strangers on a train

Boarding a train for Liverpool Street at Shenfield, I found myself in a carriage with two blokes, one of them loudly groaning: ‘I’m a mong!’ Oh great, I thought, settling into a corner, determined to maintain a low profile. It transpired - I couldn’t help but listen - that the guy was a pissed Scotsman addressing his sleeping friend. Of course the friend was equally pissed, and when he awoke, they set about imitating train noises and announcements, singing, and wondering whether each station we passed through was Borehamwood. Stratford seemed to fox them totally for some reason (‘What the fuck? Stratford?’), but as we headed towards Liverpool St. they seemed to recover from their confusion, and started talking about ‘London toon, the fuckin’ capital’. It was like they really had just got on the train at Glasgow and headed for London on a drunken whim. A few days later they’d wake up homeless on a London street, having completely forgotten their old lives.

Anyway, they didn’t seem especially aware of me until we pulled into Liverpool St. and I heard one of them say: ‘There’s a George Galloway look-alike!’ I looked up to see the other one blearily attempting to focus his hostile stare on me. Fantastic, I thought, I’m going to get beaten up for looking like George Galloway. Who I do not even remotely resemble. But they shuffled on, and when I got up and looked into the next carriage there was someone who looked exactly like George Galloway. It might even have been him, fresh out of Celebrity Big Brother. You were sharper than I gave you credit for, I thought, a little chastened, as I watched them walk off down the platform. Arms around each others’ shoulders, they were singing I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside. By the way, it was four in the afternoon.