All you wanted to know about seating

Well, it’s been a little while. I’m definitely part of the “If you don’t have anything to say” school of thought, which I realise might be an adaptation of the conventional philosophy, but you get the gist.

There have been very few mental passengers, the Natives are still strangely absent (like the calm before the storm) and no engineering works to damp the general spirits.

Last Friday a group of what I thought were girls but actually turned out to be boys, jumped on the train at Cambridge. After five minutes of general noise, one of them remarked on the fact that there are people trying to read. At which point, Captain Bigmouth here pipes up with “TRYING to read...” After that a stabbing ensued – significant as the first one outside of London and to someone over the age of twenty-five. Not really – this isn’t the front page of The Sun, after all. We had a light hearted conversation about what to do about the one extremely loud male foetus. I suggested gagging. His friend elaborated by throwing “with a sweaty sock” into the mix. Added to that, they got off at Ely, a mere fifteen minutes from Cambridge. Bless ‘em, they were good boys – just a bit sugared up from their trip away from the ‘rents.

I have a lot of time to think, on the train. I generally fill up the time with reading and/or music (depending on the background noise and the fullness of my own brain) but it’s impossible to escape the idle thoughts. Such as – when a conductor checks your ticket for the second time in an hour long journey, why do we put up with it? Isn’t it rather like patronising the cinema only to find the lights up half way through the feature while they check you’re allowed to be in there? I realise it’s hard to keep track of everyone especially if they move around, but I always thought it was a vital part of the conductor-y type job. That and serving tea at 100mph without spilling a drop. Amazing.

You know what else is amazing? The tables on trains. How can it be that the train lurches around corners and topples passengers onto other passengers, but your full, large coffee doesn’t even break a sweat? I don’t understand. I can only conclude it must be magic – something to do with lightweight velcro. They could probably stand to make the carpet out of the same material, though.

I did have a brilliant run in with Grumpy Lady today though (hereinafter referred to as GL) who I have sat next to before, or rather, she sat next to me. You know who she is. She’s the person who makes you feel like you should apologise for not curtseying when she enters the train. As if you should throw yourself prostrate on the ground so as not to sully her eyes with having to look at your face. She also has a hell of a lot of Stuff. As in, plastic bags, laptop bags, handbags... Basically a bit of a nightmare ot sit next to.

There I was, on a half empty train, enjoying my book and whiling away the hour with odd thoughts, when the train stopped at Brandon. Before I knew it, a terse voice barked “Excuse me” while a veritable holiday’s worth of crap got dumped at my feet. Bewildered, I raised my head and pointed a slightly trembling finger to one of the empty pairs of seats nearby. When I say nearby, I mean actually directly behind her. “That one’s free” I offered, “If you don’t want to sit next to anyone”. She muttered something unintelligbile apart from the tone and sat down bad temperedly at the empty seat. The one in the aisle, so no-one else could sit down next to her. Seriously. Why would you WANT to sit next to someone when you didn’t have to? This was made all the more relevant when she spent the next half hour applying make up. After that, she compounded my hatred of trainers with a suit by changing her racy red stilletos for fugly black trainers.

Rather like the urinal etiquette, I believe there is a strict code of train seat etiquette which could perhaps be applied to any seated even i.e. cinema, gig etc.

The idiot's guide to seating etiquette.

1. Do not sit directly beside, in front of or behind someone unless there is absolutely no room. If this means walking the length of the train/stadium, so be it.
2. When you wish to sit down at a seat which already has an occupant (but enough room for you and/or companions) you ask the occupant if you may sit down. This may only be a perfunctory gesture, but it counts for a lot and will save your elbows on the ensuing journey.
3. Armrests. There is one word to remember when dealing with an armrest hogger – SHARE. Very often those who sit next to the window do not have an armest – something nice to consider if you happen to be sitting on an aisle seat.
4. Tables. There are definite pros and cons to sitting at a table if you are a lone traveller. The extra room is a bit of a con really, as you share about the same amount of space with three other people, as you would have with a dual seater.

My guideline is basically to esnure your feet do not encroach past the half-way line on the table. However, please remember that some people have longer legs and may need more room.

5. The final rule, the last but not least, if you will – remember the person next to you is actually a human being. If you don’t have enough elbow room and want to get the pointy bits out or fancy playing mean footsie because your toes are a bit squished and you’ve spotted they’re wearing sandals – ask yourself how happy you’d be if they did it to you. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been elbowed, trodden on or barked at just because someone else isn’t 100% comfortable. Believe me, I give as good as I get. But I’m so much more relaxed if someone asks me nicely to move my feet or my bag.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. In fact, if you think of any more that should be added – feel free.

Ooh, this is the first of my four day weeks. Bank holidays are pretty cool, and I have another Monday off next week,. For reasons unknown.

Book recommendation of the week: “twilight” by Stephanie Meyer. I’m a sucker (ha, no second pun intended) for teen vampire books. I definitely blame Buffy and all her scooby gang. If you haven’t heard of “twilight”, it’s about a girl called Bella who moves to a small town to live with her dad, and encounters some kids at the high school who... are a little bit different. Beautiful, dangerous and exciting – can Bella handle the pace?

I know, I know. I should write the blurb on the back of books. Before I’m thirty I want to realise my ambition of writing a Millls & Boon novel. Of course, it will probably be about high school vamps.

Modern day addictions

Another week, another... dollar? I can never remember how the saying is meant to go.
Anyway, my point is, it’s Monday. The rain is still falling from the sky and I am still neglecting to wear a jacket or even carry an umbrella.

I’m pretty happy today as the engineering work has officially finished, which means my journey now takes an hour and twenty minutes instead of two hours and multiple changes. Huzzah.
The train was disconcertingly full this morning though. Other people actually had to sit next to me. My favourite was the man who sat down across the table from me and proceeded to actually kick my feet out of the way. When I protested (by saying “Ouch”) he barked at me to move my bag, which was nestling happily between my feet, to the rack. As if, upon seeing a fairly young girl alone he deduced he could be the boss of me. I replied with “It’s fine where it is, actually” and then he tried to start a foot war, which I politely ignored. I don’t understand some people. There isn’t a lot of room, granted, but I try to stick to my side of the table as much as possible. I do have long legs though, so I’m aware that I take up more room than people would expect me to.

This month has to be the slowest month in the world. Fact. I’m sure I last got paid about six weeks ago, and yet here I am, with another week to go. This month has been tremendously busy though – in a time span of a fortnight there has been no less than six birthdays, that I can think of off the top of my head. Darn winter, making everyone go to bed earlier. Oh, winter. I can feel it already – let’s face it, our summer happened somewhere around mid-May. Our grass is already out of control again, but it’s never dry for long enough so we can cut it properly. I say we. I mean Mr Charming.

Oh, and I’d just like to say. Hello. My name is Suzanne, and I’m a scrabulous addict. It’s like a disease. If I get beaten and my score diminishes rapidly, I sulk. If I win, my score never increases by enough. I check scrabulous every ten minutes or so, to see if anyone has moved since I checked it last. I think I need help. Well, maybe just a bit more willpower. Or I may have to self-block facebook at work. But then I wouldn’t be able to play Scrabulous, which may mean that I think about it all of the time and get no work done anyway.... In fact, if any of the people who might be reading this fancy a game – feel free to click on my scrabulous link. I play SOWPODS regular games and normally score over 300. I sometimes use an anagram helper but never use words I don’t understand, or board generators.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to urge everyone to read my friend’s film review blog. He’s going to be writing for the NME pretty soon, so catch him before he’s catapulted into the mainstream and leaves all of us lowly bloggers behind... Also, he said he’d read my blog as I read his, so maybe he’ll be more interested with a bona fide mention.

I've been thinking about a conversation we had this morning at work. One of my colleagues commented on a new breed of commuter in this area - that of the business lady with trainers on. Personally, I hate this 'look', and said so in my usual subtle way. My other (male) colleague then told me that I didn't 'get' it and people who do that are trying to be comfortable. I replied that there are flats for this purpose, which means that you don't look like a moron. The conversation was terminated there, which I think was a bit of a shame because there could have been some interesting discussion. My office is about 99% male, so the view would have been different. It still got me thinking though - is it just sensible to wear trainers with your work outfit and then slip on heels at work (especially if you're visiting the gym during the day) or is it plain fugly?

Of course, it's a moot point for us really. We wear jeans and t-shirts.