Bloody fingers, Tourettes Man and suburban graffiti

What a day! The events yesterday convinced me that i need to start writing this stuff down - i made a total of 6 tram trips today, and encountered 'intriguing' people on 4 out of 6!

Trip #1. From home into the city on my way to play badminton. Towards the end of an uneventful trip (i had my head in a book researching an assignment) a man's voice exploded through the tram, yelling "keep your hands off the instrument!". You know how you can tell the intensity of something by tone of voice? Well this was the sort of roar that precedes a fist fight. I looked up expecting to see just that - maybe the tram conductor bolting to the ticket machine to give some kids a good kicking for fiddling with it, or a manic flautist taking on someone who had touched his flute for the last time. But no, the tram looked exactly as it had before the outburst. The voice was definitely male and had definitely come from the front of the tram but there were only two young asian girls sitting in front of me, and a middle-aged, portly man, balding slightly, in a suit, who looked completely calm.

I dismissed it as a figment of my imagination and got ready to get off the tram to catch my connection. The man in the suit was doing the same, and as we stood waiting to cross the road, he let out the most spectacular string of expletives in the same voice! I am assuming it's some of Tourettes-type thing but it was fascinating and pretty disconcerting to watch him doing it as he calmly walked across the road and up the street.

Trip #2. On the first leg of my trip way back from badminton (getting there involves two trams in each direction), a middle-aged asian woman in professional dress got on board and sat opposite me. I noticed her because she was holding her hands oddly. When i looked at them saw that she had a bloody and dead fingernail (recently so)...but here's the weird bit...she had ONE ON EACH HAND! I spent the rest of the trip trying to figure out how the hell she could have done it - the mind boggles.

Trip #3. As if that wasn't enough - the next tram i got on had a young guy sitting quietly with his mate - both youngish (19-23 or so?), white, middle-class. One of them was leafing enthusiastically through 'final outline' which appeared to be a glossy graffiti artists' magazine, while they discussed the merits of various colours. The other (whose hands were a charming shade of spraypaint blue) discretely produced a can of a nice orange colour to show the other and they then got to talking about where it was they were headed - got their map out, sorted it out and got off at the next stop...guess that urban alternative artwork had to go suburban at some stage.

Trip #4. To cap off my night, at around 8pm, when i was heading into the city to go and catch a movie, i saw my friend Tourettes Man again. Seems odd that never having seen him before in more than 4 months of travelling that line, that i would see him twice in one day. Anyway, kept an eye on him this time - he managed to get off the tram at his stop with only a quiet 'fuck' but then exploded with "Leave him alone!" followed by a quieter, more menacing "I'll leave you alone, i'll leave you alone" as he mooched off down the street with his shopping bag.

Now if that's not the joys of public transport then i don't know what is!