Let's Talk About...

... balls. Yes, balls. But not of the spherical kind but rather the male type. Yup, let's talk about testicles. More specifically, let's talk about your nuts, male passenger on the Victorian Line on Wednesday 8th September during rush-hour. Let's make ourselves comfortable in order to analyse your sitting position, sprawled all over two seats, the better to accommodate your ever-expanding reproductive glandular empire.



Allow me, my good fellow to give my readers a more accurate picture. It's around 6pm, people want to get home, by any means necessary. There's a lot of pushing and shoving as befits the London Underground eco-system. No sooner a seat vacates than you see someone charging for it with the same zeal Charlemagne employed against the Lombards, Saxons and Avars. Babies on prams yell, elderly people look disconsolately at avid readers, more engrossed in their books than in their surroundings. And yet, in the midst of this chaos, you, sir, find time and space, above all, space, to make room for your bollocks. Oh, yes, pardon my French, but there's no other way of going about it. I enter the carriage only to find your (unexpected) audience suspending their disbelief that someone could be so egotistical to not share the seat - a separate entity, mind, with its own feelings and prone to launching lawsuits against selfish prats like you, so, beware, there might an envelope in the post for you and... your balls.

I know that certain men carry their nuts around as if the latter had a life of their own, including head and limbs. I've done it before and I'm aware of how powerful and virile it makes you feel. Until you're brought back down to earth with a mighty BANG! You finally meet someone who doesn't like the constant "scratching" and "accommodating" and forbids you from doing so in her presence. You, sir, probably still take your testicles on holiday, imagining that they are walking by your side, twins holding hands, the whole lot of you off to somewhere nice and hot. You even get upset when you are stopped at immigration control on account of your 'furry bags' carrying unidentified liquid within them. Relief is mixed with anger when they're waved through because the amount is so low that it's not even considered to be relevant. That's why you had to take up two seats on that train. To show us who had the biggest cojones. Forgive me, again, I complained recently about the misuse of that Spanish swear word and how it's bandied about indiscriminately by journalists and reporters alike and here I am using it, too. But there's no other way, señor cojonudo, in which I can write about you and your nether parts.

As I scanned the faces of the - mainly female - passengers on that carriage that evening, I had a vision in my mind that some of them were thinking of turning you into a stand-in for Stefano Dionisi for the second part of "Farinelli (Il Castrato)". An understudy, if you wish. All they needed was a pair of gardener's shears. Preferably blunt. As for me, the moment I saw you I thought that you had probably modelled your sitting position on the former route of the Orient Express, Paris to Istanbul. With your bollocks somewhere in Vienna or Budapest.

This is not a rant, Mr Balls. It's not even a vendetta. I don't think you will ever read this post. And even if you do, it won't change anything. After all, you ignored the piercing stares of your unwilling congregation. No, the reason why I'm writing this column is to let you know the effect of your actions. I occupied one of the two seats you vacated when you got off at King's Cross. Next to me one of your former victims accommodated her heavy frame. No sooner had she sat down than she shot me a look that seemed to say: "Are you planning to do the same, my dear fellow? Because I won't put up with that kind of behaviour again!". To which my body response was a meek glance in her direction that shouted out: "No, luv, mine are a lot smaller!"

© 2010

Next Post: "Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music", to be published on Sunday 10th October at 10am (GMT)