Druffers

Underground Transportation observations of the months Oct/Nov 08:

Blessed by biology with an above average height, I wholeheartedly enjoy remaining head and shoulder amongst the thronging masses, especially in close confined quarters such as the Tube. However, the advantage of this vertical vector does have it pitfalls, the primary culprit being the revelation and unavoidable observation of scalp health. For the purpose of this casual study, I have distinguished two different categories of persons with this terrible affliction of the scalp (shedders). Firstly we have the common gardener variety, the textbook case of dandruff which is an annoyance to the victim, and of amusement to small children and tall men, I have termed this first variety ‘druffers’. Secondly, we have the more aggressive of the two varieties, the victims of which I have termed ‘flakers’. These hygiene shy sufferers regularly lose a large percentage of overall bodyweight in scalp skin alone, often hair and follicles are still attached to the flakes causing disgust in both tall and short persons, children are simply agog. Benefits to the sufferer in terms of underground transportation include an extended personal space granted by the disgusted public, aside from this positive side effect, flakers live the life of modern day lepers.

Such is the proliferation of cases (on the District & Central lines alone) it quickly became apparent that this terrible affliction knows no bounds, having no respect for age, sex or race. With this observation came a dawning realisation that a study was not only necessary, but essential for all users of public transportation. Thus began my data collection, collation and with it a growing revulsion for both breeds of skin shedders. It is prudent to note at this point that these figures only account for one doorway area of one tube train carriage, they do not take into account the remainder of that carriage, or indeed the train itself. Nor does the data include any information on seated passengers, due to this we can only reasonably use this study as a rough guideline to shedders, and is by no means comprehensive. That said, if a shedder is significantly self aware (which we can reasonably assume one would be), it would be safe to assume that they would remain standing, as being seated would reveal their condition to more persons than a standing position. Therefore we can assume that the majority of shedders would choose to stand rather than sit, hence our guideline study remains closer to true representation than not.

October 08 results for ‘Druffers’

Looking at the figures, we can see that across the ethnic origins, Males account for the majority of shedders which comes as no real surprise. You may note that the results for the Asian category (India, Pakistan - sub-continent) seems to be inordinately high. These results have occurred for a number of possible reasons,

1. East London is home to a large Asian community, especially the Bengali community, hence a disproportionate representation in comparison to population percentage.

2. In my observation, and this is by no means based around stereotypes, our Asian brethren seem to have less concern with packing themselves into a seemingly full area of the train than others races. Again, PC crazies out there note, this is an actual observation made by myself after a number of years travelling on the underground system, it is entirely true in my experience. The true PC crazy will here no doubt state that this observation is weighted due to the stereotype to which I have been previously been aware. Thus when my sub-continent cousins cram themselves into an already bulging train, I observe and recognise this more readily than I would other races.

To be continued......