Not from Blackadder(?) - 2

[He] was, in fact, born in Smyrna ... where his father, George Herbert Willans, was Assistant Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the Ottoman Aidan Railway.

- Wendy Cope, Life, Love and The Archers

Things I did NOT see myself doing (just yet)

#377  Attempting to paraphrase a Ferdowsi - via Basil Bunting - story about the division of the world between Afaridun's sons to a 7-year-old on a train stuck somewhere outside London Bridge.

(Also, why I can write on my books... but he probably shouldn't.)

Just how much should I let it annoy me

that in this pathetically simple advert someone couldn't even be bothered to format the '.co.uk' into the same font as the 'WH Smith'?

Answers on a postcard - addressed to my psychiatrist.

Books I've actually finished lately: 30

Found, at suburban rail station book-swap*

* also, winner of the Austin 'Danger' Powers Award for best subheading/author-name combo (EVER!!!)

Turning Japanese...?

Two Japanese girls on a late-evening commuter train, talking rapid-fire native, and then suddenly, in purest Californian:

Why d'you even cayre?

Also heard:

passive-aggressive
centre of attention
Oh my God...
No, you cannot have this: you cannot be cooler than me!
I'm a vindictive bitch.

On the lecture circuit

American literature is fine, but I feel it to be an irrelevance in a disaster area.

- Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar

Attention, please!

[T]his is important. Or rather, and to be precise, this is not important but the manner in which it is not important is important.

- Hugo Rifkind, The Times

Tough crit

On the train, last night, a garbage man tried to throw away my notebook.