Stockholm Syndrome

Last week or so I went down to London for Emily Laurie's birthday. It was riot: bowling, karaoke, and drinking. So, not much has changed with Emily. Except for the karaoke, which was out-of-order. It was nice to be back in London, but only for a short while. London is best done in weekends I think -- you get the great bars, the great food but not that annoying everyday baggage of actually living there.

The London to Cardiff train is often a crowded one, so much so that people run down the platform when it arrives. I sauntered along the platform -- because I think I'm above all that, obviously -- and bagged an unreserved table-seat. A very foreign chap sat down near me. Now, I don't read the Daily Mail, I just mean he looked incredibly lost. Anyway, unfortunately he seemed not to know about the tickets on seats denoting their reservedness. He was soon evicted from his seat, and after being spurned from another I pointed him to a seat across the way: “That one,” I whispered, “is not reserved.” He thanked me and shifted across the aisle. As he moved a large Welsh woman and her two noisy children tumbled into the table-seats around me. I eyed the seat I had just given away enviously. These two children, only eight or nine admittedly, were the most retarded children I have ever heard. “Mam!” the boy shouted, pointing in amazement at my laptop as I tried to watch The West Wing, "look at the colours Mam!"

“Mammy! I need toilet! MAAAAM! I NEED THE TOILET!”
“Mammy! Rhiannon’s made a smell Mam!”
“No I didn’t Mam! Rhys is a liar! YOU’RE A BIG LIAR! ’Aven’t done nothin’ I aven’t Mammy!”

But indeed she had.

Before getting on the train I had bought myself a nice can of chilled beer with which to wind down and watch some West Wing. Who, though, can crack open a tinny while sitting next to a nine-year-old boy? A while into the journey I noticed that the chap I had pointed a seat out to was making as if to get off. As he stood so did I, and I moved towards him.

“Are you getting off here?” I asked, eyeing his seat. His childless seat.
“This is reading?”
“Sorry?”
“This is reading?”
“Oh right! Yes, yes this is Reading. Are you getting off at Reading? Because this is it.”

The boy was now bouncing up and down on the seat I had vacated, “MAM! LOOK AT ME MAM! I’M A GIGANTIC FLEA! BOING BOING! IF YOU ‘AD A MASSIVE SPRAY YOU COULD SPRAY ME AN’ I’D BE LIKE WAAAAAAAAAAH WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” I sank into my seat gratefully, and the Welsh mother looked at me with contempt. Her suger-filled son, meanwhile, continued bouncing, knocked over their empty cans of coke, and swept the empty sweets and chocolate bar wrappers to the floor.


An hour, one West Wing, some sushi, and a can of Fosters later I looked up. We seemed to have stopped at the next station – “MAMMY! I can read! I learned in school I did! Look at the station mammy! WE'RE AT READING!”

I have no idea what station the foreign chap got off at, but I bet he didn't find any great food or great bars, which is just as well because he probably wouldn't have found any in Reading either. He certainly wouldn't have found any on the London to Cardiff train anyway.