Usually, a tube-user, quietly grimacing and trying to get through their journey, may be slightly pissed off at the occurrence of a crack-head musician or preacher in their carriage, but no more annoyed than they are at the fact that they’re in a carriage in the first place. These mildly entertaining souls are even somewhat of a highlight in the journey sometimes, although not usually for the quality of their art. I have encountered fiddlers serenading girls with a lovely Irish Jig, beggars asking me for a coin, preachers informing that the tube is run by Satan, and people with dogs. As an aside, dogs should not be allowed on the tube. Organised public travel in machinery is a human invention and as such should be reserved for humans. Dogs smell of dog and take up valuable luggage-stowing and aisle space. They are also unable to use oyster-card readers or carry an oyster-wallet. I admit that this is the case for some humans too, and I would therefore also extend this view to them until they clean up their act.

So, mild aggravations aside, I was going about my daily tubing when all of a sudden, into the carriage jumped two budding young ‘musicians’. They were comprised of a male bearing a guitar and a female clutching some sort of drum, both looking very malnourished and very trendy, just like all the great real musicians of our time. Tatty jeans, raggedy hair, grubby faces and shabby shoes were their dressings of choice. I was at first swayed by their charm, and claim that they wanted to show us travellers just how dedicated they were to their art, stating “We’ll show you that some buskers actually work to earn their money!” “Buskers?” I thought, “Surely you need an allotted busking spot and time to do so on the tube. What you are doing must therefore be considered illegal and subversive.” Ah, real musicians, not afraid to kick authority in the balls and take their great art anywhere! I was actually looking forward to hearing the pair’s new song that they’d been promoting all over London. I paused my mp3 player, took out my headphones, and waited expectantly.

Then it happened. The most horrible and ungodly din I have ever heard. He strummed away something lame on the six-string, couldn’t have been more than 3 crap-sounding chords, and she bashed away less than rhythmically on the drum. They sung somewhat together and harmonised in some way that I couldn’t understand, in the most mundane, banal, average voices I have ever heard. I think the song, all shitness aside from it being live and in a moving carriage, would have amounted to the most middle-of-the-road, boring and unfortunately hence possibly marketable piece of shit song of the naughties.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to appear rude put my headphones back in, but the music was causing me to consider tearing my eyeballs out and stuffing them in my ears. So I went for it, a clever stumble in which I majestically stuck the ‘phones back into my head and put on something good with some fucking balls and a tune. I could still hear their cacophony, but at least I had something better to focus on. Then it ended. They stopped playing and waited expectantly for a clap. Thank God no one did. I looked away as they went around the carriage with the drum, asking people for change. There was no way they were even getting so much as a look from me.

That was the worst tube journey of my life.

The second worst was when I saw them again, less than a fortnight later. Same two people, same song. I hoped beyond hope that they’d improved, but to no avail. If anything they had gotten worse. The future is not looking good for us travellers. People actually gave them some coin, though. I couldn’t believe it. Who are these people that like this music? Where are they from and why do they have such crap ears? They deserve the same rights to tube travel as dogs.

In case you’re wondering, the first encounter was on the northern line, northbound from bank. The second was on the Hammersmith and Cit line, eastbound from somewhere after Paddington and before King’s Cross. I wish I could remember their name, but I wasn’t really paying attention when they were talking. It’s something lame like ‘Two Pricks’ or ‘We Suck’.
Watch out for these two. If you do come across them, contact TFL immediately, giving them the details of your train, including its number shown on the front or back (I’m not sure where this is, but I’ve heard it’s the best detail to give for their immediate capture.) We must stop this abomination which is not only a detriment to our ears, but plagues the good name of buskers who have gone through the whole legalisation process (which I don’t necessarily agree with in principle, but if it works and buskers are using it properly, then I suppose it’s the way busking should be done.)

If you happen to like their music, then I hate you.

So, he put me through to Ross Kemp. He recommended me ‘Barry’. I said that was one of the Chuckle Brothers and he put the phone down. So, I decided to go with Gary, (not named after Glitter, though). The surname was selected by choosing the metal of the day, (kinda like the ‘soup of the day’), and it was stainless steel. That’s long so I decided to cut one name out. After writing my autograph as ‘Gary Steel’ for a full forty-eight minutes, I opted for ‘Gary Stainless’. I find that has connotations of a lawyer with a stainless record, which I thought was quite clever and deep.

I’ll be a maverick. I won’t play by the rules; I’ll bring my own wig into court, thanks. I’ll be held for contempt of court when aggressively abusing a man in the dock who killed an elderly lady, and all the women will think ‘isn’t he dreamy…’

I’ll walk around the world (well, one country per film) righting wrongs, stopping youths mugging foreigners, and I may even set buildings on fire with napalm. When I get arrested (and I’ll go with dignity, making remarks such as ‘can’t beat the law, huh? Can’t blame a guy for trying’), I’ll represent myself in court. I’ll get out of going to prison for the whole film until the last scumbag I bust. I’ll break up a paedophile ring, and kill all of the perverts and rescue the kids, and I get put in prison because ‘you can’t take the law into your own hands’. The audience will be outraged.

In the next film I will be 3 years older, and so on and on. I’m intending on starting at age 19, just to make sure I live long enough. On the last sequel I’ll uncover reverse-ageing machinary and technology hidden in a cave that the Nazis used (thinking about it, I could probably kill a few old ones that just happen to be moping about), and use it on myself. Then we can do an unprecedented 34-series run on FOX, and produce money spinning dolls and endless computer games. I want this to be the next Fifa (or NBA, Yanks) franchise.

When the show loses viewers I’ll sign the rights to own my face away, and it can be bought for a nominal fee, eventually appearing as the ‘stock’ face on all male blow up dolls.

It’s gonna be good! Keep your hands off it, it’s copyrighted.

I watch him sometimes just to raise my heart rate (my doctor said I should do it more often), so I watched the show when he had David Tenant on. This was a while ago, but I assure you the essence of my observations are correct.

He made a SHIT ‘innuendo’ (‘Ooo, I’d like to travel in your tardis!’) and everyone ignored him as it was one of those awkward moments when someone talked over him as he said it. So he said it again. No response, so he said it again. At that precise moment, a switch to activate the second of the two brain cells allocated to Justin Lee-Collins fans switched. Much in the manner of an insects hive-mind, they all exclaimed;

‘AHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

and clapped him so forcefully that the issue of whether their hands met for the clap itself became an irrelevance. They dribbled from the mouth, shitting themselves while their eyes rolled to the back of their heads as their limbs went weak from laughing so much.

So, why do people watch him? To see what shit 80s pop culture reference that was shit even in something as awful as the 80s he’s going to talk about next? Everyone likes a bit of the 80s, don’t they? Bit of Mr T, huh? ‘I pity da foo!’! AM I RIGHT GUYS, YEAH!’ etc etc

He’s the sort of person who’d make a joke about the Frosties kid (maybe he should try and ‘find’ him in 20 years), or make a reference about Chuck Norris. He’s the sort of awful cunt who refers to people as ‘legends’ because they answered back to a bus driver once, 3 years ago.

At least he’s got cool hair, though!

Listening to Kasabian were we, Justin?