Extra Salt & Sauce

To Bolton and back sur le train today with Ed and Gail to see our friends at AG Barr. The train journey was notable for two reasons.

On the way down this misty morning, Ed suddenly gazed out of the window and declared that the landscape was beautiful. He must have believed that we were still in the Borders.

On the way back, a very entertaining man sat alongside us at the companionable 4 seating table and observed latterly that it was ironic that Ed and I were working so hard as I tapped tapped away on my laptop and he on his blackberry while Gail sat gazing into space. Gail replied reasonably that it was after half past five so technically down time.

She was unoffended - as she remarked on his departure at Haymarket that we needed more friendly strangers on trains. I wholeheartedly agree.

On holiday last week in mostly Lisbon and for a graffitti lover (as well as a good weather lover), it turned out to be a dreamy week. To illustrate..:

This latter one appeared to be very meaningful. I saw versions of it scattered across buildings all over the city. I await the bombarding of the blog with hate mail now that I've posted it.

So I'm sitting on the mid-afternoon train to Glasgow earlier today and it's chock full of meeting-stuffed commuters on their way home. I'm sat next to a young man who has his laptop on the table in front of him. I have my laptop on the table in front of me. The man sitting opposite (white shirt, blue tie, surely an accountant) is hunched over some secretive figures which he's storing in his lap for reasons best known to himself, scribbling away at them.

The young man plugged his earphones into the wrong socket and for a moment, we shared his crazy young people's hiphop muzak. The man sitting opposite snapped his head up and pointed irritably at his ears. The young man leapt to attention, realised why he couldn't hear anything through his headphones and rectified the situation.

Eager always to pour whatever you pour on troubled waters, I said, full of mock regret, "I was quite enjoying that." Man sitting opposite snapped "you were the only one".

The milk of human kindness. I love it.

I spent the day surrounded by IRN-BRU yesterday in sunny Cumbernauld, only to rush back for an evening in the theatre, watching one of the characters swigging vodka from an IRN-BRU (returnable) glass bottle. A nice symmetry to the day.

The play incidentally was brilliant.