The train filled up quickly, rather desperately, as it came late into the platform. Earlier I had been listening to a politician using the English language as a kind of guard against understanding. Almost like a kind of unarmed combat, words thrown at me to cheat me of an answer. Unarmed combat that I was losing. Oxygen got drawn out of the room as the babble of defence cornered me. I left parliament empty headed. And then later I had to hurry for a crowded rush-hour train, everyone hungry for a seat.
One seat was available. That was occupied by a man’s bag. I requested the seat and the man looked at me, as my mother would say, ‘as If I had shat my pants’. He stood, took the bag and placed it easily on the rack above and made way for me to sit. He returned to his phone. I sat and found that the man opposite me had his feet spread out to where my feet should go on the floor. I asked to be excused but got no answer and pushed my feet towards his. He looked up from his phone as if he also thought I had emptied my bowels in front of him. For an hour we all travelled together in a unity of disharmony. A disgruntling, troubling event.
I should say that there was no sign of drunkenness or physical incapacity. The men around me looked healthy specimens, well-made and professional if one can gauge such a classification in these days when professionals don’t wear suits and ties. I would say that what united the three men around the table on the train – yes, there was a third man who was greedily eating a large bag of crisps – was dissatisfaction. Yet all of them had their phones before them that opened them up to a whole alternative world. A world that was denied earlier generations who only had a newspaper to read, full of stale news from the day before. Grubby might be the word to describe the old days when newspapers dominated. And you probably had to wear a shirt and tie and polish your shoes until they looked like mirrors before you were allowed into work.
Insular might be the operative word. Earlier in the day I had been on the London Underground surrounded by more schoolchildren than I believed possible crammed into the carriage. I had a seat and waited for the third stop where I was getting off. When I stood to leave I realised I was in the last carriage and the train door didn’t open. I then had to force my way through the length of the carriage to get to the next set of functioning doors. I shouted out “Excuse me” and pushed forward and, like the Red Sea parting for the Jews, I got through with boys calling out “Let him through.” Breathlessly I got off the train and a hooray went up at my success.
Read more:
- Why we should rename artificial intelligence to ‘unnatural intelligence’
- The great autocomplete: Is AI making us lose our minds?
- Top 5 books on the London Underground, chosen by Rishi Dastidar
What a contrast to my next piece of transportation! From the joyful to the truculent, insular and selfish. I took out my notebook and continued writing my notes for the day, my brain unshrunk by AI making any decisions for me. With only the paper before me and not the whole world of the phone as a way of filling time. Or whatever it is that people do on their phone.
