I'm On My Way...

As this post goes live, you find me moblogging. That’s mobile blogging to you, though I might equally be said to be 'mob logging'. I’m currently on a train travelling into the distant north, Manchester bound, imagination stifled by this suit, and scowling at anybody who dares look my way. Have another doodle, blog friends, have another doodle. This tired old TV great is getting old. My comedy pimple is beginning to fade. How many more journeys will it continue to disguise my real identity from these commuters? They’re a miserable lot. Nobody speaks. Occasionally one of them will silently vent gas.

I never understand people who choose to vent in the confines of a crowded train with poor ventilation. It must be cowardly way to get back at the world without actually going on any kind of spree. I suppose it's possible they might go on a farting spree but it's probably not going to last very long. Or, alternatively, it will last a very long time but with many periods of inactivity.

Other than the mysterious devotee to flatus, the rest sit here playing with their toys. The iPhone users are a breed apart. As Elberry might say: everyone a potential killer. They certainly look down on the Blackberry users, though it’s clear that this second group have the better jobs. I have a Samsung. I don’t fit into either camp. My old phone is a Sony. It doesn’t even have a touch screen. People are right to treat me like the pariah I am. I'm listening to Nick Cave. It's loud. He’s singing about ’15 Feet of Pure White Snow’. It's the song I always associate with these trips into the north.



I think I’ll follow it with some Stagger Lee.

Soon I’ll be at Manchester Piccadilly, scooting off down the side of the GMPTE building. There are guards there that stop people photographing the building, which makes no sense to me. One of these days, I’ll try to snap a picture of the place just to see if I can get arrested. I didn’t think it possible to be stopped from taking pictures in a public place.

My mind is drifting. There’s a woman in the seat next to me writing questions for some seminar she’s attending. The questions are for Edward de Bono, he of lateral thinking fame. Question 1: ‘Do you think your ideas are as current today as they were in the past’. She’s clearly thinking laterally. I’m sure he’s going to hold up his hands and tell his acolytes that his ideas are outmoded and that it’s about time he retired.

Oh, now I’m just being sullen. Manchester makes me sullen but this mobile blogging isn’t a good thing. I'll try to post more later on. Of if I can't post, I'll Twitter. Does anybody read my Twitter? If a bear twits in the woods, does anybody care? Why does an eight hour working day really mean eleven hours? I miss Judy. And I also maintain that the mighty red is the king of all onions. I dare you to disagree.

In Which I 'Cop A Feel' Outside Picadilly Station

I would like to publically apologise to the woman sitting by the window on the express into Manchester this morning. I didn’t mean to grope her leg. It just happened.

The problem was that I’d been wedged into my seat by an impatient passenger who wouldn’t let me get to my bag when I sat down. As soon as I was in my seat, I was forced to drag my bag beneath the table and, from there, extract my James Wood book. In the process of searching for the zip, I inadvertently ‘copped a feel’ of the woman sitting opposite me. Not that it was much of a ‘feel’. It was more of a slight brush against her shin. The look she gave me was pure disgust and I must have winced as I awaited a face full of pepper spray. As it was, I turned a shade of red that was off the David Dickinson scale and mumbled my apology. I was then forced to stay on the train until the end of the line lest getting off (not the best phrase in the circumstance) at my normal stop would involve more groping beneath the table.

But that’s the sort of week I’ve been having. Yesterday it was pots and paddles. Today it’s a minor sexual assault. I really worry what tomorrow will bring.