artist's impression...

I was a little bit delayed leaving work last night. Believe it or not, this was due to a problematic episode of '90s comedy (or '90s "comedy") The Brittas Empire.* My frustration over leaving late was compounded when I got to the underground platform approximately five seconds after my train had left. Grrr! However, all this bad luck and timing turned out to be a good thing because I had a lovely experience when I got on the next train that arrived. Sitting opposite me was a boy... Actually, sitting opposite me was a boy and his dad, but I had enough trouble drawing (or "drawing") one person so there was no way his dad was appearing in the artist's impression too. Sitting opposite me was a boy wearing a duffle coat with one of those fancy badges pinned to it - a badge that displays a scrolling message in little red lights. My curiosity was aroused and I wondered what sort of message a quiet-looking boy (with his dad) would want to display to the world in red lights.

For the benefit of those of you not familiar with Glasgow, our underground system is very basic. All the stations are in a circle on two continuous line. Trains run in both directions and you just get on whichever side/direction will get you to your chosen destination more quickly, though you would get there eventually (in a matter of minutes, not hours) no matter what side you used. The colour scheme on the underground is an awesome '70s palette of brown and orange (hence the subway's nickname of The Clockwork Orange) but the underground's colour scheme is not relevant to the story at all. Back to the boy with the lights on his badge.

After a few more squints in his direction I managed to read the whole message. It said, "I'm going all the way round." And he was! It turned out he and his dad had got on the underground together just to travel full circle and get off at the very same stop they started at and the boy had programmed his badge specially. How cute is that?! I was going to say that this was my best Glasgow underground experience ever, but then there was that time I met the magician... Both encounters made me smile a lot. I think it could be too close to call. I'll go for best equal.

Of course, I couldn't exactly take a photo of someone else's child on the underground and I don't think I had my camera on me anyway, so I had to resort to drawing (from memory and a very rough sketch made on a wobbly train) to be able to blog about it. Apologies - I definitely cannot draw things that are inside my head/not in front of my eyes, but I thought the terrible illustrations were worth it to be able to share the story. I was pleased I managed to get in the detail of the skull and fairisle pattern on his hat, just peeking out from under his hood. Ha! That's my teacherly skill of finding a genuine little point to praise amidst all the horror coming back to me!

* Confession - I actually liked The Brittas Empire or, to be more precise, my sister liked The Brittas Empire so I kind of liked it by association. Last week I got a weird Brittas Empire craving while watching a Red Dwarf repeat late at night. I nearly squealed when I saw an episode had appeared on the subtitling worklist and I should actually have been subtitling something else, but I really wanted to see The Brittas Empire again so I picked it on purpose. Don't judge me. It wasn't as funny as I remembered... but I still want to see more.