The mini book tour continued and I got the train to Birmingham. I was hoping to get on with writing a bit of series 2, episode one of AIOTM, but it's hard to do it in advance. I need fear to be pumping through my veins as I face a Jack Bauer style deadline. Maybe I should try and do an episode of 24 about writing and performing the show actually. It would be quite boring to watch, but at least you'd be able to watch the unnecessary Hell I put myself through. I am away in Cornwall at the weekend at the Du Maurier book festival and aware that this will make my time all the more precious, so maybe I should have done more. But it's a difficult balance with AIOTM, because the more stuff I get up to in the week the more I have to write about, but the less time to actually think about the show. I think there are already some good stories and ideas, but they're at the back of my mind still, rather than down on paper or typed up on my computer.
I am excited about it though and looking forward to it and ticket sales for show 1 (and show 8 funnily enough) are looking good already, so do book ahead if you want to be part of the party!
I had given up on the show and was starting to have a think about the Christ on a Bike programme, which I need to get written pretty quickly. The train was pretty empty and like some kind of latter day Ben Elton I had been delighted to get a double seat with a table. I have been lugging around quite a lot of gear on these few days on the train, not just a bag for my clothes and computer, but a suit bag for my Hitler costume and a bucket for the collection (and today also had a large amount of heavy change). Once I was settled in to my place it was going to be hard to move anywhere else and I didn't want to give up my hard won double seat, double seat, gotta get a double seat.
But as I settled in to try and write I was distracted by the young man at the table next to mine. He clearly had something of a runny nose, but rather than finding some tissue or a hankie he chose to deal with this problem by loudly snorting his viscous nose juice back into his throat. He didn't feel the need to be subtle about this, to sniff gently or self-consciously. He made the sound of a constipated pig as he nasally devoured his own fluids as if greedily as if they were a massive line of cocaine (conveniently produced by his own body). It was as disgusting as I have made it sound.
And he continued to do the same thing regularly at roughly three minute intervals all the way from Liverpool to Birmingham.
He was clearly quite a selfish and self-centred man and he didn't look as if he would take kindly to being asked to stop or to get a fucking handkerchief. He certainly had no shame about what he was doing. It was almost confrontational, as if he was willing someone to complain so he could punch them, or perhaps hawk up the reservoir of slime that was surely by now turning his throat into a corridor of ectoplasm.
To add insult to insult he would occasionally also start singing tunelessly along to the iPod he was listening to. He was either very unaware of the fact he was in a public place or supremely arrogant and going to do whatever he pleased regardless of how his fellow passengers might feel.
Even more weirdly he was reading a Mills and Boon book. He was a laddish looking man in his mid-20s and yet this was his chosen reading material. It was in French so perhaps he was using to learn another language, which would be some kind of excuse. Or maybe he thought that reading a Mills and Boon in such a romantic language would make it even more romantic still. He could have been French, of course - and maybe in France singing in public, whilst you internally clear your nasal passage is acceptable behaviour, we can't judge other cultures - but then he simply had no excuse for this bizarre reading material. It would be less embarrassing to be seen reading Emma Kennedy's book in public. Or maybe hidden within the covers of his French Mills and Book book he was surreptitiously reading one of Andrew Collings' memoirs.
I tweeted to the world about the situation I found myself in, remarking that if I killed the man it would be me who went to gaol (provoking a flurry of tweets about my decision to spell that word in the English rather than American way). Surely there comes a point where you have suffered enough and someone had brought this upon themselves. In my case that point was Penkridge.
Someone asked me to take a picture of the culprit and I decided I would take the chance. If someone had killed a child or blown up a building then the authorities would post their picture all over the world and this man had done something far worse. He deserved to be pictured and shamed so that people could see him coming and avoid him and at least shout, "Get a fucking hankie you prick!" at him everywhere he went.
I surreptitiously snapped him as he looked out the window. I was too scared to challenge him. If you see him and are made of sterner stuff than me then do let him know how rude he is. Or if you go into a train carriage and spot him sitting there, move onwards.
By putting this up on Twitter I realised that there was an outside chance that someone might recognise him and ring or text him to let him know that the man at the next table was slagging him off to 25,000 strangers and taking his photos and basically calling him a cunt. It added a frisson to the whole thing - though of course if he had just spotted me taking the photo that might have been enough to create a scene. I wondered if anyone has yet got into a fight because of something they have tweeted about a stranger. Has the first Twitter based murder or serious assault already occurred? Would I be the first victim?
It turns out - as yet (maybe someone'll see this blog) - we have no mutual acquaintances. And I am glad. I wouldn't want to be even two degrees of separation from this uncouth man with strange reading tastes and a love of (unless he was just very bad at singing) Bollywood music.
I wondered if he would get out in Wolverhampton, where he would be the most sophisticated man in the town if he alighted. But he didn't. Some of the Wulfruns took offence at that suggestion on Twitter, but I had to point out that I only take the piss out of places that I love. Or really hate. But I love Wolverhampton. Like a pervert loves dogs' cocks.
In the end he got out at Birmingham and disappeared into the crowds, presumably about to hawk up the biggest snot ball of all time.
But I couldn't help thinking that I possibly had ended up creating another little bit for AIOTM after all. I may have too much stuff already.
