There is an unattractive pair of drunk men at the front of the carriage, drinking beer and listening to loud music; one of them is parading around with his shirt almost off, and I wish to whatever deity is eavesdropping that he would button it back up and sit down.

He is now smoking a cigarette, even though this act, like drinking and being inebriated, is an illegal act on public transport. He sashays to the rear of the carriage, heading right my way and making me shrink down in my seat with revulsion. The one in the yellow shirt stands on his seat and makes vulgar thrusting motions with his pelvis; I assume that he is trying to emulate dancing.

"Will somebody tell the train driver to pull into a fucking bottle shop?" he declares loudly, and is met with laughter, I almost crack a smile, but the man does not amuse me.

The unbuttoned-white-shirt man was intending to strip earlier, so I understand - or his equally drunk friends were urging him to do it, one or the other. I'm still not feeling amused, rather slightly sickened, and scared.

I am not puritanical. I don't "disapprove" of drinking, and I am capable of having fun and enjoying myself. I'm just saddened by the decay of excess, and the way drunkeness takes an ordinary fool and makes him a royal idiot.

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