What are the weird things you have experienced/seen on the London transport/public transport?

[weresquirrel]

Following on from Artandco's thread; www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2765114-To-think-some-people-deserve-a-place-in-hell?msgid=64487353#64487353 which contains the story of someone releasing a load of hamsters on the tube for "exercise" I thought it would be fun/interesting to have a "things experienced on the tube/public transport" thread. So here goes;

Mine; Someone very publicly snorting cocaine at around 11pm on the Piccadilly Line. Another one was the man sitting in front of me masturbating behind his briefcase (retch). Also had an Italian tourist stroke my knee when I was a teenager (yuck).

What have you seen/experienced on the Tube?

This was ages ago on the District line going out towards East ham where the line is above ground and the stations are on different sides. Mid afternoon. Only about 10 people in the carriage, including one cool dude, all sitting apart. we pull into a station and the doors open. No gets offs. At the last minutes cool dude gets up and walks to the door, which closes before he reaches it. Every one notices, nothing said, cool dude stays standing by the door. Train moves off and arrives at next station. Doors open on opposite side from previous station. Cool dude stands by his doors which aren't opening. At last second he turns and sees other doors open and walks calmly towards them. They close before he gets there. Cool dude stays standing by these doors. Again everyone notices and a few smile at each other. Train moves off. Pulls into station. Doors on the other side open, Cool dude makes a run for them, so not cool anymore and each in the carriage has a good ol' laugh, with eye contact and everything! Hysterical. Still makes me smile 30 yrs or more later.

Many many years ago I was on the Circle line. I was sitting in the seat at the end of the carriage and opposite was a tramp who was dozing. Suddenly he leant forward with his arm out stretched and grabbed hold of the hem of my (thankfully quite long) pale blue skirt.
At which point he woke up and apologised saying "Sorry, I thought I was on the loo"!

A tiger and supposedly a dragon on the Victoria line. But I thought the dragon was a ninja turtle which the tiger thought was hysterical.

Then at kings cross the tiger ran up the middle escalator to race me to the top and then danced around at the top of my escalator trying to stop me getting off. But in a good natured slightly drunk tiger manner.

Oh and on the Paris metro it was very crowded and we were all standing hanging onto a vertical pole.

Metro stops and two girls who had been stood at my pole got off, young like about 13, 14yo. Suddenly a man who they weren't with dragged them both back onto the metro. They were kicking and screaming. I leaped forward about to punch the man and another man jumped up and showed a police badge.

The girls had emptied the handbag of the woman standing next to me unnoticed by all apart from the undercover police.

We don't go down to that there London very often but one year we were there early morning of 1st November. That's the day after Halloween and there were large groups of students just getting home after a good night out. They were no trouble and a lot of them were in fancy dress.
One group were all young ( hungover) men dressed as super heros. They were surrounded by small boys, including mine and were absolutely brilliant- posing for photos and staying in character despite the lack of sleep and excess alcohol.
Nice story - to offset all the wanking!!!

A girl on the escalator in front of me at Tottenham Court Road had a massive live rat curled up in the hood of her jumper. She HAD to have known it was there, plus she had a really smug expression on her face. Completely normal looking in every other way.

I'm ashamed to say I have been one of those bad people being sick on the tube as well, into a newspaper - that's all there was to catch it (and it didn't do a very good job). A very nice young man looked after me and walked me home.

Also, very weird thing happened once - blister on the back of my heel suddenly caught and started to bleed quite heavily while I was waiting for my train to pull in. Got on, and on the floor in front of me was none other than one single individually wrapped plaster wooooo!

Saci and DPotter you made me smile!

We're so civilised in comparison, up here in the Northeast :) The most amusing happenings tend to involve food. There was the girl tucking into a whole cucumber - having a conversation with her equally large grandma about how she needed to eat more healthy yer knaa. (Bless her). And the couple of staggered out of the pub on a Saturday afternoon, then took out a tupperware box of cold chicken pieces and started tucking into them.

Durham bus station has its fair share of characters. Various blokes with bottles in plastic bags who have obviously pissed themselves. The woman whose jeans fell down, as she was walking, to reveal a bare arse, caked with shit with loo paper stuck to it [vom] I'm actually quite glad that many of our local buses have leather seats!

On the train with my friend - we were sitting opposite each other at a table- when an older man got on and even though there were plenty of empty seats, sat next to me. He was wearing obscenely short shorts, and spent a good ten minutes scratching every inch of his legs. Then he reached into the bin next to him, pulled out a half eaten sausage roll and proceeded to eat it.

I got on a bus one afternoon, in deepest South London and a very drunk woman stood up, pointed at me and shouted "You're all cunts, except her" and then gave me a big cuddle. She then silently stroked my cheek until she got off. Never saw her before in my life

Whew, some non-wanky anecdotes.

I took DS (then 6 or 7) to London for the day (we live in the home counties) and switched from the overground to walk down the road to the tube station.

As we approached the tube we heard a lot of noise and I clocked the police van outside. We got to the entrance only to see two policemen holding a bloke on the floor whilst several others stood around with their nightsticks out ready. They hauled him up and matched him to the van, lots of yelling. As they locked him in and it got quieter, DS loudly announced "That was SO COOL! I've never seen anyone get arrested before! I LOVE London!"

The police were trying to remain serious, but a couple of them couldn't manage and started really laughing. One thanked us for lightening the situation for him and was glad DS enjoyed the show and hoped he felt safer now?" DS was very positive about police after that.

Another time a bloke stepped off a packed commuter train and another bloke came up behind him, grabbed his arm and twisted it up husband back and said "Ahhh, Mr Borrocks, I've been waiting for you. If you'd like to come with me, we have a few questions to ask." The other bloke was calling him as 'bastard' as he got marched out.

The bloke getting 'arrested' was my DF and the 'bastard' was his best mate, pranking him. I never witnessed that as I was a child at home in bed, but plenty did, and my DF and his friend still tell the story.

*behind his back, not husband back

The Magic Bus lady of Manchester:

Two schoolgirls at Hammersmith having a proper hair pulling, slapping, biting, rolling around on the floor fight. They were absolutely feral. Just as I was thinking about stepping into the maelstrom of nails and teeth, one pulled out AN ACTUAL CHUNK OF THE OTHER ONE'S HAIR. Claret all over, as Danny Dyer would probably have said if he'd been there. Everyone watching took a judicious step back and let them get on with it.

My odd things aren't as awful as any of these! But here goes:

• Man pushing a lawnmower on the tram.
• Youth skateboarding on to the tram carrying a unicycle.
• Announcement pulling into Northampton after repeated reminders that the train would be dividing, and to move to the front carriages (which had blue seats) if needed: "The train will be dividing at Northampton. If you are sitting on or standing near a green seat, your journey ends here."

I'm on the bus. Only person on board. Woman gets on and looks around then asks me if she can take the seat next to me. I say be my guest, then get up and move. Cue consternation from personal space invader.

I'm on the train. Been a long day, I have a coffee and a fancy magazine in front of me. Well dressed businesswoman sits next to me and starts incessantly and persistently wittering on about magazines, coffee, women's issues etc. Takes no hints from my increasingly monosyllabic replies. I feign sleep.

I'm on the Central Line. A bunch of blokes are quite noisy, joshing about. One of them waves a plastic bag about and asks who wants a fresh one. I assume it's going to be a can of beer. No, he produces the fresh one right in front of my face. It's a recently deceased mallard

On the Tube going home from work, central London, about 6pm. Middle-aged man carrying large black binbag gets on and asks the carriage, "Would anybody like some free chicken? I have too much." Then walks up and down the carriage offering his open binbag to each passenger, saying "Have a look, it's good chicken!"

Everybody started straight ahead and wouldn't look in the bag.

The bloke getting off the suburban train with a carpet. As in a whole roll of the stuff on a sack truck

Or the person who mewed like a cat the whole way home.

Once got on the Underground with a friend,man on the platform is obviously on drugs , he is carrying a large canvas bag. Bag contains a sparkly red accordian and a gorilla suit ( I know this because he gets on train and empties bag out). He crawls about on floor and tries to grab peoples ankles then at the next stop he hurls everything on to platform and blocks the door by kneeling in the door swaying gently. Man gets up, gently pushes him so he falls on platform, door shuts and man gets a huge round of applause. Years later I'm still wondering about the gorilla suit and the accordian

Not in London, but a young woman in the seat in front of me started flossing her teeth on the bus to work one morning. So that was nice.

A man cutting his nails on the bus

A couple having a blazing row over a yoghurt.