Excuse me are your arms fat or are you just ignorant

Now we all know that armrest etiquette is a rather delicate but perfectly managable excercise on the Tube

1. Share the armrest equally from back to front with enough room just to rest part of your arm whilst reading your paper.

2. One person gets the front half and the other tucks in behind for the back half.

Thats the polite way in a nutshell.

Then there are the combative approaches employed by the large, ignorant or sometimes the short and agressive types (like me but I dont do it. Honest Guv.)

1. They plant their arm firmly on the whole rest and ignore any gentle attempt to share. I find the best way to combat this is wait for them to turn their page if they are reading the paper and then take the lot. They then do the same and it can go on for the whole journey. What Fun!!

2. A mini low pressure nudging contest which is a bit like arm wresting but definitely not acknowledged just a silent stoic battle.

3. Sometimes you can't win. The other person is so large you just thank god there is an armrest at all otherwise the lower half of their bulk would also be encroaching. I usually sit down, wriggle, sigh, then stand up. Does'nt get you anywhere but they get the message. Bloody hell I am horrid!

Its about now that not only do the trains thin out a bit passenger wise but people do talk to each other a bit as its Christmas and that. Enjoy it while it lasts.

TFL leave Evening Standard distributors in the cold

Recently during the dreadful weather we have been having I have noticed that the people that give out the Evening Standard are out in the cold, wind and rain close to LU and DLR Stations. I have asked a couple why they cant be positioned in the station and they told me that when the Standard was a paid for paper the company had to pay for its pitches in the stations. Now that its free they dont pay and TFL and turfed them out onto the streets.

The Evening Standard is one of the best newspapers in the country and is an occaisional critic of TFL, LU etc. However I think in the spirit of the London community that they could make it more comfortable for the Standard to give the paper away.

The Metro is in every station virtually and chucked around like wastepaper and lets face it it is rubbish as well as rubbish. However they have a toady TFL page and never criticise. Parochialism is alive and well at TFL.

Rude Passengers Own Up

According to story in last night's Evening Standard Tube travellers have admitted that the frustration of overcrowding causes them to behave in ways they would not otherwide in order to secure a seat or enough space to stand.

I can vouch for this although I myself go out of my way to move down the carriage or show willingness to squeeze up and let others on. There are a large percentage of people both men and women that get on and stop as soon as they get throught the doors, blocking entrance to others. They also continue to just stand there like immovable objects when the doors open at subsequent stop. I have developed a tactic of asking them to move down, then when ignored just firmly scrumming down and shoving them up.

The other day the was a lady (well sort of) standing in the doorway. I asked her to move up and she said "there's no room!" I squeezed past her and stood in an expanse of space that could have accomodated 3 people and said "there seems to be plenty here. If you had moved up more poeple could have got on" to which she replied "I have no intention of moving anywhere" I said "no that would be far too polite" she muttered something about me being short. I didnt say she was ugly and with her unkempt hair and faint smell of decay she should be careful not to throw stones but was tempted.