Fompous Part
Erstwhile Scumbag
I’m afraid this impertinence is sometimes necessary to combat another (and in my view greater) persistent evil, namely people sitting next to you unnecessarily and being annoying.People that put a bag on the seat next to them. Your bag comfortable there? Won't be when I sit on it.
We’ve all been there. There are plenty of vacant two-seaters elsewhere but, for some reason, an anonymous weirdo decides to squash up next to you and make a nuisance of himself. This nuisance can take a variety of forms. Listening to shit music too loudly on his headphones; coughing and spluttering repeatedly in your close vicinity; trying to engage in tedious conversation. The list is inexhaustible.
Please bear in mind, George, that to strangers on public transport you are potentially that weirdo.
Obviously this ‘bagging’ tactic has been taken too far if there are no free seats and people (the less confrontational specimens, at least) feel obliged to stand. A reasonable governing rule, I think, is people should remove their bag as soon as there are no vacant two-seaters. At that point we should perhaps leave the matter to Lady Fortuna and hope she smiles kindly on us. But the geometry of a single-decker bus makes it difficult to know with epistemic certainty if there are any vacant two-seaters. On a double-decker it is impossible.
There are no easy answers.
Last edited: