When to Give Your Seat ( or Not )

Don’t get me wrong, I am not sexist or ageist, nor do I discriminate against the disabled, but quite honestly I am bored of pregnant women, the elderly and the infirm, especially on the tube!

I am bored of old ladies eyeing up my seat , I am bored of 1000 men jumping up like their bum is on fire when a woman with little more than a bloated belly steps onto a train, and I am bored of people declaring themselves ‘disabled’ when they look fit enough to run the marathon.

Only yesterday I spent almost 40 minutes between Ealing Broadway and Bethnal Green ( that’s on the central line, for those of you who ride the taxis ) wondering whether to give up my seat.

First to cross my path , was a lady on the cusp of old age, she dangled over the abyss of OAP-Ville clinging onto youth with long pink finger nails, bottle-blonde hair and trousers so tight they would have made a camel blush . Crows had made some muddy footprints about her eyes and she had more wrinkles than a scrotum... Yet was I going to ruin her day by opening the doors to ‘deaths waiting room’ by offering her my seat? Absolutely not!

Next to rattle my moral compass was a young woman; She probably only had a bad bout of IBS but may have been 4 months gone. Should I let her sit down and risk the fury of a fat girl, or make her stand, potentially inducing a premature birth? I found the latter scenario, even with the risk of blood and placenta, far more attractive, I kept on sitting!

Finally, a slightly chubby man, in his early 30’s, with an arrogant gait, got on , and declared as if opening a fete , ‘I am disabled’, after which practically everyone offered him their seat (not I) and he sat down with a glint in his eye, which I can only describe as evil.

So I laid claim to my tube seat for the duration, and felt rather pleased with myself, having resisted the politically correct tube etiquette we so often blindly follow (mind the pun/gap). I am not saying never give up your seat, but think before rushing in, otherwise you may look the fool rather than the angel!

Taking my 'Liberty'

I pretended that I lived in "Liberty's" today , blaming an OCD complex for the copius amounts of identicle books and furniture I owned ; assuming an old lady in a wheel chair to be my mother; adopting a Japanese tourist as a maid, the usual japes of a londoner with time on his/her/it's hands, or feet, or hip-bone ( hip bones are the most extraordinary things, I feel sorry for fat people that don't have them) . . .

I felt like I was recycling life into some sort of fantastical machine, taking 50cl of liberty adding an ounce of fraternity, and seasoning with freedom ; viva le carnaby street. Kissing random unknowns in the lift, and lamenting a champagne bar below the ground. I could have been at a car boot sale, if not for the 'Aryan' helpers, trying to force the final solution down my throat in the guise of silver plated cufflinks.

I was rather taken with a plastic moulded bathroom stationary holder , pencils for teeth brushing , quills as loafers , ink under the eyes , but resisted the urge to purge my lunch on the price tag. All the while impressed by the continuity of the music, between rooms, and between floors, a marvel of the modern age lost to tune-tailored mood boards on an epic scale - Gone With the Wind on the Radio, replaced by Hancock's Half Hour on Tape.

I must have radiated the aura of cottaging ; a young man, who I can only describe as ' French' withdrew after what seemed like 2 seconds, pinching the tubes to avoid urinal rash, but he saved his dignity, however, failed to take my Liberty.

Living with the "Budget"

"Budget Day" ; pretty much a pretend Bank Holiday , minus St Georges Day ( and Doris Day per se ).

Mr Darling tried his best at a Robin Hood impression, taking from the rich, giving to the poor, with a less than beautiful Friar AKA Gordon AKA Tuck AKA Brown puckering up by his side . Lenin would be turning in his wax-work if he knew how far socialist values had come, all we need now is Sunday Bloody Sunday and the revolution will be complete.

Budgets always remind me of Budgies, infact I think I might buy a budgie, perhaps from Budgens. I would christen it Joey, after my granny's budgie (s) also known as Joey, of which there were three, each being of the same ilk, a sort of canary trinity. After it's demise, Granny put Joey in a flora tub, labeled, 'I can't believe it's not a Budgie' , but then of course dementia does play the most terrible tricks.

2p on this, 12p on that, 8p extra to buy penny sweets ( they just don't exist anymore, 20p used to get me a long way, now it gets me half a mars bar, thats why I prefer Milky Ways, you do the maths).

Money can't buy sunshine, so by-the-by with financial radius, and lets drink those Asda Price few pence in ice-cold wine(ish) .