Fancy seein' you...

"Hey, fancy seein' yoo here, ya southern anglish shite, what ar'ya doin?"

That day I had left London once more and to be honest, with my mind drifting into thoughts, reasons, and general reverie the last thing I had expected was the sight that now confronted me making its way towards me down the inhumanly narrow aisle of the privatised train. A train that was dragging its weary carcass down a rusting unmaintained track with a noise that did not impart a feeling of well being within. The sky above, as I gazed out of the grimy window, looked amazing; as amazing as it could through a grimy window. The sort of sky that made you feel that God was, indeed, im his heaven and all was well with the world. Sitting there looking down on his creation, maybe stroking his long white beard with a pensive hand. Gazing. Gazing down on the manic moving masses, the suits and smart skirts and dresses. The stress impressed on pressed for time faces. The bustling and the shouting in the fruit & vegetable & fish & money markets. Sitting there looking down, now tearing at his long white beard and thinking "Christ! What have I done". I guess He may be regretting setting it all up and then gifting us the choice of free will. No, things were not alright with the world, God was not sitting on a cloud, he didn't have a long white beard and if that was not enough for me to have to deal with thinking about I now had the sight of Curly Kendall descending upon me, his outburst at seeing me, delivered in his best Scottish accent, sending signs of serious distress surging through those unfortunate beings who shared this carriage. There he stood, Tennant’s Super in one hand and a carrier bag in the other. The various and numerous Government beer gut development loans having been put to good use his tee-shirt struggled to cover that which it has to be said should remain covered in a decent society, so it is fortunate we don't actually have one.

Curly, real name Colin. Note his term "Southern shite" when referring to me. Curly was born in Bromley, South London, as were both his parents. A few years ago Irishness became very trendy. Theme pubs, trad music, guinness, that kind of thing and everyone was tracing Irish roots, not Curly. He decided to rebel against this by proclaiming himself Scottish, adopted what he had decided was an authentic Scottish accent, somewhere approaching TV comedy Glaswegian. Unfortunatly, he did not have the kind of surname you could put a Mc infront of, but this did not dissuade him from adopting Scottishness, or at least his rather personal view of it. Curly was, obviously, bald. One of those inverted nicknames and stolen from a Harlem Globetrotter basketball player with the same nickname and the same hair situation. Everything about Curly's personality was stolen from one place or another. This was not natural baldness, Curly shaved his head to look hard. It worked as far as train commutors were concerned, but I don't think it would have quite the same effect on a real Glaswegian hard man, the very thing Curly imagined himself to be. As much as I despised the guy, I sort of held the hope that he never, actually, met a real Glasgie Hardman, the outcome would be messy, very onesided and very messy.

"B’stard suits, sittin' mindin' my own bizness, three a dee b’stards sit down 'roond me and start sprouting aff 'bout b’stard air bags in cars, if I'd known you were here I'd asat with you, you b’stard shite".

He was sitting with me.

"I didnee notice the seats were reserved all round the one I had ma arse on, the b’stards"

His false accent slipped as he fished a hamburger out of his bag, bit into it sending mustard and tomato ketchep dripping down to join their stale counterparts already staining his shirt.

"Never buy a burger on the train, I always buy one fram McDee's before I get on, it is cheaper and you know what ya getting with a McDee's"