IF you’re going home for Christmas by train, it will be rammed with inconsiderate b*stards. Here’s how to get through the ordeal.
Get used to sitting on filthy floors
Psychologically prepare yourself for the leg of the journey to Didcot Parkway by practising sitting cross-legged in a disused factory thick with pigeon faeces, or a public toilet. Just try not to get done for trespassing or cottaging.
Take a shooting stick
No, not a gun, one of those walking sticks that opens up and becomes a wobbly one-legged chair. Feel like less of a twat by wearing a tweed jacket and saying, ‘Reminds you of the Glorious Twelfth, what?’
Learn gymnastics
An incredibly supple body will be helpful for wedging yourself into the gaps between other people and their massive suitcases. Try to think of it as ‘Human Tetris’.
Get smashed beforehand
High-risk strategy. On the one hand being totally pissed will make you barely aware of your journey through hell, but you could also get terminally confused and wake up in a field 300 miles from your parents’ house after a massive blackout.
Carry a chainsaw
Are you a tree surgeon having a well-deserved Christmas break, or a psychopathic dismemberer? Who can tell? Being arrested is a possibility, but people will definitely get out of your way when you need to use the toilet. You can give Uncle Alan the chainsaw as his present.
