some thoughts from the road

i recently took a short trip to scotland to see my best friend's alma mater. here's some thoughts from the road... will have more on the realities of life soon...

A train ride across Britain could often be mistaken for 8 hours in a local JobCentre. In fact, with the current labour strike across the country, perhaps the Government has simply made coming onto a train the equivalent of ‘signing on’. There are multiple single parents, gaggles of families of 4 with a cumulative age of less than 50 and more piercings than are visible in an entire afternoon in Ladbrokes. If Gordon Brown truly wants to revolutionalise the social welfare system in Britain, he could start by offering free parenting classes on trains and creating ‘social networks’ and ‘generalised trust’ with a reformed seat allocation service.

The trip from the seat of learning, Oxford, to the posh den of golf, St. Andrews, has been complete with being pushed up against a luggage compartment with a blind-deaf woman (at least she was wearing a badge) refusing to budge as her and her 5 children and equally blind (seeing eye-dog in tow) husband try to move everyone on the train out of their car so as to recline with leisure. In part, this is the consistent experience of public transportation. However, the over-abundance of fake Burberry, track suits and 17-year olds with prams highlights just how common, utilised and established public transport by train has become in this part of the world.

One can hardly imagine this scene in travelling by train across Canada. The jostling for seats would be replaced by the near boredom of being seated alone in a car with 14 Japanese tourists from Banff to Vancouver; the constant barrage of mobile ring tones completely absent as the majority of passengers attempt to sleep away the double-digit hours of layover between stops.

We’re now stopped at Lockerbie, a town that holds poignant and sad significance for the country and the world, especially with the prevalence and frequency of terror in our modern world. However, the political significance of Lockerbie, even with the recent meeting between Blair and Gadhaffi, seems lost on the train as I watch my compatriot across the aisle stir from the brink of snoring to put back her copy of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher’s Guide”. The fact that the world is on the brink of destruction or chaos appears misplaced to the random punter in Car A who attempts to bravely walk the aisles like a trapeze artist returning with two more Stellas from his case highlighting the success of Britain’s bring-your-own policy on trains. The foreign policy flip-flop on Israel by George Bush this week is replaced with the political sentiment of the slightly overweight woman in Car D who, at the age of my mother, would like to tell the train to “F*** Off, I’m fussy” via the white t-shirt which clings slightly too closely to her ample breast-stomach combination.

I have a flashback to my weekend just past where I sat in the comforts of the office reading an article in the Times Magazine on the resurgence of Burberry and its ability to move its brand beyond being the fashion of football hooligans. I then look two roads in front of me to see the magazine might be a bit premature: an upstanding youth of Britain is fully clad in the fake check pattern (hat, jumper and socks) and his fashion-forward mindset is copied by his mate in the seat next door who has the ultimate matching ensemble of hat and hooded jumper bearing the wise words: “Fuck Fear, Drink Beer”- a lost sonnet of Heaney’s I think.

However, in other news, in a stunning twist of fate it is revealed that the surly woman from my previous encounter is in fact not deaf and blind but merely blind. My mind begins to wonder whether there’s a market for badges that simply read “Blind” and that maybe I should pitch this to Asda or somewhere else suitable. However, perhaps the woman is just choosing not to hear things, in which case, I too want a badge.

As the train travels further north, I notice another brilliant example of British urban planning. Approximately 10 metres from the railway tracks at Carstairs East station is one of Scotland’s federal penitentiaries. Is this placement aimed at providing the nation’s imprisoned train-watching anoraks with hours of entertainment or an attempt to reduce prison over-crowding by increasing the likelihood of successful escape? Judging by my fellow passengers, I don’t think the inmates would have any trouble blending in on this train. Perhaps this is the British version of the faint hope clause?

I’ve always wondered about the British penchant for mini-skirts. In a country in which sun is an anomaly and warm weather even rarer, why expose your pale, frozen chicken legs to the elements. However, a remarkable number of people seem to enjoy dressing for the beach. I hope the surfer girl, dressed in mini-skirt, Roxy t-shirt, seashell necklace, flip-flops and bottle tan, sitting behind me will enjoy her trip to the blustery and misty seaside this weekend. Perhaps this is the way forward to stimulate the slightly stagnant northern Scottish economy: why pay hundreds for Goa when Ayr’s beaches await?

I think perhaps that the leading brewers in Britain have missed out on the ultimate branding opportunity. With so many people wearing beer shirts on the trains, perhaps Carling or Carlsberg (definitely a lager) should consider just purchasing the trains outright. Think of the fantastic exchanges: are you taking the beer train to Skye? Then their could be competition to actually improve the efficiency of train travel: who could get to London Paddington quicker- Stella or Fosters?

I’ve just realised that all of my previous analogies and metaphors are incomplete. The true description of the train experience in Britain is the rugby scrum. There are hoards of people all grouped together in this cylindrical formation, many of them sweating profusely and the general odour is of bodies and heat and exertion (there’s an advert in there somewhere). It feels like there is near complete chaos but yet there are ‘rules’. While you can side-blow someone with a case or throw a garment bag into someone’s neck, you have to continue to pretend that you’re not really trying to injure- you’re simply doing everything in your power to achieve the ultimate ‘goal’- the privileged seat. Having just witnessed someone (a 5 ft. tall spherical ‘woman’ complete with trainers and whining child) lift a heavy bag and the child like a sack of potatoes, I’m more convinced than ever that Jonny Wilkinson got most of his training riding Virgin.

Just when the calm sets in, if calm can be described as pressing flesh with a lovely group of 25 of your favourite strangers, it’s time for the ‘trolley’ because if there’s one thing this group of frightfully large people needs its more crisps or an extra can of Virgin cola. As we sit sealed together in a vacuum-like tube with little air of any quality and a smell that farmers would consider air freshener, I just hope that the cradle of golf is here soon...

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