“Did you come by train?” “No, I flu!”

An American friend who kindly comments on my flickr photos recently made the tongue-in-cheek observation that he “didn’t use the city buses because he didn’t want to travel with “the great unwashed”……

He has a car and the buses don’t offer the convenience that he wants for himself and his family. I don’t blame him. The “great unwashed” was a humourous flippancy. However, as I have no alternative other than to use public transportation I can, occasionally, be subjected to anti-social activities of my fellow travellers who may not actually smell or be picking their noses but whose behaviour betrays lack of basic social consideration skills (in other words they are a bleedin’ nuisance!).

Now, the media-hyped horror of the “imminent pandemic” – the swine flu – means that public transport users seem to be at greater risk than their car owning fellows. Indeed, there were even rumours that the Mexico City subway was to be closed in order to prevent the spread of infection and numerous news channels carried pictures of be-masked individuals travelling on said system. (Followed, closely, I might add, my some entrepeneur hoping to make a quick buck by offering for sale “designer face masks” with all sorts of styles to suit all pockets and facial structures!).

On my daily commute by rail to work the carriage chuckled about the mass-hysteria being whipped up by the press. Yet, if a fellow passenger boarded with a cold and proceeded to cough repeatedly or sneeze before being able to recourse to a tissue those chuckles and smiles took on a “frozen” quality (and we may have quietly wished for the availability of a medicated nosegay!).

Today I travelled by train and bus to make a weekly visit to a family member. I boarded the train at the start of its journey and was somewhat discomposed to find that the carriage that I had chosen to sit in was fast becoming the favourite of everyone else (it seemed) on the platform. People were sitting in front of me, next to me, and behind me. I am due to start a ten day travelling vacation tomorrow and the thought crossed my mind “if one of these buggers starts coughing and sneezing then I’m off!” The air-conditioning in the train seemed, to my mind, to be sucking in numerous viruses, treating them to moisture and then, after these germs had bathed and multiplied in deliciously perfect temperatures, had expelled them, refreshed, into the atmosphere. Sense told me to stop this nonsense. But then I considered that I should moved to a part of the train where I could spread out (purely for comfort purposes, OF COURSE!). I pretended that I had seen someone walk past on the platform who I recognised (as if, for heaven sake, anyone would CARE about me moving seats!!). I smiled and nodded at the non-existent person outside on the platform and jumped up to move. I walked into the next carriage to find it almost deserted except for a rather loud young family at the far end. I congratulated the alter-ego side of my personality that had encouraged the move and dismissed the chiding voices that admonished me for being “ridiculous”! The family at the far end were chattered away. The father coughed…..”You’ve got swine flu!” declared a junior school age child in the group. Everyone laughed.

Upon arriving at the city where I had to change onto a bus for the last forty minutes of my journey I walked through beautifully manicured public gardens to reach the bus station. Everything in my world looked lovely. The flowers were blooming, the grass was lush green and the birds sang with fervour. And tomorrow was the first day of my two week holiday. I reached the bus station and saw that the double-decker bus was already loading. I joined the queue and, once on board, chose a seat halfway down the upper deck and regarded with some surprise the number of people who were proposing to be my fellow passengers (normally I get this bus and can be one of, at most, a dozen people on a seventy-seater vehicle). Then – shock, horror!! A group of maybe twenty children with a scattering of their adult carers became the prospective passengers. Their Latin-American looks suggested that they might be, yes, WERE, MUST BE from Mexico, that cradle of media-hyped infection. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. They would stay downstairs of course. After all, the carers would not want these rampaging kids (sneezing and coughing, naturally) to be running amok on the upper deck. Then came the dreaded stampede and UP they came. One sneezed almost at once. My muscles tensed. They sat in front of me, behind me, next to me. I was effectively SEALED in a vacuum of pestilence. I listened anxiously for words like “Zapata” or “Amigo”. But my paranoia was instantly assuaged when I heard the sarf-east Ingerland intonations of children and carers alike. “Got enny sweets on yer?” The child who sneezed did so again. “Swine flu!” screamed the others in mock horror.

Needless to say I completed my journey without let or hindrance or air-borne pestilence. Like the time when I arrived in Japan for a week’s dream holiday and had a child sit behind me who demonstrated all the symptoms of whooping-cough on the bullet train to Himeji – there was no cause for alarm.

Tomorrow I set forth on a European tour, by rail, which will doubtless result in me using crowded Underground railways and busy overland trains in warm conditions. And to crown the cocktail I am flying back.
I do not expect to quarantined, nor exposed to anything more risky than usual either as regards infection or the activities of the anti-socials. I will continue to travel with the “Great Unwashed” and become part of them.

(My will is written)