The last train.

Taking the last train from the city on a Friday night is always a bit of a gamble. As Forrest Gump said, you never know what you're gonna get.

We caught the 12.09 from the central station after a great evening out at a super-sexy jazz club, feeling very grown-up and sophisticated. But all it took was a 12-minute train ride for any of those feelings to evaporate like drugs being boiled on a teaspoon.

The star performer in our carriage was a late 20s Australian guy who was amped to the teeth on something quite spectacular. He was pacing like a caged animal from one end of the carriage to the other. When he got to either end, he would smack the wall and pace around the end section like he had been trapped. After 30 seconds or so he would sit down and do his best "who me? paranoid? nooooooo....." look - but this wouldn't last for more than 30 seconds before he was up and pacing back towards us - hands hitting the backs of the seats as he passed. You could actually see everyone cringe and pretend not to be there as he approached. After he had repeated this three times, he opened the door between the carriages (whoever thought allowing passengers to move between the carriages of a moving train was a good idea must have been on something equally strong) and stood, angst-ridden, on that tiny little metal platform between the two carriages for more than 5 minutes, head in hands, staring intently at the tracks. I swear that every single person in that carriage thought he was going to jump off - I have to admit to being quite pleased that I was facing the other way, insensitive wuss that I am. After this, he opened the door to the next carriage and proceeded to repeat the entire pacing, wall-smacking, chair-hitting , between-carriage-standing process in reverse. We all watched, fascinated from afar, secretly glad that we no longer had to avoid eye contact with psycho drug guy.

At this stage, I became aware that two of the people in my carriage were also competing for attention in their own way. Two young Somalian guys were sitting together, 'talking' (and I use that word in an exceptionally understated way) at the loudest volume possible. High-speed and high-volume, the pair looked to the untrained eye (ear?) like they were having a huge argument...I, however, have seen enough testosterone-fuelled young Somali guys to know that they were in fact just discussing the issues of the day. The entire conversation was in pure Somali, with the one exception, somewhere in the middle, of "are you fucking stupid man?!"

English is such a beautiful language that some things simply can't be translated.