Into London today again and of course the train is completely full. Actually, I should be grateful as the train departed late and I didn’t expect to catch this train anyway. The trains aren’t that frequent on Sundays as the poor train drivers aren’t paid enough and so have decided not to work overtime. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the logic of that decision.

Of course a full train makes for interesting social observations in terms of the way people interact regarding seats. Typical British behaviour is for 1 person to occupy a 2 or 4 person seat as we love our own personal space. You’ll see people actually standing in the vestibules rather than interact with people and ask others to move for a seat. Of course I’m a little more forthright when it comes to asking someone if a seat is taken, even shouting at people who are sleeping to wake them up.

The trains to Cambridge are very poor in terms of layout. Either 2 person seats in a row, facing the direction they were bolted into (we haven’t figured out the technological advancements that they have elsewhere in the world to allow the seat direction always to face the direction of travel). Alternatively 4 person ‘table’ seats – I use the phrase ‘table’ in quotes as my breakfast tray is about twice as large (and that just carries OJ, Coffee, and some cereal).

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to comment on another social observation. Let’s call it “50’s makeup lacking”. I’ve seen this so many times. Lady in her 50’s with luggage (always including a makeup bag) that has to sit right beside her on the train, thus inflicting discomfort for people trying to get some degree of personal space. What’s funny is that she never actually looks good and clearly doesn’t wear (or understand) makeup. I’m trying to think what is stored in the makeup bag – I reckon it’s secretly an undercover cross-dresser and actually in the bag is a Black and Decker drill !