h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In the past I lived in Cheltenham, but would periodically travel to my parents home in Essex but train. This inevitably meant a cross town journey by London Underground from Paddington to Liverpool Street. Now, bearing in mind that I had already endured over two hours on trains of varying quality to get from Cheltenham to London, I was rarely in the mood to speak to, interact with or even acknowledge the existance of other people, especially Tube Train Nutters of which there are many. It was as a result of this that I developed a Nutter Avoidance technique, which I can highly recommend. Step 1: Wear your sunglasses on the underground. This means you can look at everyone else without them seeing you and you can see nutters coming. Step 2: Listen to a walkman. Not too load though in case they come at you from behind. Step 3: Every now and again, sing along very quietly to the music or mouth the words to the song. The result for me is that I never have to put up with nutters, or anyone else. I guess the moral of the story is that if you can't beat them; join them. DEE

I'm glad you added in that last sentence, since a sunglasses wearing, walkman dirging personage is most people's generic descrition of "the underground nutter".

I had a close encounter with a drunk on the underground (possibly also a nutter). After buying my ticket at Kings Cross Underground to go to Kensington I turned round from the machine to be faced with a bearded drunk. "Spare some change mate" was his question. "Sorry mate" was the reply. As I turned to walk away I was greeted with the pleasantry of "Ya fat s**t".

Charming eh???

Definitely agree with the sentiments here, "if you can't beat em, join em. There's some advice on becoming a tube celebrity which involves wearing sunglasses, crying, talking and saying how much you enjoyed travelling on the tube. See the full guide on becoming a nutter on the following page:

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/finsbury/254/tubecelebs.html#Famous