Surrounded by celebrities

Is it rude to sit in the aisle seat with an empty window seat on your side and not offer it to someone who is standing? Or is it even more rude for someone who is standing to ask the person who is sitting in the aisle seat to allow them to sit in the window seat? So why do people not ask that. My train this morning was the busiest I've seen so far. I walked to the end of the carriage and seen an empty window seat which was being guarded by a man working on his laptop, acting like he can't see the people standing next to him. There was a young asian lad standing close by who was wearing his Adidas jacket and Adidas trainers. Why is that kind of attire so common with the young Asian lads? I'm not sure. Isn't that the sort of clothing you'd wear to go and workout? Recently, I travelled on a long flight to Pakistan and back and I saw a few young men wearing the full Adidas gear including the jackets, t shirts, bottoms and the shoes. The flight is almost 8 hours long. It could be that they just didn't like the gyms in the uk and they were travelling to Pakistan to workout in a gym there and then come back or it could be that they thought its a long flight and we'd workout in the flight. I didn't see that happening at all. But they must have their reasons.

Going back to the lad in the train, he also had a ruck sack on his back which made me think that he was travelling to go college. He had his phone in his hand and his airpods on which weren't doing a good job of keeping the sound of the music he was playing just to himself. I waited for a bit and then asked the man to let me sit in that seat. I was thinking that lad may want to sit so I didn't want to be rude so I waited
until he wasn't bothered. When I sat down I could still hear his gangster type music from about a meter away even though he had the airpods on. And he looked like he would commonly use the terms, "what you saying", "wa gwan", "safe fam" etc etc. But that made me think why did he not ask to sit in the seat that was available in front of him. From the music he's listening and the look he had on his face it felt like he wanted to portray a "gangsta" look. But did he not have enough courage to ask the man to let him go in the seat. That was something completely opposite of what I expected from him.

Monday evening to my left in my train back to Birmingham, there was sitting the man who looks like the guy who played mummy in the original mummy (Arnold Vosloo). I have mentioned him in a previous blog. I've seen him a few times and recently he's been looking a bit pressed (a new word I've learnt) . Looks like he hasn't shaved for a couple of days. A couple of days earlier he was sitting next to me and all of a sudden he started to look like he wanted to get up which meant I would've had to get up and make room for him to go out from his window seat. He looked at me and said, "I'm looking for the bar. Do you know where the bar is?". I said, "it's in coach c (as that is where the shop is in the train). But that made me think he's been sitting next to me for almost 20 minutes, how's he looking for the bar from where he is sitting. May be he does have super powers like the mummy has and he was scanning all the carriages while he was sitting in his seat.May be English is not his first language (like he speaks Hebrew or something in the mummy) and that's why he said it the way he'd say in that language. Or it could even be that he's stressed about something and he needed a drink. But yesterday too he liked like he was tired and not all there. I have been seeing him for a bit a time and a few times I'd seen him he's been smiling while watching something on his phone. So his recent behaviour is completely opposite of what it used to be.

Right opposite me there was a man who looked like the actor who played super man(like an older version of the actor Christopher Reeve who played super man) He looked a bit chubbier than how superman looked like in the movie. And he had grey hair. On his right, there was a man who looked like the actor who plays the goblin in spider man (Willem Dafoe). He looked like he was not happy with how things are in his life. May be he was really Willem Dafoe and he wasn't happy because he wasn't getting any more roles offered in the movies. I felt like I was surrounded by celebrities and for a second I almost had to check that the train was going to Birmingham not Hollywood.

The train always gets busy when it reaches Coventry from London. It got packed again yesterday at Coventry. In the seat where Arnold Vosloo's look alike was sitting, another man came and sat. Soon he made his appearance known to the rest of people on the carriage. He took a call and started saying, "Hello.. Hellow.. Yeah. I mizzzz yo call. Who am I speaking with pleaz.. Yeh yeh yeh" and then he turned the phone off. He then dialled another call and started speaking in an African language. Something like the language they speak in black panther. But he sounded completely different to what he sounded like when he was speaking English. He then took a video call in the train and started talking loud in the same language. He must've thought, "no one will understand what I'm saying" . Or maybe he wanted to show off that he could speak like they do in black panther.

Looking at all these people in the train, some I see for the first time and some I see regularly. They all have some reason to travel and they all have their stories. I like this quote from an Indian writer, Savi Sharma and I think it's quite relatable, “Everyone has a story to tell, everyone is a writer. Some are written in the books and some are confined to hearts.”

Have a great week and thanks for reading.

Adeel