Sit down stand off

Have you heard the one about the blind guy, the short guy, the one on crutches and the seat, asks Paul Carter

As regular readers of this column will know, I often have issues with public transport, and all who sail in her. As good as buses and tubes are at getting me from A to B (although occasionally via F) they do seem to possess a decidedly bizarre ability to turn normally mild-mannered, generous members of society into selfish, land-grabbing shriek-wretches.

There is no other circumstance in which this behavioural shift becomes more apparent than when it comes to giving up a seat. You know those signs that say “please give up this seat for disabled people?” Well for some, it could say, “if you’re sitting in this seat you have the ebola virus” and they still wouldn’t move.

Just the other morning, I donned my flak jacket in preparation for the trip to Disability Now towers, and boarded the tube. Much to my amazement, on this occasion there was a seat going spare (by which I mean it was empty, not shouting and screaming), an occurrence that in itself is rarer than a scandal free week at the BBC. I got on and sat down, though if I’d have known what was to come next I probably would have walked.

Before the train doors closed and pulled away, not one, but TWO other disabled people got on the same train. Not just on the same train, but on through the same doors, meaning there were three of us in one carriage. First on was a man with crutches, shortly followed by a blind guy, replete with white cane.

This was big. I’d only ever heard of the mystical three-way seat-off before, I never thought I’d get to see one in my lifetime, let alone be a part of one.

Newspapers rustled in slightly more agitated fashion. MP3 players were turned up to maximum. Glances were shifted sidewards. This was one for the disabled people to sort out, they wanted nothing to do with it. I swear I heard someone whistling the theme tune from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly at one point. If a pregnant woman had got on at the next stop I feared that there was a very real risk of the universe imploding on itself. After all, as the M&S ads might say, this wasn’t just anthropology, this was disability anthropology. If Desmond Morris had been there I’m pretty sure he would have been thrilled to death.

It raised the unwritten code of the disability hierarchy. Who should really get the seat? Out of the three of us, I looked the most disabled, but that ignores the fact that I don’t really need a seat if truth be told. Also, everyone knows that blind people are usually top of the tree in these situations with Joe Public. Having said that, he has legs. The guy on crutches just further confuses things.

See what I mean? Minefield. As it happens, we spent so long dawdling that an older person jumped in and gazumped the three of us.

Touché, old man. Touché.