Sitting on the Underground on my way in to work the other morning, with nothing else to do but look around, I noticed a beautiful-looking man. Mid-forties, with brilliant blue eyes, nice even white teeth, and a healthy head of hair, cut short and left slightly spiky on top. Strong masculine features with just enough wear-and-tear to give him that look of a man who knows what he's doing. And smartly-dressed, probably a banker or a broker, or something...................well, we were on our way out to Canary Wharf, so the choices aren't exactly wide-ranging (says the man who sits on a reception desk in a polyester suit!). But even by 'finance industry' standards, he was well turned out. His suit was fitted, his shoes were shiny, his shirt was crisp, and his tie was tied in a Windsor knot, not the usual off-centre, lazy knot that tie-novices use. Silver cufflinks, and a beautiful watch finished off this vision of captivating, masculine loveliness.
And as I gazed longingly at him, imagining how it would feel to wake up next to him, he reached up..........................picked his nose and ate it!
Now, even though we all claim not to, it's a fact of modern life that we all get 'dry' noses. From time to time, we find ourselves with an annoying little piece of desiccated snot clinging to the inside of our nose, and no amount of nose-blowing can dislodge it. It has to be removed manually. So we go to the toilet, or somewhere away from the gaze of others, and we deal with the problem. Privately.
Tragically, the man of my dreams (or nightmares it seemed), had no such inhibitions. For three long, never-ending stops, from London Bridge to Canary Wharf, he proceeded to shatter my dreams by rummaging around up his own nose. And not a discreet little rub or pick, but a full-scale nasal excavation, deep-shaft, sinus-mining.
I'm a pretty easy-going person. Well, actually that's not completely true, in fact it's not true at all. I'm a total fuss-pot when it comes to personal hygiene (amongst other things), but please don't tell me that this kind of thing is now acceptable. Nose-picking, at least public nose-picking, is dirty, and something you go to the toilet to do. This man would never dream of flopping out his old man and banging one out in public, but was more than happy to treat the entire carriage to a demonstration of 'bogey nutrition'.
Sadly, nowadays, he is not short of company when it comes to pushing the boundaries of acceptable (or unacceptable) public habits. You don't have to look too hard to find an array of truly Olympian demonstrations of what Miss Jane Austin would describe as 'things one oughtn't to do in polite company'. Noses and ears are picked, spots are popped and drained, fingernails are bitten, filed, or clipped, and groins, tits, and armpits are scratched. With the exception of 'hawking up a mouthful', 'gobbing on the floor' and spontaneous sexual gratification, a morning journey to work can often resemble every well-brought-up person's idea of a Victorian mental asylum.
And nobody evens exchanges eye-rolling, disapproving glances anymore. We just placidly sit, watching as the man of our dreams proceeds to turn our stomachs.
Have we turned from a nation obsessed by 'what people will say' about the slightest thing, into a nation secretly aroused and excited by how far we can push people before they finally crack and snap 'Do you mind! I'm trying to read!'
