I have to type this using some sort of train stealth. I fully intended on the train to Newcastle to get loads of work done. Write some stuff about the budget and the England game, work on my show, do a good lengthy blog and generally abuse East Coast's appalling free wifi for every megabit I could. I'm not sure megabit is the correct term. As far as I'm concerned it shouldn't be as a bit means something that is only a little piece of something else. By adding mega to it, you suddenly make it bigger than a bit. Its a stupid self contradictory term and I await the wrath of computer folks all explaining it to me then insulting me in binary. Go on. So, yeah, I wanted to do all that, but instead I have had the luck, and by luck I mean misfortune, to sit next to a large American man who insists on talking about the extreme weather conditions in the US. Sure some of its exciting. Things like the volcanic explosion in Seatle or....no wait. That was it. Everything else has been about snow and earthquakes that didn't break anything. Yawn. Proper big fat yawn. But he insists on wedging me in my seat (I have the window, he the aisle) and banging on and on about that time it was a bit cold and his motorbike wouldn't start.
Its my fault really. He started some conversation about whether on not it was my seat and I stupidly thought 'here's a friendly man, maybe this train journey will be fun.' Some interesting banter started things off, small talk about train stops, the realisation that every train stops at Peterborough despite Peterborough having nothing in it, and some stuff about Whitby. I can handle this small talk. In fact I would go so far as to say, I'm a master of it. But where I like to dilly dally in the realms of inane banter about the price of tea or such things, my approved conversational arc aims to take things to a more interesting level past the three minute mark or move away and never speak again. Sadly, the three minute mark indicated no such verbal diving into excitement pool but being on a train I have nowhere to go and hide. So here I am, typing this quickly while he snores beside me, his gutteral nasal sounds providing brief relief from further pointless musings about how you 'shouldn't wear cotton pants when its less than minus 8 degrees'.
Its only 1 in the afternoon and yet today has already been filled with these people. This morning I had a hospital visit with the dietician. I supposedly needed it before I get my diabetic pump in a few weeks, but it turns out she had nothing to offer in any way. Dieticians are there on the basis that people are fucking idiots. If you havent got a clue that eating nothing buckets of lard is bad for you, then you should see a dietician. Though I would possibly also stress that under the notion of survival of the fittest, its probably just best we leave you alone and let you go. This morning we ran through all the basics again or what you should and shouldn't eat. looked at some pictures of potatoes and then let me guess how many carbs were in each one, took some leaflets and left. I humoured the dietician. She was very nice and I would have felt mean going in and saying 'really? Why don't you show me how to use a knife and fork as well you patronising fool?', so I didn't. Instead I was all very polite and guessed every potato right. She didn't give me a sticker or a lollipop or anything. Gutted.
I'm sure I attract this sort of behaviour. I've put a bit in my new Edinburgh show about how much I enjoy meeting new and interesting people and so leave myself open to such things. Yet ever since writing it, more and more I get embroiled in the sort of conversations that have begun to entice me to tear my own ears off. I won't do this. I like my headphones. And I want sunglasses to sit ok on my head. And hats. If it wasn't for that, I be Johnny No Ears by now, stuffing my fleshy aural receptors into the American man's face in order to make him shut up about breezes'. Still only an hour and half to go.
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