Something is rotten in the state of….public transport?

I was laid in bed last night thinking of something to blog about today. I haven’t seen any movies in the cinema for at least three weeks and so I couldn’t try and attempt another movie ‘review’, I don’t have anything in particular to talk about and I’m not too sure what people enjoy reading these days and what will hold people’s attention. So I came to this conclusion; I’ll write a random post which has no structure, no point, no meaning and should people want to read it perhaps you can forgive my lack of interesting topics.

People annoy me. I don’t mean ‘people’ in general obviously because there are some brilliant ones out there, what I mean is that sometimes I just want to head-butt people in the face and severely alter their bone structure. Yesterday whilst I was doing a ridiculous amount of travel back-and-forth from my house and Jen’s I…..encountered (yeah, that’s the word I’ll use) one of the most annoying types of people on this small island which I call my country, this person was a ‘pusher’. Trains get busy, I think we all know this, but regardless of how busy a train is people will generally respect the etiquette of public transport. Should you not use public transport very often, it works like this; leave a gap between the doors and the platform/road so that people can get off easily, if theres someone in a wheelchair or pushing a pram they obviously get priority (the same goes for elderly people), you wait until everyone has got off the bus/train before you start to board yourself and finally you give your seat up for certain groups of people (again the elderly, pregnant etc). So, let me explain this little ‘encounter’ of mine yesterday evening. The platform was busy, it was obvious there weren’t going to be enough seats for everyone on the train but as usual most people were queueing politely in the order they got to the platform, I was about fourth in the queue at the bottom of the platform where we assumed the train would pull-in. The train did pull in, ten minutes late but that’s not my problem at present, and before anyone got off the train, before anyone in the queue had time to get on a guy ran out of the waiting room and ran straight past the queue and hopped on the train in the midst of an old lady trying to step down onto the platform from the carriage. He then pushed his way through the carriage of people getting off to find a seat.

I’m not the only one that thinks people like this are just wankers am I? I understand the need for a seat, I hate it when I have to stand but I’m not going to be rude to get one and neither are most other people. But, like what I assume is 90% of the UK population I said nothing, I didn’t complain, I didn’t pull him up for it and neither did anyone else. We all just scoffed in disgust and carried on with life and then I came and blogged about it instead 😐 Grrrr.

“Aye, there’s the rub.” About three or four months ago we booked tickets to go and see Hamlet at The Crucible in Sheffield, admittedly being influenced by the lead role being played by The Master (aka John Simm). I’m not exactly well-read when it comes to Shakespeare, the only two plays I’ve ever really enjoyed reading are Hamlet and Twelfth Night and now I’ve managed to see productions of both. My local town’s theatre group put on a production of Twelfth Night at the beginning of the year which me and my Sister bought tickets for. We laughed our heads off, the actors were amazing and we had a brilliant time. I figured that if I could enjoy Shakespeare in the theatre then perhaps I should seek out some other productions in the future. Hamlet was, to say the least, a little bit more intense than the Rotherham Civic production of Twelfth Night. With a running time of almost four hours (including only a 15 minute interval to stretch your legs) it was brilliantly enjoyable, amazing to watch and I’m left wanting to see more Shakespeare performed live. The reviews weren’t exactly shining and having been to see it for myself I can understand some of the points the reviewers seemed to be making, John Simm played a very odd Hamlet, he seemed to take the whole ‘Hamlet is slightly mental’ thing to a whole other level and as such it was left feeling a little bit comical. There are subtle jokes in Hamlet, as I’m sure anyone who has read it will agree, but John Simm seemed to make a tragedy into a comedy at some moments and it was a bit unsettling to see happen. Still, saying this, he was absolutely amazing to watch and whilst one cannot help compare his version of the Danish prince to that of David Tennant, they are as separate as cat and dog although sometimes not in a purely positive manner.

Throughout the play both me and Jen kept wondering to each other if the guy playing Hamlet’s Uncle was the guy from Midsummer Murders because it both looked and sounded like him but from a distance, we couldn’t be sure. It turned out it was indeed John Nettles who I can now say is a brilliant actor and don’t take Midsummer as the epitome of his acting talent. Hamlet is still running at The Crucible until the 23rd of October so if there are any tickets left and you have some spare cash and time, I highly recommend you go and see it. Here’s the info (new window).