Happy New Year and all that - seems a bit late for that now but as they say, better late than never. Which brings me nicely to the subject of this post, actually.
Last week I was travelling up to Winchester for work, as you do (well, as I do). I was going by train, and would have been bang on time for my 9am meeting if it wasn't for the fact that the train I was aiming to catch was cancelled. The departures board said it was due to a failed power supply and the audio announcement claimed it was due to slippery rail conditions, which does make me wonder about the truth of any of the reasons they give. But any reason at all is better than "an operational incident" or whatever twaddle it was that Network Rail came up with for the disastrous period that the West Coast Main Line has just been through - but that's another matter.
Anyway, because the direct train to Winchester had been cancelled I had to change trains at Eastleigh. No problem there. Also because of the cancellation things were pretty busy - standing room only, etc. - all to be expected and nothing to get worked up about. But, more to my amusement than annoyance I must say, as we were queueing to disembark at Eastleigh the woman in the queue behind me started pushing. There was nowhere to go, so I stood firm so as not to push the person in front. The woman tutted, and continued pushing and tutting until we reached the train door. By this time I was pretty startled by her rudeness and rather mischievously enjoying her impatience, so I took great pleasure in allowing a few other people out of the train in front of us.
The interchange at Eastleigh is pretty short - usually just a couple of minutes - but I could see the platform for the Winchester train (which also goes to London) and it was clear that the train had only just arrived and the platform was busy, so there was no hurry. The woman clearly didn't share that view and eventually exploded with something along the lines of "Are you intending to get the London connection, because I am!"
I replied, quite calmly and reasonably I thought, with "Well, pushing and tutting doesn't really help anyone, does it?"
She paused to consider this.
"Yes it does!" she thundered back, "it helps me!" - which it clearly didn't, because if she'd been polite about it I would probably have let her past me and certainly wouldn't have taken such pleasure in delaying her further. She proceeded to mutter something about people being so slow, which I also found amusing, since my walking speed was that much faster than hers that I was already some distance away when her mutterings were carried to me on the breeze. My amusement was doubled when, having found a seat on the Winchester train, the same woman shuffled past about 5 minutes later still looking for somewhere to park her rear.
What intrigues me about the whole encounter is that this woman had clearly achieved some sort of success judging by her appearance, demeanour and well-spokenness, yet she had worse manners and less decorum than our two-year old, even when he's in the middle of a tantrum, and that's no exaggeration. So how on earth does such a repugnant person get on in the world? Or does she put on an amazing act of niceties and politeness when she reaches her workplace in the capital? I'll never know, but I've been feeling smug (quite wrongly, I know) about the whole thing ever since it happened.
