[Travel] The morning commute.

[Worried Man Blues]

All these people walking along looking like they are talking to themselves, I now fit right in!

 

[ROSM]

This is going to sound very 1st world/entitled

As I have a slipped disc, on the rare days I do commute I have been buying advance/split ticket 1st class for the thameslink trains. I need a seat and feel weird/unable to evict old/pregnant/disabled people from the priority seats.

I've noticed that often 1st class is full of people who don't have 1st class tickets (this is the front carriage as the rear carriage is permanently declassified and therefore full too) and there is no chance of revenue protection getting on a busy train. So it's a social conundrum. Do I;

A) ask someone if they have a 1st class ticket and if not, could they move
B) speak passive aggressively to someone nearby and say 'I only bought a 1st class ticket because of my poor crippled skeleton and so I am really DISAPPOINTED there are no seats available'
C) wave my 1st class ticket around like Mr Bean in the eponymous film
D) suck it up buttercup and TUT loudly
E) tweet about it naming British transport police /rail company as everybody loves a grass

 

[Bodian]

I once spoke to a youngish woman after she had finished renewing her car insurance on the phone on a train.

I politely pointed out to her I clearly heard her house number, postcode, car reg, debit card number, expiry date and cvv number.

She told me I “shouldn’t have been f***ing listening”

Almost identical thing happened to me when I pointed that out to a fellow traveller!

 

[Weststander]

We will look back on lockdowns as one of the biggest mistakes in our history.

On the severity and duration of them, I do agree. The mental health crisis since, kids who lost all confidence, a huge number of parents now don't send their kids to school or allow their kids to say I'm not going in today. A very particular breakdown in the social contract that's directly linked back to the pandemic. Sauce: not right wing papers, instead heads and teachers who call into shows by Nicky Campbell, LBC.

[I'm not a CV19 denier, tin-hat liar and believed in the restrictions at the time].

 

[Weststander]

This is going to sound very 1st world/entitled

As I have a slipped disc, on the rare days I do commute I have been buying advance/split ticket 1st class for the thameslink trains. I need a seat and feel weird/unable to evict old/pregnant/disabled people from the priority seats.

I've noticed that often 1st class is full of people who don't have 1st class tickets (this is the front carriage as the rear carriage is permanently declassified and therefore full too) and there is no chance of revenue protection getting on a busy train. So it's a social conundrum. Do I;

A) ask someone if they have a 1st class ticket and if not, could they move
B) speak passive aggressively to someone nearby and say 'I only bought a 1st class ticket because of my poor crippled skeleton and so I am really DISAPPOINTED there are no seats available'
C) wave my 1st class ticket around like Mr Bean in the eponymous film
D) suck it up buttercup and TUT loudly
E) tweet about it naming British transport police /rail company as everybody loves a grass

F) have to get their early to beatthe criminals.

 

[BN9 BHA]

I don't get why people can't hold their phone to their ear to make a call, rather than pretending they're on the f***ing Apprentice and letting everyone else hear their banal conversations.

100% this…..f****** attention seekers everywhere these days

 

[LamieRobertson]

100% this…..f****** attention seekers everywhere these days

Totally agree…..by the way how’s your Tik Tok channel going?

 

[BN9 BHA]

But it would still entail my buying something for a product that I don't need. I have no intention of maintaining an iPhone when I finish my contract with this company.

... Or older people. My work phone is an iPhone, which definitely is not my choice. I don't play music on it but as Apple in their infinite wisdom decided to dispense with an earphone jack, I can't use my headphones on it. Which means that calls, voice mails and video clips that my company send me are broadcast to the world. It drives me mad, let alone the other passengers.

PS Just in case anyone says get bluetooth headphones, I have some but they're not Apple so don't work with the iPhone. I really don't see why I should fork out for headphones I don't want for a phone I didn't want in the first place

Maybe don’t answer your work phone, listen to voice mails and video clips on public transport if it drives you and other passengers mad, use the phone when you finish your journey.

If your company expect you to use their phone when you’re on public transport ask them for the money to buy Bluetooth headphones or the adapter suggested by others on the replies to your posts.

Hopefully this helps

 

[BN9 BHA]

Totally agree…..by the way how’s your Tik Tok channel going?

The only tik tok I’ve got is the wall mounted clock in my home office

 

[Dave the OAP]

For 10 years I did Portslade to London Bridge

met some brilliant people who have remained good friends. rusco, Kieran, adie , Anthony . You are all on here.

now my commute is from bed to the shower, to the kitchen for breakfast

apart from seeing our group and Friday night piss ups , I don’t miss it at all

 

[Gabbafella]

I worked throughout COVID, I used to get the 700 bus from Brighton to southwick each day, it was lovely. Very few people, nobody allowed to sit near you, everyone was quiet and respectful.
Once everyone started going back to work it was quite the opposite and the reason I decided to save for driving lessons. The bus wanker life had to be ditched before I throttled someone.
And trains are even worse, it can be absolute carnage with ultra loud conversations and people on phones/listening to shit music.
Maybe I've just become less tolerant over the years, but I'm pretty sure I dislike people, and I don't discriminate, I dislike everyone equally.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

I don't get why people can't hold their phone to their ear to make a call, rather than pretending they're on the f***ing Apprentice and letting everyone else hear their banal conversations.

It's because they're twats.

 

[BN9 BHA]

It's because they're twats.

 

[CroydonSeagull]

This crosses into the bellcheeses at work thread but…

Definitely a difference depending on the time and route you commute. Going in for an 8am start in London, ahead of the main rush, you tend to miss most of the issues of the opening poster.. so too being on the Gatwick Express - quicker, more room and pricier, which keeps the hoardes at bay

Put it down to a lot of people hybrid working and thus treating their work day in the office as more of a jolly up - certainly the case at my workplace immediately post return to the office.. probably a bit like the study that shows school pupils in uniform behave better than on non uniform days or whatever..

I am in total agreement, for my rare excursions to the office in central London I'll get a train which gets me in around 7:45 - 8:00 much more pleasant than the peak rush. I mean, that always assumes Thameslink/Southern haven't ballsed something up or cancelled a bunch of trains!

 

[South Stand Bonfire]

Behaviour on the trains in particular has gone downhill since Covid. Just as offices started to open up and people started to travel again, albeit in smaller numbers, on the few times I used to go to London, a strategic cough and a splutter would guarantee you a quadrangle table seat arrangement for the whole duration of the journey. Not any more.

 

[raymondo]

... Or older people. My work phone is an iPhone, which definitely is not my choice. I don't play music on it but as Apple in their infinite wisdom decided to dispense with an earphone jack, I can't use my headphones on it. Which means that calls, voice mails and video clips that my company send me are broadcast to the world. It drives me mad, let alone the other passengers.

PS Just in case anyone says get bluetooth headphones, I have some but they're not Apple so don't work with the iPhone. I really don't see why I should fork out for headphones I don't want for a phone I didn't want in the first place

Ask your company to buy you Bluetooth headphones - they really should

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

It’s not an attack on young folk. The cabal includes a load of belligerent older men and women. Unable to be polite, zero interest in the effect they have on others.

f*** off.

On a serious note I disagree that driving has got worse. On motorways these days, especially around London, people stick to the speed limit much more. Before they brought in the cameras most people cruised at 80. Now it's 70.

On my London commute (which I rarely use these days to be honest) we have had loud conversationalists and teenagers and twenties with loud music players, sometimes singing along, since forever. If anything it's quieter these days.

Maybe you get a better class of numpty on the train compared with the bus

 

[Denis]

I don’t drive, but often like a bus ride from Brighton to Eastbourne on the 12X bus. Most times I have to listen to foreign students holding loud conversations on their phones. It’s even worse because I don’t understand what they’re talking about!

 

[Weststander]

f*** off.

On a serious note I disagree that driving has got worse. On motorways these days, especially around London, people stick to the speed limit much more. Before they brought in the cameras most people cruised at 80. Now it's 70.

On my London commute (which I rarely use these days to be honest) we have had loud conversationalists and teenagers and twenties with loud music players, sometimes singing along, since forever. If anything it's quieter these days.

Maybe you get a better class of numpty on the train compared with the bus

It’s urban driving. From the horses mouth (Sussex Police occifers) they told me about the huge amount of road rage in the Brighton area now, leading to offences. A load of blokes now carry weapons by the drivers seat.

I noticed that too about car speeds on the M25, M23 and A23 in recent journeys, hardly anyone driving over c. 75mph. Fear of all the types of speed camera and unmarked police cars?

 

[raymondo]

f*** off.

On a serious note I disagree that driving has got worse. On motorways these days, especially around London, people stick to the speed limit much more. Before they brought in the cameras most people cruised at 80. Now it's 70.

On my London commute (which I rarely use these days to be honest) we have had loud conversationalists and teenagers and twenties with loud music players, sometimes singing along, since forever. If anything it's quieter these days.

Maybe you get a better class of numpty on the train compared with the bus

The driving in rural Wiltshire has worsened...i can't figure out if it's an increase in idiot-muppetism, or simply desperate attempts to avoid all the effing pot holes