… of a Tuesday

Good morning peoples!

The title came from the classic film 'Way Out West' starring two of my favourite comedians, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. It's a line I've quoted since childhood. They've come to deliver grave news to the young beneficiary of the recently deceased. The couple in the scene are masquerading as the bereaved. She asks 'What did he die of?' Stan responds, 'I think he died of a Tuesday, or was it of a Wednesday?' I love Ollie's wide-eyed expression. I often pulled that same expression when something happened in court that surprised everyone. It's timeless comedy and I attach the link to the very scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96po3FRJ9uk


Little moments like this can only enhance what is a miserable weather day. I have to express my deepest sympathy to those having to use the vagaries of public transport in London today. Thank heavens my days of commuting are well and truly over. Travelling in London is never a pleasant thing. I remember in 2005, in the aftermath of 7/7 when a significant part of the network was closed, and every man and his dog were using alternative tube lines. I had to travel from Chancery Lane - Paddington, negotiating the packed Central then Bakerloo lines. Like Darya, I also got my heels stuck in drains whilst commuting. However, I digress. One particular early evening, I was standing on Chancery Lane Westbound platform. I had already let several trains pass already. I am blessed with being stick thin, but there was no way I was going to asphyxiate myself on a tube train. Anyway, on the train before the one I caught, a man was standing with his head protruding beyond the doorway. He looked quite smug with his own contortionistic skills allowing him to bend his way onto the carriage. So he was looking sympathetically at the throngs of passengers still waiting on the platform. I looked at him just for something to look at. I smiled at him. He smiled at me and he continued staring. The doors began to close, and he was still staring. I thought he's bound to notice at any second and pull his head in. Unfortunately, that was not the case and his head ended up becoming the meat in a tube train door sandwich. As a direct result of this,  the doors reopened, the passengers on the platform gasped in shock and the glasses that adorned his face dropped off in the melee underneath the carriage. He therefore had to de-contort himself and alight from the train. When a member of Transport for London staff (or London Underground, whatever guise it was under at the time) arrived to assist by stepping down off the platform to retrieve the said glasses, he was treated to a right earful. The passenger was sporting a big black mark across his nose where the impact had occurred. He was threatening to sue London Transport for the incident. Of course it was their fault. He was trying to flirt with a passenger on the platform and was not paying attention!

 I was with a fellow lawyer, and we discussed the incident standing on the next train. I can distinctly remember saying to her:

'It was one of those moments in time that you could have altered. You foresaw what was going to happen, and could have taken a split-second decision to prevent the incident by forewarning the passenger that he was about to be caught by the doors. But it was also one of those intriguing moments where you stood by and kind of wanted to see what happened!'

Anyway, I've spent far too long on this blog and not enough time on my book. After all, you get this shit for free, but you have to pay for my book!!

Laters,

MJ xx

p.s. I'm thinking my blog is a bit pants. Any ideas on how I can improve it would be greatly welcomed. The blogger design menu seems so unwieldy!