Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Ain't got time to take a fast train
I think it's time to forget about elections and start focusing on everyday life in Scotland instead. My first thought is to write about my incredibly long journey from Glasgow to St Andrews last sunday. Note to travellers: Do not ever travel by train on a sunday! EVER! My journey took 6 hours because there are fewer trains running on sundays and when they finally arrive they will stop in every city, village, outhouse, dog house and hen house on the way. This is lovely if you have had a decent night's sleep and have all the time in the world, but for the rest of us, nervous city folks who are always in a hurry, it is an utter nightmare. So, I had to wait for a long long time in Queen Street Station for my first train. I was quite tired, in fact, too tired to go to Costa's for coffee or W.H. Smith's for a glossy magazine starring these fabulously classy gals, the cream of British tabloids, ms. Jade and ms. Jordan. That's one of the things I've missed about the UK, cheap mags filled with stories about people you've never even heard about, people that are basically famous for absolutely no reason whatsoever or people that are famous for being incredibly badly dressed, slutty types with as much brain capacity as an empty can of Tennants.
Anyway, I decided to watch the strange fruits of Glasgow instead and discovered that young train station Glaswegians are prone to dressing up like Goths. When I say Goths, I don't mean the Germanic tribe that roamed the forests of Europe back in the day and then gradually started dressing up in Lederhosen, no I mean the Goths that frequent cemetaries, dressed in black clothes, wearing white foundation and loads of black eyeliner, listening to Robert Smith and his buddies in The Cure. Yup, that's what I'm talking about and there were loads and loads of them at the train station that sunday morning. They were speaking a strange language that was difficult for me to understand, I think it's called banter... Highly enjoyable bunch these Goths and I give them a bunch of rock points for not caving in under the Chav pressure. Go Goths!
On the train I got the chance to examine the mating rituals of another group of young Glaswegians. They certainly weren't Goths but nevertheless spoke in the strange tongue of le banter. The leader spoke loudly about (from what I gathered) young females on the same train. When very pleased with the passers by, he suddenly changed from banter to English and shouted: "Woof! I will be your dog". Sometimes I wish I was an anthropologist so I could decipher the strange mating rituals of foreign races.
While waiting for the next train in Waverley Station, I was still too tired to read and started watching humans and canines. A really cute pooch left a stink bomb on the floor and an embarrassed owner tried meagerly to stuff some of the droppings into a plastic bag from Top Shop. If you ask me, she did a lousy job and then just hurried away, dragging the still-pooing dog behind her. So obviously my pass-time for the next forty minutes was watching people walk by and guessing which one of them would actually step on the doggy accident. To cut a long story short, about 45 minutes into the event the floor was a big brown smelly mess and I tip-toed into the next train, happy to be going back to the now undergraduate free zone of St Andrews.
Yes, my life is filled with excitement these days, sigh!
# posted by Björkin : 10:07 AM
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