2004-04-07 - 3:42 p.m.

I never really considered �criminal accessory� as a valid career move for me. Not that I have anything against it in principle, just that I�m really bad at keeping secrets and I have this toe that dislocates all the time, so those speedy getaways could sometimes be hampered. And I know I could never be a MASTER criminal. For starters, I�m far too lazy, and I imagine all that maniacal, foam-mouthed, frenzied plotting really eats into your TV watching schedule. Plus, it would need a whole new wardrobe.

So it was perhaps ill-advised of me to try and assist a petty criminal this morning. Actually, it was even less than petty, if there is such a classification. Avoiding paying for a tube ticket is probably about as un-serious as crime gets, after all. Which makes the whole episode even more ridiculous.

I�m wending my merry morning way through the barrier and out of the corner of my eye I see someone come up behind me, someone who had previously just been loitering around the entrance and who I had pegged as either a beggar or a really tedious performance artist. I assume he�s not just in a hurry to get physically close to me, and that he wants to sneak through the barrier right behind me, and I shoot him a cool (in my mind) conspiratorial glance to say, �Hey, brother. I�m down with this. Let�s fuck those tube bastards, right? I�m here to help you.� or as near as you can get to that with a bleary-eyed squint.

Anyway, he frowns at me. I�m taking longer than I usually would to take out my ticket and activate the gate, just to give him a chance to come through, and he�s right up against me, getting into position as the barrier opens. As we go through, instead of shooting me a thankful look or offering me some kind of complicated handshake, all he does is shout, �Aw, come ON man! What are you DOIN�!?�

I�m suddenly struck by fear that this commotion will alert nearby staff to our crime of evasion, and try to quieten him reassuringly. �I�m just trying to help you out!� I whisper, in the manner I assume accomplices whisper. It doesn�t please him. �Just GO!� he bellows, barging past like he just doesn�t need help from the criminally-inclined but chicken ticket-buying public to ride the tube for free.

By now, people are looking, and in a cruel twist, dripping with hot irony, it now looks like I was the one trying to sneak through. It�s only as I suddenly remember that no-one, not even senior London Transport employees, give anything what I believe is referred to as �a flying fuck� about people sneaking in that I manage to shrug it off.

And the lesson is: Never ever try and ever help anyone ever.

Meanwhile, here's me in a bubble: