The Soapboxx
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Dance? I Don't Even Drive.
Earlier this morning I was on the train when the guard made the shamefully familiar announcement that there was a major problem at London Bridge and our service was going to be disrupted.
Nothing shocking there, you might think. And typically you'd be right.
However, in this instance, rather than terminating the bastard at or before London Bridge the driver made the smart decision to move the train on to Cannon Street, which just happened to be my actual destination. As I was originally going to have to change trains at London Bridge anyway, this quick-thinking saved me some fifteen minutes.
Wonderful.
Except, and this is where it all cancels itself out, yesterday evening on the train home there was a massive problem at Robertsbridge - clearly, given the names of the stations involved, South Eastern is going through some kind of a sticky patch with trolls - and I was delayed for some forty minutes in the middle of nowhere with nothing to entertain me except a mild fever and a suspiciously mustached man who insisted on talking loudly in his mobile phone.
If I can draw your attention to even earlier this morning, I had decided to excuse myself from work to polish off a couple of errands. Socialite Patricia Duff once remarked that anyone who finds themselves taking the bus after the age of thirty is quite clearly a failure. She's probably right, but then again she was married to a billionaire at the time. I'm not a billionaire, but I am over the age of thirty and yet, somehow, around 9am this morning I had the misfortune to find myself on a bus.
Buses do inevitably contain the most foul people. Really, if you want a snapshot of the dregs of society, hop on the number twenty-three to anywhere, stand in the front and gaze suspiciously towards the back. With a flamethrower and a steady hand one could efficiently and speedily put paid to many of life's problems, particularly if the emblazed vehicle could then be steered into your nearest Lidl.
However, in this instance, I had become one of them, and if the 2006 version of Travis Bickle had hopped on board (no doubt complete with iPod and authentic Che Guevara t-shirt) he would have shot me, too. And rightly so. Thankfully, I only board a bus about twice a year. When it's very cold.
What am I rambling on about? I'll tell you. I don't drive. I've never driven, don't have a license and nor do I have any desire to get one.
And here's why: I'm incredibly bloody lazy.
Actually, that's not the only reason. I'm also incredibly environmentally aware. Indeed, every time I even so much as see a programme on television that features monster trucks or a factory I feel compelled to go out to the garden and plant a tree. At least I would if I... cared.
The real reason is that I quite simply do not need it, nor have I ever. And I don't think I ever will. You see, my wife drives, and before her, my last girlfriend did, and way back when my dad used to drive too. In fact, he still does. So does my brother. Christ, I'm pretty sure both of my sons will drive one day, and then I'll be really sorted.
I'm not, never will be and have no aspirations towards being the dreaded 'new man'. But why is it that most of Western civilization has embraced a moderate downgrade of the macho man but the majority of people, particularly men, cling on to the idea that to be a man you must drive?
Don't get me wrong; I'm very pro most areas of blatant testosterone exposure. For example, I don't dance. No real man dances. Unless you're chatting directly to Jake Spears, never trust any bloke who says he can't wait to get on to the dance floor. He's clearly a social retard.
My wife would love it if I learned to drive. Really, she'd probably spend a month celebrating and then we'd have ten years or so where I drove her and the kids everywhere to pay them all back. But where does that leave me? Miserable, that's where. In other words, just like everyone else. Who wants to be the designated driver? Nobody, apart from that annoying prat you know who will never, ever get a girlfriend. Living it large like I do, I can go to Brighton by car and have a cheeky pint. Or four.
And part of me now feels that if I ever get my license it'll be some kind of open admission of failure. That ultimately I folded under the pressure and gave in to the notion that I actually needed it to be accepted as a fine citizen and, yes, a man.
Bollocks. According to Direct Line, 14 of the 33.8 million drivers in the UK are women. And one of them is my wife. And for that I say: cheers.
Nothing shocking there, you might think. And typically you'd be right.
However, in this instance, rather than terminating the bastard at or before London Bridge the driver made the smart decision to move the train on to Cannon Street, which just happened to be my actual destination. As I was originally going to have to change trains at London Bridge anyway, this quick-thinking saved me some fifteen minutes.
Wonderful.
Except, and this is where it all cancels itself out, yesterday evening on the train home there was a massive problem at Robertsbridge - clearly, given the names of the stations involved, South Eastern is going through some kind of a sticky patch with trolls - and I was delayed for some forty minutes in the middle of nowhere with nothing to entertain me except a mild fever and a suspiciously mustached man who insisted on talking loudly in his mobile phone.
If I can draw your attention to even earlier this morning, I had decided to excuse myself from work to polish off a couple of errands. Socialite Patricia Duff once remarked that anyone who finds themselves taking the bus after the age of thirty is quite clearly a failure. She's probably right, but then again she was married to a billionaire at the time. I'm not a billionaire, but I am over the age of thirty and yet, somehow, around 9am this morning I had the misfortune to find myself on a bus.
Buses do inevitably contain the most foul people. Really, if you want a snapshot of the dregs of society, hop on the number twenty-three to anywhere, stand in the front and gaze suspiciously towards the back. With a flamethrower and a steady hand one could efficiently and speedily put paid to many of life's problems, particularly if the emblazed vehicle could then be steered into your nearest Lidl.
However, in this instance, I had become one of them, and if the 2006 version of Travis Bickle had hopped on board (no doubt complete with iPod and authentic Che Guevara t-shirt) he would have shot me, too. And rightly so. Thankfully, I only board a bus about twice a year. When it's very cold.
What am I rambling on about? I'll tell you. I don't drive. I've never driven, don't have a license and nor do I have any desire to get one.
And here's why: I'm incredibly bloody lazy.
Actually, that's not the only reason. I'm also incredibly environmentally aware. Indeed, every time I even so much as see a programme on television that features monster trucks or a factory I feel compelled to go out to the garden and plant a tree. At least I would if I... cared.
The real reason is that I quite simply do not need it, nor have I ever. And I don't think I ever will. You see, my wife drives, and before her, my last girlfriend did, and way back when my dad used to drive too. In fact, he still does. So does my brother. Christ, I'm pretty sure both of my sons will drive one day, and then I'll be really sorted.
I'm not, never will be and have no aspirations towards being the dreaded 'new man'. But why is it that most of Western civilization has embraced a moderate downgrade of the macho man but the majority of people, particularly men, cling on to the idea that to be a man you must drive?
Don't get me wrong; I'm very pro most areas of blatant testosterone exposure. For example, I don't dance. No real man dances. Unless you're chatting directly to Jake Spears, never trust any bloke who says he can't wait to get on to the dance floor. He's clearly a social retard.
My wife would love it if I learned to drive. Really, she'd probably spend a month celebrating and then we'd have ten years or so where I drove her and the kids everywhere to pay them all back. But where does that leave me? Miserable, that's where. In other words, just like everyone else. Who wants to be the designated driver? Nobody, apart from that annoying prat you know who will never, ever get a girlfriend. Living it large like I do, I can go to Brighton by car and have a cheeky pint. Or four.
And part of me now feels that if I ever get my license it'll be some kind of open admission of failure. That ultimately I folded under the pressure and gave in to the notion that I actually needed it to be accepted as a fine citizen and, yes, a man.
Bollocks. According to Direct Line, 14 of the 33.8 million drivers in the UK are women. And one of them is my wife. And for that I say: cheers.
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