Train manners

I was on the train to work this morning, and we had reached the stage of the journey when more people were getting off than getting on. And as I began to enjoy the sense of calm that was descending on the carriage, I became aware of a repetitive, snip-snipping noise over my shoulder.

When I turned around, I saw that a perfectly respectable-looking woman (slightly reminiscent of Alison Steadman, wearing a smart red coat and glasses) had taken out some nail clippers and was very loudly cutting her fingernails. Clippety-clip, she went, as she propelled pieces of her dead tissue all over the train carriage.

I'm always surprised by the lack of inhibition displayed by my fellow commuters. Of course, it's not unusual to sit next to someone who is energetically applying foundation, or painting their nails and subjecting the rest of their carriage to the heady smell of solvents. But on one occasion, I sat opposite a woman who took out a pair of tweezers and began plucking hairs from her upper lip, while three blobs of eye-catching, luminous white spot cream worked their magic elsewhere on her face. Some part of me is admiring of anyone who can be so thoroughly unselfconscious and immune to the raised eyebrows of those around them. But there is no part of me at all that would be admiring if a shard of someone else's fingernail should land in my cardboard cup of coffee. Badly done, pseudo Steadman.