Ugly woman on the tube

[caddyman]

Today's journey in to work was uneventful enough despite some slight delay on the Victoria Line which contrived to be quite full despite it being half term week. Yesterday's journey was far more interesting, but I didn't have time to write about it when I thought about it, and when I had the time I forgot.

ellefurtle came into town with me yesterday morning – at least until we separated at Camden Town so she could get on to the Charing Cross Branch as I headed on along the Bank Branch. A quick detour into the Virgin Megastore to return shoddy goods before briefly heading off home, see. Anyway, sitting opposite us on the tube down from Whetstone was a woman of indeterminate late middle age, or early elderly. Whatever her precise age, she had clearly left her face out in the rain a couple of times too many and then dried herself off with the miserable towel. She was reading a periodical of the size and shape of the Watchtower though it could have easily been something else, and she clearly did not approve of us. Every time I glanced up she was furtively studying us from behind her Watchtower-alike; the lines on her face becoming ever more deep-set and vertical (it really was a very humourless face). She managed to purse her lips into one of those expressions of "superior disapproval" that you get from the sort of people who are in no position to pass judgement but usually do anyway. I think she might have pursed further sections of her face, too, had her muscle control been up to it.

We retaliated by ignoring her and blatantly holding hands (a tactic that worked in a way not unlike the colour control on TV), then I moved my left hand just enough so that she couldn't quite see if I was wearing a wedding ring or not. That was fun. I have never seen someone try to crane their eyes before.

This all begs the question of whether, in the eyes of the mad old trout, Elle is my Moll or my Doxie. I think I prefer Moll; that has gangster connotations and I could see her with a Tommy gun in a violin case though I am less sure of the squeaky voice and chewing gum addiction.

Boop, boop-be-doop.

Comments

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

This is indeed, also possible. But it tickled me that both of us noticed!

Maybe we looked too happy to be legit - everyone knows that married people ignore one another! Therefore something must have been 'going on'

[barrettyman.livejournal.com]

We don't ignore each other, more pretent to run away from each other. When we go on the tube, we have been known to swing from the hand rail like monkeys. This also gets us dissaproving looks but I suspect not for the same reason.

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

To be fair I am not sure any of my friends fit into these rules! Beside you haven't been married for 150 years yet!

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

"we have been known to swing from the hand rail like monkeys."

Lordy shite, I just had a flashback! I hadn't thought of this in sixteen years, but I now remember being on the tube one night, in an almost deserted carriage, and a jolly unkempt-looking unshaven guy in baggy trousis and vile t-shirt, with a small backpack, was literally swinging from the hand rail as the train barrelled along. He was quiet and intense, swinging very slowly and deliberately, and gave me The Steaming Creeps.

By the way, I think it was very nice of Elle not to tell Bry in public that his fly was unzipped all that time.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

By the way, I think it was very nice of Elle not to tell Bry in public that his fly was unzipped all that time.

Hush, Child.

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Well, why on earth do you think the old bat was giving you The Patented Death Scowl?

[fredlums.livejournal.com]

You sure this wasn't Mr Boroshan in a previous life? Apart the description of his back pack being small seems awfully familiar. His back pack is definitely on the large side. Oops should I have said that in polite company!!

Let us study this phenomenon.

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Just a min, I shall have to visit boroshan's page. The swinging guy did remind me, from his coloration as well as his movements, of a pensive orang utan. He did some calisthenics as well as just plain swinging, by grabbing the overhead rail and pulling himself up so that his shaggy head touched the ceiling.

Encountering oddbods on London Transport is not something I miss about England.