The Saywot Blog

Dear Diary,

Today I clocked up my millionth mile travelled on mass transit.

Well, not really, but I do wonder how many gallons of fuel I have saved by not driving around in a private vehicle. And remember “a million” is a really big number. Have a look at a biro cap, how big would it be if all it’s dimensions were multiplied by that number ? They’re what, about 2cm long and maybe 40mm wide, so it would be a plastic cap twenty kilometres long and 4 kilometres wide. Biro caps get lost with monotonous regularity but if that was sitting in your back yard I’m betting that astronauts would see it as they orbit the planet.

But I’m don’t want to bang on about big numbers or how pen caps seem to vanish of the own accord.

But If I lived 10 miles from work and caught the train to and from work every week for the 45 or so weeks people travel every year to earn their daily bread I’d only rack up 4500 miles a year. Perhaps I’d holiday once a year in some far-off land, OK lets assume that every year I spend my 4 week break in a place completely different to where I live, so it would have to be grey, cloudy and almost always raining – Ah,  that’d be England ! So now I can add 24,000 miles a year to my total just to get to my transit hub in Europe so throw in a thousand miles for my flits across to France, over to Ireland, down to Spain etc (all done by train/bus, but obviously on my 4 weeks annual leave I don’t have time to train across Asia to arrive at Heathrow) How many miles have a now travelled ? 25,000 for holiday and, say, 5000 for work – it’s still going to take me almost 35 years to crack the million mile mark.

So I haven’t travelled my millionth mile yet, but it’s do-able (providing I can catch up on the missed trips to England in the time I have left on this planet) But I was catching the train home this evening, it was a bit crowded as usual, but it wasn’t packed to the rafters like a Japanese commuter train, everyone had a seat who wanted one, a lot of the younger travellers didn’t, they wanted to gather in their little groups and chatter away about what they’d just done a few minutes before catching the train back home,.

Anyway this guy gets on about 3 stops after me lugging this huge brown-paper wrapped picture frame, the sea of kids wouldn’t part to allow him to walk through and find a place to rest his picture and his arse. He sort of ‘persuaded’ them to move away from the centre of the aisles by nudging with the foot of his jogging shoe and asking them to “get the f&%k outta my way !”, he wasn’t kicking and he wasn’t yelling,the picture raised over his head. he managed to get through this maze of floor-seated teens and sat down behind me out of sight. he wasn’t that bothered, the kids weren’t that bothered nor was I.

But one of the best things about train travel is that if you are of a mind to you can listen to other people’s conversations. The boys and girls were still banging on about their trip into town above the buzzing of their MP3 players and the clickety-clacking of them tapping away at their mobile phones sending a constant stream of text messages to god-knows who, probably to someone in the same carriage. The old lady next to me leaned over to the 3 similarly aged people in the seat in front of us and tapped on the shoulder of the bloke in front of her and muttered that “that was uncalled for”, he replied that he “didn’t give a stuff the mongrels shouldn’t be sitting on the floor anyway” they then wondered what the hell the guy was doing carrying a picture on the train anyway. They’re fickle these old people aren’t they, in one short minute they were on the side of the art-conveyor and then against him, on the side of the kids and then against them – sheesh.

In front of them was a child of about 4, standing on the seat amusing himself by making faces at the old people, he was quite the enthusuastic entertainer, even tried to lean over and tried to ‘High 5’ one of the 3 grim OAPs and they weren’t having any of it – his mother grabbed hold of his arm, this sort of thing on a moving train is a bit risky but this boy knew no fear.

Meanwhile from behind me I heard the guy that started all this talking to someone i can only assume was a friend of his, or at least an acquaintance, because whoever he was sitting next to said “you finally got it then ?” and art-boi said with a voice full of pride, full of achievement almost, perhaps, love said “yes, it took months to get this, but I’m finally taking it home where it belongs” – I can’t swear to this in a court, remember yacking teenagers, multiple MP3 players, telephones and the kid jumping up and down on the seat trying to get attention.

But i was wondering as I tried to calculate how many miles I’d travelled by public transport what was this the picture bound by this large frame carefully wrapped in paper?  I mean it was big, it seemed heavy and he’d put his body between this and any harm from wild children.

I heard the package being opened, but couldn’t bring myself to break that rule of public transport  and turn around to look (the rule that says that you aren’t allowed to stare or look directly at fellow travellers).

I got out at my stop, and as the train pulled slowly away from the station I think I saw through the window, a gilt picture frame, very ornate and it looked heavier with the paper removed exposing it’s wooden heaviness and  a dog smoking a cigar holding a hand of cards at what appeared to be a gaming table of some sort