variations on a theme
If you've been keeping up with my new found blogging pace recently, you will have known that the last three posts on Tuesday centred around my experience with a jobsworth Revenue Inspector and the hour and a half I had in Swindon thanks to his mean mindedness and lack of any reasonable human judgement. Not that I'm bitter, or anything.
Anyway, whilst I was on the train home today my quiet reading* was rudely interrupted by a gaggle of yobs** who boarded the train. They were shouting at each other up and down the carriage, swearing, banging on the windows and generally acting as though it was some kind of mobile zoo.
Unsurprisingly, when the conductor made his way in to the carriage he discovered that most of them were travelling without a valid ticket. I watched in anticipation hoping that he would throw the book at them and was disappointed when the mild confrontation with the first group only led to them being thrown off the train at the next stop with no further punishment. I'm presuming that they got back on further up the train, or failing that wreaked havoc on the following service.
At the other end of the carriage, the second group refused to alight. As they fled in to the next carriage the conductor came back through, threatening to ring the police. He did just that but I then overheard him telling the man serving refreshments that they weren't going to do anything about it.
Brilliant. I get treated like a criminal for asking politely if I could remain on a fairly empty train whilst the apes I saw today enjoyed free travel. Paid for, presumably, by the Penalty Fares some of you have collected due to lack of provision for buying a ticket, or the obscene rise in prices which happens periodically.
>>
*thelondonpaper. What else?
**One could presumably use the term 'hoodie' here but there were no actual hoods in sight.
Anyway, whilst I was on the train home today my quiet reading* was rudely interrupted by a gaggle of yobs** who boarded the train. They were shouting at each other up and down the carriage, swearing, banging on the windows and generally acting as though it was some kind of mobile zoo.
Unsurprisingly, when the conductor made his way in to the carriage he discovered that most of them were travelling without a valid ticket. I watched in anticipation hoping that he would throw the book at them and was disappointed when the mild confrontation with the first group only led to them being thrown off the train at the next stop with no further punishment. I'm presuming that they got back on further up the train, or failing that wreaked havoc on the following service.
At the other end of the carriage, the second group refused to alight. As they fled in to the next carriage the conductor came back through, threatening to ring the police. He did just that but I then overheard him telling the man serving refreshments that they weren't going to do anything about it.
Brilliant. I get treated like a criminal for asking politely if I could remain on a fairly empty train whilst the apes I saw today enjoyed free travel. Paid for, presumably, by the Penalty Fares some of you have collected due to lack of provision for buying a ticket, or the obscene rise in prices which happens periodically.
>>
*thelondonpaper. What else?
**One could presumably use the term 'hoodie' here but there were no actual hoods in sight.
Comments
This of course raises the fascinating question of what the collective noun for yobs, chavs, hoodies, etc, might properly be. There is a gap. It must be filled.
A "plague of hoodies"? A "stupidity of yobs"? A "socialism of chavs"?
'Earlier today a stupidity of yobs was arrested in Doncaster for... etc, etc'