iStarted It.

Ah, arguments. I've missed them, you know. I made a New Year's resolution to try to avoid them after the "Give me your shoe" debacle and up until Friday it had been relatively easy. But four arguments in one day obviously sparked my joy of confrontation. I may even have embraced it like an old friend that I haven't seen in years. Good old argument has come back and that has made me happier.

Or maybe it was my imagination. Late Saturday night and I hadn't had an argument ALL DAY so the day before had been a fluke. Just a bit of good luck. A lucky, jammy, flukey day with four arguments and at least two chances of a beating. But then I got on the last train to Ladywell. Last train's are the natural home of the blazing row. Brilliant.

It really didn't take long before the bastard with the iPhone sitting next to me started to irritate me. She was playing a game that involved tapping the screen a lot and laughing like a drowning cat. What a lot of iPhone users don't realise is that the volume button on their phone goes down as well as up. If you're in public you can mute the volume so that you can play games and not annoy the people around you. It's a very simple design but, sadly, not as simple as your average iPhone user. After a while the BEEP BAP WHOOP of the irritating game she was playing just got to me and the Legge Police took over the situation.

"Excuse me, can you turn the volume off on your phone, please?"

I thought that was a fair enough request. You know, noise...public place...blah, blah, blah. But she kept her drunk, dozy eyes on the game and said "Nearly finished".

Right. I'll give her ten seconds and speak to her again. Right. Ten seconds are up.

"It's a very irritating noise. Can you switch the sound off now, please?"

Firm but not aggressive. I'm in the right. Everything's fine.

"Oh, fuck off", she said.

YAY!!! She want's an ARGUMENT! Thanks, lady. That's very generous of you. Yes, I will have one.

"You're in a public place. I don't want to hear that noise anymore. Switch it off".

She told me to fuck off, remember? Now I can be as rude as I like. Actually, I could be as rude as I liked anyway because I had already spotted her weakness. She had a boyfriend.

When you argue with a couple on a train ALWAYS check the gentleman out first. What is his demeanour? How is he sitting? Is he wearing anything that says Dr. Who on it? You see, if the gentleman is anything like me then you've won the argument already because if the gentleman is anything like me then he is a coward.

The drunk lady started to tell me that it wasn't against the law to make noise on a train when her boyfriend started to get involved but not in the way she wanted. He wanted to switch the phone off and for her to stop being aggressive. He took the phone away and then apologised to me. She looked at him as if to say "Why aren't you hitting him?" HE'S NOT HITTING ME BECAUSE HE'S NOT INTO HITTING PEOPLE. He doesn't want the confrontation or the fighting or the chance of him getting his eyes crushed. I'm a coward who can't fight but he doesn't know that. I'm not the one wearing the Dalek badge so he know's nothing about me. The fact that he's wearing one gave me all the information I needed before the argument started. I WIN!

He took the phone from her and asked her to calm down. This resulted in some loud whispering and dramatic arm-folding. They got off at New Cross, two stops before me, and their loud argument started as soon as the train doors opened.

If there's one thing better than an argument it's an argument-transfer. One that I started but two others now have complete ownership of.

I am a cunt.

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