I know I keep going on about the train, but it takes up nearly four hours of my day every day at the moment, so as you can imagine it looms large in my mind

Anyway – this is a nice story. On Friday the train was just pulling into Leeds, carrying its cargo of sleepy, slightly pissed-off commuters – all of whom were no doubt telling themselves that they just had one more slog before the weekend. The conductor (or train manager or whatever the hell they call them these days) comes over the tannoy:

“This train will shortly be arriving at Leeds, which is our next station stop. This is a message for the girls in the front carriage. I’ve looked at my timetable, and there’s a train departing in two minutes’ time for Meadowhall from Platform 14. You could make it if you run, but I’m guessing that you’d prefer to get the one leaving from platform 11 in half an hour. If I was you I’d sit in the warm in McDonalds and have a nice breakfast. It’s only £1.99 and great value.”

A pause…

“And that goes for anyone else traveling to Meadowhall, too.”

Laughter.

It wasn’t especially funny, and it looks a lot less so written down. But everyone on the train laughed or at least smiled – and they all got off the train a little happier than they’d been getting on it.

The point is that I think that sort of thing only happens in Britain. You can sit on the tunnelbana in Stockholm, the metro in Paris or the MRT in Singapore all day (and they’re all better transport systems than you get in the UK) and never hear anything like that. In fact, thinking about it, Brits are pretty funny people – and they take pleasure in making other people, even total strangers, smile and laugh. Think about it: you watch two strangers meet in Britain and I bet you that within a minute one or other or both of them will say something funny or at least something that makes the other smile. Does that happen anywhere else? I doubt it.