Notes from a train

I enjoyed not one but two humourous advertisements on the backs of buses from my taxi to the train station. The first seemed perfectly reasonable: it was meant to inform of London’s new law that basically counts gum as litter, with careless disposal leading to fines of up to £80. Like I said, sounds reasonable, but did we really need a “Chewing Gum Action Group” to do this?

The second was part of the new NHS campaign “Be Cervix Savvy”, designed to help women learn more about the benefits of regular cervical screening, and the dangers of cervical cancer. A worthy endeavour I’m sure you’ll agree – but the NHS chose a very curious medium. Specifically, this guy. And if that’s not bad enough, there are videos too. While I find these hilariously ridiculous, I could see some people finding them downright sexist – can women not be trusted to take advice from women, and so need to be told important things by eye-candy?

As I tweeted earlier, my train is definitely some sort of time capsule. Not only is it one of the old-school ‘ash-trays-in-the-arm-rest-faux-polished-wood-trim-lights-on-the-tables’ trains, but the average age of my immediate vicinity has got to be 73. And I don’t mean like the 3 people adjacent to me – oh no – the n of this sample is definitely at least 12. Even the ticket collector was getting on in years. That’s OK, though. I’ll take old over mouth-breathers any day of the week.

I’m listening to Nouvelle Vague, and you should be too. Later I’m going to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I’ve never seen in its entirety, despite having numerous friends who claim it as their favourite film.

As you may have surmised from the fact that I’m writing Notes, I’m on a train back to St Andrews. When I left, I was planning on returning to frantic data collection to try and finish a chapter of my experiment before the end of December, but plans have changed, and that urgency is now gone. This should make for a slightly more casual end of the month, and I may even get a chance to go back to London for a long weekend at the start of January.

I had a great Christmas vacation – very relaxing, much gluttony, many an hour spent lounging in front of a fire, TV or laptop. I’m ready to get back to work, though, to be honest.

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Tags: cervical savvy, chewing gum action group, christmas, December, eye-candy, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, NHS, Nouvelle Vague, Orient Express, strange ads, train, twiter, vacation

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