All aboard for a really irritating announcement

Even before you board a train, you are reminded by ‘customer services information’ that surfaces on the platform may be slippery, that rollerblading is not permitted on the concourse, and so on.

Soon they will reminding us to take care to lift our feet when going up or down stairs, to keep our shoes on at all times, particularly when walking over glass or tin-tacks, and, ‘in the interests of safety’, to avoid placing our necks across the railway line immediately before the arrival of the downtown train.

Once you are on board, the voice over the intercom does its best to make you feel guilty and apprehensive by listing all the different types of ticket that ‘are not valid on this service’: Advance SuperSaver Offpeak Two Together Leisurebreak, etc, etc. ‘Failure to comply with ticket restrictions’ they add, ‘may result in criminal proceedings.’

eventually, the train sets off, and the endless spool of announcements gets under way: apologies for the late running of the train, reminders that you are not permitted to smoke (‘This is a non-smoking service’), warnings that the Quiet Carriage is a Quiet Carriage (these announcements are, it seems to me, always peculiarly noisy, especially in the Quiet Carriage) and a multitude of messages from the ‘onboard cabin crew’ that the buffet is serving a full range of hot and cold snacks and refreshments, including ‘teas, coffees, and hot chocolates’.

And then, just in case you were dreading a moment of silence, they throw in a few further announcements for good measure.

Whatever next? Will they feel duty bound to remind us that it is an offence to commit an armed robbery, or that it is unwise to thrust your head out of the window before the train whizzes through a tunnel?

On virgin Trains, these commands even follow you all the way into the loo. Once you’ve locked the door, any hopes of privacy disappear with a disembodied voice startling you, in that strangely threatening Bransoneque oh-so-jokey style: ‘Please don’t flush nappies, sanitary towels, paper towels, gum, old phones, unpaid bills, junk mail, your ex’s sweater, hopes, dreams or goldfish down this toilet.’

Before the train ‘arrives into’ each ‘station stop’, alighting customers are reminded to take their ‘personal belongings’ with them. Do they add the word ‘personal’ in case passengers suppose they are at liberty to make off with other people’s belongings?

Up until a few months ago, railway passengers were subjected to endless reminders over loud speakers to travel everywhere with a bottle of water or face certain death from dehydration.

But nowadays they don’t seem to mind about the water. In fact, they don’t mention water from one week to the next. Instead, we hear this cumbersome mantra, over and over and again: ‘This is a security message. If you see something that does not look right, speak to staff or text British Transport Police on 61016. We’ll sort it. See it, say it, sorted.’

This is irritating on any number of levels. For a start, hundreds of things don’t ‘look right’ on a train. To me that ring through the nose or upper lip of the tattoed man sitting opposite may not ‘look right’.

With my scowly face and problem hair, it’s also likely that I do not ‘look right’ to him, either. But that does not mean that we should either of us start ‘sorting’ it by complaining about each other to the British Transport Police.

There is also something jarring about that word ‘sorted’: to me it always sounds like ‘salted’ or ‘salt it’, so that if one spotted a packet of peanuts that did not ‘look right’, the British Transport Police would be willing to nip along with an emergency little blue packet of salt.

I wonder how many copywriters, Prs and advertising executives it took to come up with ‘See it, say it, sorted’, and how many civil servants and ministers and security advisers it took to approve it?

Imagine their delight at all those S’s, and their self-satisfaction at thinking they had cracked the youth market by saying ‘sorted’! But they must have felt a deeper delight, too, at finding yet another way to irritate millions of commuters on a daily basis in the months and years ahead.