As I pass down the aisle, lurching from side to side as the train shudders and jolts on every join in the track I dispense a litany of ‘sorry’ and ‘terribly sorry’ and ‘oh do excuse me’ to the various people whose seats I bump into or whose newspapers I snag as I pass by. <\/p>\n
When I finally reach the train’s buffet, after three carriages of offences against the peace and tranquility of my fellow passengers, I am greeted by a smiling face that already I can tell is softening me up for a disappointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cCould I have a coffee, please?\u201d<\/p>\n
The smile broadens, and the eyes widen in an almost undetectable act of supplication;<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m sorry, sir, but we are not currently able to serve any hot beverages.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a moment I consider launching into a comical rant about the fact that there is no one on the planet who uses the word beverage apart from the people who work in transport-centric catering, but in the end the poor woman’s visible anxiety encourages me to forbear. I nod and turn on my heel, plunging back into the morass of the three carriages between there and my seat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I pass down the aisle, lurching from side to side as the train shudders and jolts on every join in the track I dispense a litany of ‘sorry’ and ‘terribly sorry’ and ‘oh do excuse me’ to the various people whose seats I bump into or whose newspapers I snag as I pass by. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wrUK-fO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techno-mage.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techno-mage.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techno-mage.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techno-mage.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techno-mage.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.techno-mage.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techno-mage.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techno-mage.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techno-mage.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}