I'm reading War and Peace at the moment and probably will be for some time. I mainly read it on the bus on the way to and from work. I prefer the buses to the train; if your average train commuter is akin to a battery hen then your bus rider would be a barn hen, hardly free range, but at least you have a perch and room to flap your newspaper. One of the disadvantages on the buses is that this relative freedom means people tend to talk a bit more. On the trains you must close down all your senses, go within yourself and find your happy place, only surface to whisper sorry when you accidentally touch someone you're squeezed up against in an intimate area.
On my bus yesterday I was surrounded by a group of local youths from South London's Afro Caribbean community talking loudly. I could no longer concentrate on my book, which I find hard to follow at the best of times, so I was forced to listen to their conversation. I love the way these guys talk, their language is well mad. It is kind of based on Jamaican Patois, but it is becoming increasingly mainstream. This means that it is being watered down and also means I am able to understand more of it. One girl said something that amused me, not because of it's playful use of grammar but of the unintended innuendo.
This girl she came in my face and I was gonna dong her like, (Yes that's the bit I like), she was railing her mouth off blood, but I thought low it cos of ma education.
On the way home I was sat at the back of the bus, but I was still distracted from my book, this time by a group of little white boys sat at the front. Middle class home schoolars on the way home from an educational museum trip, infinitely more annoying, they were playing counting games; crosses dem pickney ma bredwren bloods. (Darn it those children are my class/ethnicity friends). I bet they've read or will soon have read War and Peace, precious little knob cheeses.