On the Subject of Openings.

Do you know what I greatly miss? Those old fashioned railway carriages which had doors with windows that slid down, the sort you could stick your head out of while the train was rushing along at 100mph, knowing that the oncoming train on the other track was too far away to hit it.

What I really miss about them, though, is the romance of saying goodbye to somebody through an open window in a closed door. The aperture becomes the final portal of connection, and that makes the experience bitter-sweet, which it’s supposed to be. And you can wave to the person watching you from the platform until the train severs the connection as it turns a bend just beyond the station: one moving forward into a new world – albeit temporarily, maybe – while the other remains rooted in the old. It’s poignant. It is.

Door windows in railway carriages are fixed now, and the door itself is operated electronically by the ticket collector. No more pulling the window down with the leather strap to reach out and turn the handle when you get home again. No doubt there are obvious health and safety reasons for the change, but the romance has gone. I’m not at all sure that the marginal safety benefits are worth the loss of something so special.

*  *  *

I’ve mentioned before that I dislike button flies on jeans. They’re always metal and a little sharp, so it’s both time consuming and uncomfortable to undo them and do them up again. I seem to remember remarking that you have to anticipate the moment and go to the toilet five minutes before you need to.

I was just thinking along such lines, when a little ditty jumped into the saddle, as little ditties are wont to do.

I went to Connemara

With a girl whose name was Tara

And another one called Bridget

Just for luck

We crossed the sea by ferry

And I thought of making merry

But the buttons on my jeans

Kept getting stuck

You may interpret that whichever way you like. I’m in a bad mood and too old to care.