Since I no longer travel on the Silverlink - recently renamed London Overground in attempt to fool passengers into thinking that the service has improved - I have become less used to retching on my daily commute.  I was therefore unprepared for the treat afforded to myself and the other passengers as my DLR train approached Canary Wharf station yesterday.

I hadn’t managed to get a seat, so was standing up towards the front of the train.  I was staring out of the window, pondering which game I should use to motivate the children in my 9.30 group.

Click, click, flick.

Kerplunk, Hungry Hippos or Buckaroo?  Hmm … the kids love Buckaroo, but the one at the clinic always seems to ‘buck’ too soon, leaving one of the children disappointed.  I can’t be doing with tears this morning.

Click, click, flick.

Maybe Kerplunk, then.  But that takes ages to set up.  What is that noise?

Click, click, flick.

Hungry Hippos it’ll have to be.

Click, click, flick.

What the fuck?

Suddenly I tuned into what was happening.

A seemingly innocuous older lady sitting close by was cleaning her teeth with a toothpick.  With every click she was deftly removing large quantities of plaque from her teeth, and then flicking it straight ahead onto the floor in front of her. 

I felt the bile rising in my throat and turned away to stop myself from vomiting.

The other passengers seated nearby had obviously noticed what was going on; one man had squeezed himself as close as he could get to his partner to avoid being hit by flying debris; another was giving the old lady an icy stare.  Regardless, she continued her merry work.

Of course no-one (not even me!) said anything to her - this is London after all.  Luckily she got off a couple of stops later, leaving her used toothpick behind, of course.

We ended up playing Kerplunk with the group as my trusty assistant had already set up the game by the time I arrived at the clinic.  Unfortunate really, as the sticks in the game look more than a little like oversized toothpicks. 

Things I wanted to shout out loud on the DLR today but didn’t for fear of being knifed*

1. “Turn your fucking music down.  I can’t hear myself think!”

2. “Pull your trousers up!  You’re waddling like a duck and look completely ridiculous”.**

3. “Close your legs, mister!  Yes, you!  I know you think you’ve got an enormous todger, but you probably haven’t.  And you’re taking up half my seat”.

4. “Move your hand away from my leg, you weirdo”.

5. “How can you eat that crap?  It stinks”.

6. “Don’t you ever wash?”

7. “Shut the fuck up!  All of you!  I can’t stand it anymore!”

Things I wanted to say to a lunatic born-again Christian who was screaming in my ear on the bus today, and did*** 

1. “Excuse me!  Hello!  Sorry to interrupt you, but could you speak a bit more quietly - you’re hurting my ears”.

2. [After aforementioned LBAC proceeded to tell all non-Christians on the bus they would burn in hell unless they repented there and then (at an even louder volume than before)]:

“Excuse me! Hellooo!  Look, no one is interested in what you are saying, OK?  Is this really the right way to go about converting people?  People just want to get home from work.  What is your success rate, anyway?  Don’t you realise that this is a multi-cultural society and many people on this bus are going to be upset by what you are saying?”

3. [After LBAC looked me straight in the eyes and told me I was going to burn in hell]:

“Oh whatever.  Shut up you silly woman”.

AAARRGHHGHGGH!  London life, eh?  Is it worth it?

* Apologies for all the swearing.

**Am I showing my age?

*** Don’t know what is happening to my inhibitions recently.  Everyone was looking at me, and I didn’t mind at all.

Did anyone see that BBC programme about the bloke in a wheelchair who visited a Spanish brothel to lose his virginity?  (An excellent programme highlighting an interesting issue about disabled people, in my opinion). 

Well, I saw his friend (the good looking one with the long black hair) on the DLR the other day.  In the documentary, he went along with his mate to the brothel and then decided that it wasn’t for him. 

I would have liked to talk to him and tell him how much I enjoyed the programme, but he was busy chatting to his friend, so I didn’t say anything.  I was also a bit worried that it might be a bit intrusive …  What do you think?  Is it OK to go and speak to people in these (rarely occurring) situations?  Obviously if someone’s a film star or something then it’s a bit different  … but someone who’s made a programme about a personal issue like that?  I’m not sure.

This is why I’m glad that I don’t have to use the Silverlink to travel to work anymore.

I walked past this scene a while back on the way to catching the Docklands Light Railway down to South London, where I now work. How all those people were going to fit into four tiny carriages, is anyone’s guess.

Just glad I wasn’t one of them.

After the race I completed a few weeks ago, me, E. and H. went for a celebratory drink.  In the pub, E. took out her phone and started showing us the photos that she had taken of us before and after the race.  They were really good pictures (although we all looked pretty sweaty and gross in the after shots!), and I asked her to send them to me.  Having recently discovered Bluetooth (about 5 years after the rest of the world), I asked my friend to ’bluetooth’ them across to me. 

E. began to search for my phone.  Its name - the very exciting and original ‘Nokia 6280′ - appeared on her screen … as did the names of the phones of the other people in the pub.  It was a very quiet night in a country pub in Hertfordshire, and who would have thought that amongst the respectable looking men supping their pints at the bar, there was a Big Willy, Horny Boy and a man with a penchant for French Knickers!  We couldn’t stop laughing …

The following Monday, I turned my Bluetooth on in the Docklands Light Railway and discovered many more interesting names amongst the poker faced commuters.  Hilarious.

I had no idea that you could change the name of your phone … and hadn’t considered that you could use it for pulling purposes.  Has everyone else in the world been walking around sending saucy photos to each other via Bluetooth while I was completely oblivious? 

If it wasn’t so gross, it would be funny. 

Yesterday on the way home from work on the Silverlink, a man with a Labrador got on the train at Highbury and Islington.  Half way to the next station, the dog started to heave.  Its owner realised what was going on and in an attempt to avert disaster, held the dog’s mouth shut.  The unhappy canine began to shake its head to try to escape its owner’s grip, and vomit started to spray out over a nearby passenger’s trousers. 

I’m not sure whether it was British reserve, or whether he genuinely hadn’t noticed (unlikely), but either way, the unlucky passenger just sat there and continued to read his newspaper.

As the train approached the next station, the man led the dog to the door, where it promptly puked its guts up.  Lovely.  Dog and owner then jumped off the train without a backwards glance. 

I wondered whether I should say something to the unfortunate puke-splattered passenger, but decided against it.  It would have felt a bit odd approaching a complete stranger and asking him whether he realised that a dog had just been sick on his trousers.

I thought I’d seen just about everything on the Silverlink, but apparently not.

Living where I do, and working in North London, I’m a frequent user of the Silverlink Metro ’service’ between Stratford and Highbury and Islington.  I’m reluctant to call it a service, as actually, Silverlink don’t really provide much of one, to be honest.

I couldn’t count the number of delays I’ve experienced in my three years in Stratford.  Trains frequently depart up to 30 minutes late, and on more than one occasion they’ve run with more than an hour’s delay. In the morning and evening they’re usually full to bursting point, and there’s always someone banging on the window with an angry face shouting for people to move further down the carriage … if only we could!  

There’s the usual B.O., smelly food and loud music on ‘personal’ stereos that one comes to expect from public transport in London.  And there’s never anyone around from Silverlink to tell you what the feck is going on when a train fails to turn up.

All in all, it’s pretty dire …

So, I’m sure you’ll understand why I felt a certain amount of solidarity with the commuters at Buenos Aires’ Constitucion station last week. 

Perhaps I should follow their lead and invest in a box of matches.