Two from me:
1) "Dear London Underground:
Please stop with the constant inane, overwhelming and soul-destroying chatter that you so regularly spout from your Public Address systems. Please understand the following:
- If I see something suspicious or threatening, it will be reported. I do not need to be reminded to do so at every opportunity.
- When I have luggage about my person, I do not intend to leave it behind anywhere except at my home when you eventually let me get there.
- I do not need to be reminded to stay behind the yellow line at all times. The sheer height of the drop from the platform to the tracks, and the fact that I know of the electrified rails keeps me far enough away from the edge all by itself, thank you very much.
- Your repeated robotic pleas do not make me want to be any more considerate to the passengers who wish to get off the train than I already am. My manners and attitude, things you have no control over except to worsen, will help here. If I stand in the way of those in a hurry to alight, I deserve everything I get from them, short of physical force. See Point number 1 for more on this.
- I know about the gap - it’s scary and it eats the unwary. It does not need minding - it exists quite happily by itself. I will avoid it where I see it. Light the gaps or close them. Your choice.
- Announcements of a “good service operating on all London Underground lines” should not be necessary. I mean really - are you celebrating getting through a period when you can say that? Why? We pay you for that good service. Please just tell us if there are problems, or tell us nothing.
- TURN IT DOWN (1): The volume, frequency of announcements, the tinny/distorted/painful speakers, and the inane content of each message is making me switch off my brain to all aural stimulation while using your services.
- TURN IT DOWN (2): If you need to announce everything at top volume, you’re doing it wrong. Cut the background noise, fix your PA systems, train those who make announcements in correct speech and microphone announcements, and run the service properly.
- Learn to talk properly! If I have a speech impediment or a particularly strong accent, it's highly probable that I’m not going to make it as radio DJ. That's practicality, not discrimination. Please stop making those who can neither speak nor properly understand English make announcements. They’ll just get ignored or ridiculed, and you’ll still be left wondering why we are all so frustrated, and why nobody pays any more attention than they have to.
Your prompt action to attend to these matters is desired but not expected.
Yours,
Frustrated of London"
2) "Dear sat-next-to-me-on-coach-lady,
It is not by strict choice that I'm sat next to you. I didn't realise at first that you're pregnant, perhaps because your enlarged frame seems rather familiar to you.
I did not pay good money to sit next to someone who needs a shower so badly, nor did I pay to sit crammed in next to your over-large frame, away from my wife whom I've yet to spend enough quality time with today. We're newly married and even we don't get *that* close. Move over already and respect my space as I'm quite happily respecting yours.
I appreciate you are trying to be quiet on your mobile phone, and that really is refreshing. But really, it's still not hard to hear you. While we're on the subject of telephone calls, from what I'm unavoidably overhearing I despise your life choices; I am incensed that my hard-earned and grudgingly-yet-fully-paid taxes are going to be spent putting you and your unwanted, unloved and as-yet unborn child into government-provided accommodation. Further, i am apoplectic at how you are going to receive £2000 from the state 'just for having a baby', and then moan on and on to your 'friend' about how awful it is to have to spend some (or all, or more) of it on, well you know, baby stuff.
I despise having to put up with you yammering on about how 'appaulling' the conditions are on the coach. You're large. That may or may not be your fault, but either way it does not entitle you to more space than the rest of us.
So please, grow a fricken brain, shut the feck up and above all, GROW UP. The world does not revolve around you, and nobody owes you a living. Least of all me."
Thank you AN, for this opportunity to vent in a more creative and (hopefully) harmless manner than most of us Englishfolk can muster.
