To expect someone on a crowded commuter train with their 8 or 9 yo NOT to read out loud in a booming voice all the way into London...

[CountessDracula]

grrrrrrrrrrrr

Surely he can bring a book to read himself, she was bellowing out this bloody book god knows what it was all teh way in

i just emailed you about that very thing foxface

the other rule is that you must know the rules. if you don;t know to press the button to open the doors, or if you don;t know that it is not allowed to stop to put your scarf on the minute you get off, or if you don't know that mackerel, chicken and egg are very nice meals but not on a train thank you very much then you are not permitted to join our club.

And do not read to your dc on early morning commuter trains. Give your mouth a rest.

Ooh v. good point, hatwoman. Do NOT get to the doors first if you don't know how they work. Mind out of the way of people who do know how to a. read and b. press buttons. Otherwise we'll all be carted off to the next station. (Subsection a. par vii - on the London Underground, let people who know that you don't have to press the buttons go first.)

I think we should be allowed to shout "mind the cunt" at people who don't know that they don't have to push tube buttons

And those who don't know that you do have to push train buttons

And those who try and use paper tickets like oyster cards as they see everyone else just swiping their passes

lol cd

I am too scared to come to larndan now!

You might call me a cunt hahahahah

Oh come on - reading to children is better than the noxious woman I once sat next to, who got out her laptop, and then her mobile, and proceeded to yell
"I'm on the train! Yes blah blah spreadsheet blah Im so keen I just cant wait to get to work! blah blah even though its Monday and everyone else is forced to listen to me instead of nurturing the last fragments of their weekend as they stand jammed together in collective torpor blah! blah!"

sparkletastic - OMG!!!!so so funnY i can induce a wee giggle during hairy maclairy but not to my knowlwdge induce wee

CD............ you are a woman of great restraint! I might have pitched her off the train!

Caroline.............. pc smee c! This is NOT a pc issue!

Scottishmummy i also speedread and thought you had weed on a train
i swiftly moved on to the next post

lololol at pressing and non pressing of buttons

I'm sure London has been specifically designed to outfox the tourists.

I read to dd and ds on a long train trip to Wales once, and when we got off the person who had been sitting nearest to us said "thank you". They were pretty little at the time - but I'm not sure any grown up should really enjoy "in the heart of the jungle"

I'd just like to do in all those North Londoners who go on about the "overground" I mean wtf. It's a train for gods sake. It's the tube that's unusual in going underground - nearly all other trains travel at surface level, there is no need for such a stupid term as an "overground" train.

Nooka - underground trains are still trains. I don't see anything wrong with distinguishing between the two by the use of overground or mainline and underground or tube if you damn well want to. There are a lot of narky people in London don't you think?

thought of another 3 rules (whilst travelling today).

1. if your ticket (or your fuckwitedness, I care not which) is preventing you from getting through the ticket barrier, do not on any account stand there dithering whilst the queue mounts up behind you

2. (which you really would have thought was obvious) do not attempt to take your bike through the narrow, ticket-operated bit of the barrier.

3. The penalties for transgressing these rules are double if the person behind or infront of you is also transgressing one of these rules. (no-once said it was fair...)

and if you're transporting a large suitcase down the escalator at the tube station please get it as well as yourself out of the way pretty smartish when you get to the bottom to avoid mutliple pile-up scenario...

have your oyster card ready as you approach the gates - do not wait until u arrive at the gates to squeak as if this in a new unexpected phenomen

dont say blindingly obvious things that show u up as the out towner you are oh isnt the underground busy

leaving the rest of us who are squashed up against a door and someone who is no fan of rightguard to think "nae shit sherlock"

I'm going to London for the first time in ages in Nov and am sure that I'll be one of the muppets dithering about trying to work out how to get through a barrier. Please be patient with me, London is v.v. scary.

I had a panic attack in Kings Cross within 5mins of getting off the train last time.

LOLOLOL very entertaining but OMG you lot are scary... hope I never am London commuter!

(actually I am very kind to tourists, I even stop and ask them if they need help)
(I am not so vile in rl)

rosemadder and stripeyknicks - I feel really bad now! I think, for most of us, we are inwardly frustrated at anything that prolongs the misery of being with other miserable commuters but I, for one, don;t show it outwardly. I do outwardly tut at selfishness (not moving down the bus therefore leaving people stranded at the bus stop waiting for the next one; going up the single lane of steps clearly marked no entry and reserved for poor sods trying to get down against the flow) and at rudeness (not saying sorry when you bump into each other - regardless of whose "fault" it was); but, despite jokes to the contrary, I;m quite benevolent at ignorance...honest

me too CD. It gives me a warm glow to have succesfully directed someone somewhere...

the best sort of tourists are the ones who get on the tube at Heathrow after a hellishly long flight that happens to have arrived just before rush hour.

So generally, they pull into Hammersmith at about 8am only to find out that you can barely breathe let alone move AND they have about 3 huge suitcases each.

Poor sods. They always look terribly shell-shocked.