This is a time of Christmas joy and goodwill to all men! So it is with a heavy heart that I must share with you a common commuter problem. What would your reaction be if you were listening to this?
“Well, I told my Chairman I’ll take on the department but will require a bigger budget to re-align the portfolio balance and match the division’s strategic coefficient!”
I suspect similar to mine:
Prat! And Can’t you talk bollocks any louder so that the whole train can hear?
“Yes, okay Jeremy that works for me! I’ll get my PA to schedule in a Saturday 10am tee-off, then a late lunch in the Player’s Suite. Debbie will liaise with Chloe to confirm….Yes it would be fun (naughty posh boy laugh) but the club has rules, dear boy! The club has rules! (More tittering)…. Yes, very well Jeremy, bye for now!”
Prat and Perve!
When Pratman was talking for effect, was I the only one in the carriage to have the same thoughts? My Visual Face-scan Recognition Technique suggested not! People’s looks betrayed their minds. He appeared to them, as me, like some kind of Ouroboros* - his head so far up his own backside he must surely live permanently in a dark, dank, smelly place! Had all the faces been a choir of voices, the ensemble, I'm sure, would have sung him a Prat’s lament:
Shut the f*** up
You sound like a Cretin
If you don’t stop soon
We’ll get a Vet in
To take your mobile
and insert it wherein
Perving with Jel
means pain unappealing!
This, or similar (better) ode to like effect, would undoubtedly have ensured Pratman appreciated the collective feeling and dire consequences for his nether regions if he continued with more pratty-ness!
To be fair, some people can’t avoid work-related calls on their mobiles on the train! Take a Doctor, for example, saving a life by talking a colleague through a surgical procedure. Or an Intelligence Officer sanctioning an operation that will prevent a terrorist action. Or a Psychologist talking down a desperately suicidal patient from a self-harming situation. All worthy life-or-death reasons, we might say, for bold, loud, work-related calls on a packed train.
Otherwise, apart from a quiet call-in to the office if the train’s a little late; or an incoming call from a subordinate seeking re-assurance to finish a task, quietly answered with a level of considerate modesty, is there really any need for nauseous, embarrassing on-train work calls? Even if some believe there is; is there any reason why they should be so loud that everyone else has to suffer them?
A few unfortunate souls, of course, naturally talk loudly, though volume control does exist in mindful people. I am, though, thinking more specifically about Pratman and similar planks, who appear to be under the misapprehension that talking ‘business’ loudly on a train makes them seem important. Well, for such misguided souls, sage advice is at hand!
Stop it, because you sound like a complete prat!
*An ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.
Friday 27 December 2013
Wednesday 4 December 2013
I am not here with you!
You have to try this!
My train slowly pulls out of Greenwich. It's been a peaceful commute so far. As I look outside, Elgar begins to play through my headphones. I really like this piece#! I turn up the volume.
'Nimrod' begins to take hold of me. I start to drift away! In most of the next 4 minutes 14 seconds - the length of the recording, I transcend much of what passes as my journey. I experience what I call an out of body experience.
Prelude
I'm cosy and content in my corner window seat. It's a cold morning but warm blood pulses around my fingers and toes. I'm nice and snug! Initially, I feel the motion of the train enhancing my drift into the music. I begin to see the regular landscape passing by me, which is like most commuter views into major cities. [A patchwork of open green and brown spaces, trees of autumn shades (today) lit by the sun then masked by early morning shade, interlaced with old style houses, fancy new apartment blocks, tired tower blocks, factories, a football stadium, church spires, over-bridges, under-passes; streets busy with cars, cyclists, pedestrians. Mid-stations flashing by to rushing echo and static outlines of faceless people.] There's a subtle breeze on the back of my neck. It conspires with the embracing sound to make my neck-hairs stand on end.
The Now
The unknowable moment comes and my Prelude no longer exists! The observable, sense-based world has gone from my life! I am oblivious to my surroundings on a crowded speeding train; I see nothing of the glass-framed scenery unfolding before me; I feel none of the physical sensations I enjoyed seconds earlier. I exist, I think, but not in any space I am aware of, or in a time I can knowingly measure. It's like the instant you fall asleep: You don't know precisely when that is, you just eventually come around to the fact that you dropped off.
In this non-physical, musically inspired mental state (if there is scientifically such a thing), I am not here with you, with everyone else. In the minutes of this music I am either totally imprisoned or else completely set free - I don't know which! I don't care! And as 'Nimrod' reaches its crescendo and then moves serenely towards a peaceful end, I am simultaneously overcome by euphoria and melancholy. (I know: How can I feel such things if I'm not here! Well, this isn't Philosophy 101; you'll just have to go with it!)
I know what I didn't sense or feel in these lost - or were they truly lived? minutes: Town-planner-organised rush-hour chaos, sad-looking pedestrians, ill-tempered road users, frustrated standing-room-only train passengers, noise irritation, train signal stop-starts.... I jumped over these minutes, like a time-traveller, to instantly arrive at a waking point coinciding with a moment shortly after the end of the music.
As you have just read, out of body experiences are tricky things to describe! So please don't feel obliged to read this again (though secretly I'd quite like you to)! Instead, I passionately urge you to download Elgar's 'Nimrod', get comfy on your commute, turn the volume up and try it for yourself!
See you on the other side!
# 'Variation on an Original Theme Op.36 "Enigma" - 9. Nimrod (Adagio)' - Sir Edward Elgar
My train slowly pulls out of Greenwich. It's been a peaceful commute so far. As I look outside, Elgar begins to play through my headphones. I really like this piece#! I turn up the volume.
'Nimrod' begins to take hold of me. I start to drift away! In most of the next 4 minutes 14 seconds - the length of the recording, I transcend much of what passes as my journey. I experience what I call an out of body experience.
Prelude
I'm cosy and content in my corner window seat. It's a cold morning but warm blood pulses around my fingers and toes. I'm nice and snug! Initially, I feel the motion of the train enhancing my drift into the music. I begin to see the regular landscape passing by me, which is like most commuter views into major cities. [A patchwork of open green and brown spaces, trees of autumn shades (today) lit by the sun then masked by early morning shade, interlaced with old style houses, fancy new apartment blocks, tired tower blocks, factories, a football stadium, church spires, over-bridges, under-passes; streets busy with cars, cyclists, pedestrians. Mid-stations flashing by to rushing echo and static outlines of faceless people.] There's a subtle breeze on the back of my neck. It conspires with the embracing sound to make my neck-hairs stand on end.
The Now
The unknowable moment comes and my Prelude no longer exists! The observable, sense-based world has gone from my life! I am oblivious to my surroundings on a crowded speeding train; I see nothing of the glass-framed scenery unfolding before me; I feel none of the physical sensations I enjoyed seconds earlier. I exist, I think, but not in any space I am aware of, or in a time I can knowingly measure. It's like the instant you fall asleep: You don't know precisely when that is, you just eventually come around to the fact that you dropped off.
In this non-physical, musically inspired mental state (if there is scientifically such a thing), I am not here with you, with everyone else. In the minutes of this music I am either totally imprisoned or else completely set free - I don't know which! I don't care! And as 'Nimrod' reaches its crescendo and then moves serenely towards a peaceful end, I am simultaneously overcome by euphoria and melancholy. (I know: How can I feel such things if I'm not here! Well, this isn't Philosophy 101; you'll just have to go with it!)
I know what I didn't sense or feel in these lost - or were they truly lived? minutes: Town-planner-organised rush-hour chaos, sad-looking pedestrians, ill-tempered road users, frustrated standing-room-only train passengers, noise irritation, train signal stop-starts.... I jumped over these minutes, like a time-traveller, to instantly arrive at a waking point coinciding with a moment shortly after the end of the music.
As you have just read, out of body experiences are tricky things to describe! So please don't feel obliged to read this again (though secretly I'd quite like you to)! Instead, I passionately urge you to download Elgar's 'Nimrod', get comfy on your commute, turn the volume up and try it for yourself!
See you on the other side!
# 'Variation on an Original Theme Op.36 "Enigma" - 9. Nimrod (Adagio)' - Sir Edward Elgar
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