, her eagle-eyes on the seat closest to it, she claims her throne.
It may be marked "available", but it is most definitely not. It is the Harpy's perch, and woe betide anyone who tries to snatch that coveted spot.
A worse fate awaits those foolhardy travellers who dare disturb her to get to the window seat that she cunningly leaves free to avoid sharing her space. For those unlucky enough to try to get to that spot, as politely as they ask, she will huff, and she will puff, and she will blow their house down.
A few escape unscathed, and for most, the look is enough, forced into submission by the withering glare as they search for another seat. A few seconds longer and they could turn to stone, so instead they retreat to the safe haven of another carriage.
The Harpy is a force to be reckoned with - a mystical opponent battled at one's peril.
But the mere mortals among us share the hope that one day, maybe not so far in the distant future, a saviour will come, a fellow commuter capable of taking her on - a David to her Goliath - who will one day bring peace and harmony to the Westcoast Mainline.

The great train race

The observations continue......
We all know us Brits love a queue. But commuters clearly love them more than anyone else.
I've monitored this for several weeks now and noticed a new subspecies. Not sure if there's an inventive name, other than those who like to queue.
I have to say, I don't get it. The aisle-onlys I understand. They want space, they need space, they will do anything to get that spaced.
But the queuers' actions seem nonsensical. At least five minutes, probably closer to ten, they gather up their belongings, speedily stowing away the coffee, phone, laptop., newspaper and coats. The urgent, hushed whisper comes: "can you move please, I need to get out", "excuse me, excuse me", as they hustle down the carriage. The race is on, who can get to the vestibule first, to be the person in poll position at the door, waiting to leap onto the platform the minute it opens? Who can be first?
And the rest of the queuers take their place, lining up one by one on the starting grid. Pawing the ground like keen racehorses, revving their engines like F1 drivers, they're all ready to go.
There's just one problem, the train isn't there yet. It won't be for several minutes. And in fact, for most of them, their queuing hasn't got them any further down the line. The true spirit of British manners means that when those in the seats near the front of the queue stand up, they are allowed in. Of course, it will only be the most churlish of travellers that block one of their fellow commuters out. Nobody wants to be that selfish in such an obvious way - if they're going to do it they'd rather do it on the sly.
So here they are, queuing up, dutifully waiting, to save how much time? Hours? No. Minutes? Not really. Possibly seconds, if they're lucky. So that queuing, that scrabbling and scrambling and standing in the aisle is pretty much unnecessary.
And, irony of all ironies, a brief survey carried out by yours truly suggests that seven out of ten of these people who consistently queue are in fact so slow that it only takes the length of two carriages walk down the platform to overtake them!
Take some advice guys, save yourselves the trouble...

The Daily Commute

How does the saying go? Something like, 'put people in a tough environment and you see both the best, and worst, of humanity'. Well yes, I'd back that.
And where, pray tell, is this tough environment? No other place than the daily commute.
According to 2009 figures 25million people in the UK commute to and from work, with 700,000 alone pouring into London, either from its outskirts, commuter towns, or even further afield.
I've only recently become one of those people - and if my eyes were ever to be opened, well they are now.
From now on, you will probably see a fair few posts dedicated to observations from the daily commute - mainly because I've realised it's the most fascinating way to observe my fellow man (and woman of course).
A novice to rail commuting, I looked forward to leaving road rage behind. Little did I know I was opening myself up to a whole new world....

Forget motorway-induced anger - on my first journey back home on the good old West Coast Mainline, I watched a woman morph into a harpy, screaming at a man who had run over her sandalled foot with a suitcase in his effort to get to the train to secure a seat. Who was at fault, you might ask? Well, it appeared to be an accident - however, the man was still so busy trying to beat the crowd that he wasn't around to offer an apology, commiserations, or even insist it was an accident. Imagine his face when same-said-harpy arrived in the seat opposite him to continue her diatribe.

Seating is always an issue, especially on some train lines. The Tube at rush hour is, for most, standing room only. Seats are hallowed ground, only the chosen few get the chance to rest their weary legs during the ride. Imagine then, not a tale of pushiness but a tale of generosity. A teenage girl clearing the crowds like Moses with his staff to allow and elderly lady to the chance to sit down. The original raised voice from the girl is not a teenage reprobate "kicking off" it turns out, but her having to point out to a man twice her age that it is merely sheer selfishness that he remains in his seat. Another good deed on the chart.
But seating is a whole new world on mainline commuter trains. The fact there are more of them means people are not willing to resign themselves to standing. And why should they, for hours? There are often plenty of seats to go round. That is, once the subspecies of what will henceforth be referred to as "aisle-only seaters", are moved out of the way.
"Aisle-onlys" are those people who get to the seats first - usually the ones with tables if they are at the top of their game. And, instead of sitting by the window, knowing as they do that the train is likely to be full, they take the aisle seat.
Why is this? Is this to do with preference? Do they have that seat reserved? Are those seats more comfortable?
No, in fact, the aisle-onlys have developed their "routine" for one purpose, and one purpose only - in the vain hope they may be able to have two whole seats to themselves.
Of course, this is never going to happen. The train is full, everyone wants a seat, everyone has paid for a seat. Cue the awkward moment of having to ask if anyone is actually sitting in the window seat, only for mr or mrs aisle-only to huff, and puff, and threaten to blow your house down in just one look as they move their laptop, coffee cup, mobile, and paperwork, so you can use the seat.
Of course, their game is more complex than a delaying tactic. It's about being the leader of the pack, the king of the jungle. Who will dare to topple the aisle-only person from their throne and ask them to move. It's the equivalent of poor Oliver asking: "please sir, can I have some more". You expect the roar, the reprimands, and the punishment. But worry not - face your fears and you will get the realistic result of the aisle-onlys capitulating, annoyed and looking rather silly, as you move into your seat. And that's before you even get to the satisfaction of the fact you made them move, you toppled them from their throne.

There's a few aisle-onlys on my train - same service, same carriage, same MO, every time. Will they change their ways? Probably not, unless there is a wholesale revolution of commuters who force them to see that this is downright selfishness in operation - bare-faced arrogance in the face of your fellow traveller. One might question what this makes of their behaviour the rest of the time - perhaps it's no coincidence that "aisle-only" said at commuter pace could be mistaken for "I'm lonely".....

Queues

Us Brits used to be known for our ability to queue.
While other nations stereotypically shouted, pushed, squeezed into trains, and honked horns, the stiff-upper-lipped Englishman would tut disapprovingly and staunchly stick to queuing up.
But no more. Alas, those days are gone.
Queues are a thing of the past. Instead of waiting your turn, you push as hard as you can, take shortcuts, barge people aside - because all of that is apparently easier than waiting.
As the crowds of commuters emerge from trains on London's underground network, there is no orderly line to the escalators. Instead, it's a stampede, a feral contest that quite literally is survival of the fittest. A hippopotamus of a man tramples a timid, elderly lady underfoot. Look another way and two power-dressing businesswomen hiss and shriek at each other like agitated cheetahs. And while some of us queue to get our place at the bottom of the escalator, an ageing gazelle-like woman skirts the outside of the crowd to get to the front. It really is a jungle out there!
And it's not just commuters in the big smoke. Try holding someone up on the roads, either from being too careful, or making (heaven forbid) a mistake. You will live to rue the day. And while a traffic jam used to mean a sigh of despair and a long, boring wait, now it's a scramble of people trying to find a way out. Whether that's driving down the hard shoulder, reversing up slip roads or any other "bending" of the law, that doesn't really matter because the only thing that does is getting there, and quick.
Of course, we're all led to believe this is "just the way it is". We should be prepared for this. It's just life, especially in the 24/7 world we live in where the clock is always ticking and of course, we all know the old adage "time waits for no man".
But it hasn't always been like this.
People really did used to queue. Patience used to be an important attribute, not something to be scorned.
So what's changed? Is anything we're rushing for any more important than it used to be?
The answer is probably no. If you're late for work is the world going to stop turning? If you don't get this train and get one in two minutes time, is that likely to be a life-altering moment? If you have to wait for the next green light is that going to ruin your day? To all of these, the answer is it's highly unlikely. Yes of course we all know the sliding doors scenario - one false move, wrong decision or two-minute delay can possibly, rarely, change your whole life. But generally? No.
The irony is, we probably all know this deep down. But our own importance and this behaviour is almost a self-perpetuating circle. We want to be important, so important that being late, or absent, will really ruin things! So we try not to be, getting more and more agitated at trying to counter every eventuality, beat every contingency and bring order to an unpredictable world.
In this process, we start to actually believe it. If I miss this train, I'll be two minutes late. I can't be late, what will they do? And on and on, ad tedium!
The sum total of this sorry situation is a world full of people so obsessed with our own importance that we can't see the bigger picture.
Instead of waiting, helping the weaker, the frail and the elderly, we focus on our strength, our speed and our wily ways to make sure we get places first. The person who pushes in, goes round the queue to the front, who cuts you up, breaks the rules, do that because THEY are more important than YOU. THEY need to get to where they are going quicker than YOU do to where you are.
That's the sad truth of the situation - we are a nation obsessed with our own importance.
But what's perhaps sadder is that this is not written in the third person, about a few. This is about you, and me, and a worrying majority of the population. We all do it, we're all sucked into the modern myth that we cannot wait, we must be quicker, tougher, stronger and more aggressive In everything we do - and hang the consequences.
Perhaps we need to stop, take a breath, and remember what it's like to wait in line.
Because after all, there's always someone at the back of the queue or the bottom of the pile who needs a helping hand, or just wants to take their own turn - and that, my friends, will one day be me and you!

Hair today, gone tomorrow....

Blondes have more fun, so they say. Not sure where that leaves the rest of us in the "fun" stakes but I'm sure I'm not the only one to have realised that statement is a bit of a nonsense.
I've tried every hair colour going in my 29 years (except perhaps the Katy Perry bright blue!), and different memories, photographs, and relationships are inextricably linked to those different barnet hues.
Mousey brown at school - not really in the "in" crowd, more a bit of an unmemorable nobody. Then came university, a few changes along the way, red streaks was one, and I vividly remember returning to school and people commenting on how noticeable my hair was. What an exciting feeling, to finally be noticed.
As my confidence grew, so I embraced the idea of blondes having more fun and my early 20s saw me hit the bleach hard, a "fun-loving" party girl, never far from the action and, though never short of a bit of attention, perpetually single, or darting from fling to fling.
My late 20s saw a switch to brunette - calmer, more content.
Until, that is, a brief crisis of confidence sparking a sudden desire to get the bleach out again. What it was meant to achieve is still not quite clear, in my own mind at least. Did I want a return to the "fun" Ellen of yesteryear, turning heads in bars, partying the nights away? Well, no, to be quite frank. I definitely don't want to go back to that. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt!
Perhaps it was something more simple - a bit of fear that comes with that realisation that you're actually a "grown-up"? Does a return to peroxide-loving me mean things like mortgages, weekends full of DIY, and lengthy discussions about career paths and future plans all seem somewhat more distant and less daunting? Perhaps it was just a bit of escapism, a moment of rose-tinted glasses.
The irony, of course, being that for those who met and knew only brunette Ellen, the blonde one wasn't any different, just sported a different hair colour.
So, here we are, three months down the line, and the brown is back already. Did I have more fun in those months? Did I feel more carefree, tossing off the responsibilities I have (which obviously I have chosen along the way, I hasten to add!)? The answer to these, and many more questions about whether my hair colour changed my life is no. The key to my personality, my thoughts, feelings, angst or problems, isn't some Samson-style connection to the current shade I've chosen, or indeed the style. Rather than guiding my decisions or actions, it seems these decisions about which dye to pick up are - if anything - perhaps a mirror, reflecting the way I see myself.
So, brown, brunette, redhead or bleached blonde - at the ripe old age of nearly 30, am I ever going to return to the me of 21? Or even 25? Or the person I was during any of the different periods of different hair colours?
That's doubtful, and quite frankly, probably a very good thing.........

I do.....

When you announce your engagement, the tsunami of questions is inevitable. Not only the big one - " do you take each other, etc etc etc?", that's the easy one. It's the rest that are the hard work: "have you set a date? Where are you having it? Have you picked a dress? What about the guest list? What about favours, what music will you have?"
The list goes on. That's part of the tradition apparently, part of the fun.
People constantly tell you: "Make sure you choose what YOU want, it's all about you two, do whatever you want!"

But is that really true? What happens when you actually do what YOU want and that's different from the norm?
Well, it's the reactions to that decision that are telling.
"What do you mean you're doing that?", "oh really.....?" (it's the pause that gives it away, definitely the pause).
From one person, the exact words: "You can't just have that many people, have you actually thought this through? It's all about the day you know, that's the most important thing."

Obviously I find myself disagreeing. Is it all about the day? Is that the most important thing in what's supposed to be a lifetime of marriage? Obviously it's a big day, a cause for celebration, but is that all it boils down to? A celebration? Isn't marriage supposed to be more than that? Surely it's supposed to mean more than a big party, a plush hotel, a three-course meal and a disco. And those vows, whether they're said in a church, a hotel, a registry office, witnessed by 200 people, 50, or just a few - isn't it what's said that's important? The idea of vowing to stick together whether it's fun party times or the other, sometimes rubbish, times. That's what seems to be the important part - the marriage bit.
But it's not all doom and gloom. There's plenty of other reactions - all amazingly positive. It seems when the majority of people say do what you want, they actually mean it.
For many, the idea of doing something different sparks well wishes, and genuine joy: "That's great, you should do whatever makes you feel happy, whatever you choose, it'll be a lovely day."

And that, ladies and gentleman, surely sums it up. Whatever people do, it really should be what they want to do. After all, when the party's over, who's left? Not 200 people, or 50. No, when the food's eaten and the disco's over, it's just the two of you, "till death do us part."