One of the joys of my controversial return to work has been the daily commute. This involves leaving the house before dawn has shown her crack, boarding a local bus to the coach station, another to Glasgow, and then a Subway to Ibrox. It is difficult to get comfortable on a Meatball Marinara footlong, but I’m just doing what Tebitt told me to, only in a twenty-first century fashion.
Because the days are now filled by someone else’s agenda instead of my hectic own, the commute is about the only free time I have. For those five hours per day (yes, you read it correctly) I am at liberty to observe the world around me. I feel like I’m on day release, only I’m not working the mornings in a charity shop but sitting in various rectangular chunks of wheeled metal.
Once you’ve counted all the Citylink motifs on the upholstery (3,476), there’s not much else to observe but the people around you; the cast in this chiefly M8-based drama. So, pausing only to find there’s no toilet roll in the portaloo cabin again before beginning, Swimming in the Afternoons will be bringing you profiles of these characters as and when it can be arsed. We’ll start, I think, with a glance at the Phone Steptoe.
You wouldn’t like the Phone Steptoe when he’s angry, which means you wouldn’t like him because he knows no other mood. Twice he has boarded the 18.30 to Edinburgh, and twice he has sworn at other passengers for using mobile phones. As his title suggests, he looks a lot like Albert Steptoe, only more dishevelled. He smells of musty dishcloths and, short of a hankie, I once saw him blow his nose into an empty Irn Bru bottle and then place the bottle in his Tesco bag, as if for later.
On his most recent rant, the Phone Steptoe wagged his fist at a lady in her 60s who was calling home to ask her husband to switch on the oven. Perhaps the P.S. is a member of a hardline microwave-only sect. He eventually moved from the back of the bus to the front, though had to sheepishly return when he realised he’d left his bumper puzzle book behind. The other subject of his ire was a man in his twenties who was organising the purchase of some skunk. The P.S. gesticulated like Toto Schillaci appealing for a penalty, loudly proclaimed “oh for Christ’s sake, this is all we need. All we fucking well need” and again removed himself from earshot. As I alighted an hour later, he was still shaking his head and muttering. Perhaps he prefers text messages.
‘Wheeled metal’ made me issue a smug guffaw. Caroline and I have just debated whether your commute is being paid for on expenses or not. Really. That’s what we talk about.
Don’t worry; a lot of the chateratti and opinion formers are debating the same – it’s a sad no.