The Big Pick

How often do you come across people on the train who you think should be confined to a nut house? Sometimes you begin to wonder whether they've shut down the nut houses here and given them all free train tickets.

Here are a few of the more bizarre stories.




Filmed by a friend on the way to work who sees the same guy every morning. How good is the other guy at pretending he doesn't notice?

This guy spots me on the train at the other end of the carriage. He makes a bee line for me, stops inches from my face. I think he's going to absolutely flatten me. Then with all the conviction and emotion of an opera singer he belts out the ABC song inches from my nose. The wierdest thing was I'm in the middle of the carriage looking around at 20 or so other people and no one batters an eyelid. no one looks at me....as if this sort of thing was normal for god's sake. speechless.

This guy playing airdrums with full sound effects out really loud all the way from Shibuya to our station....10 or so minutes. Again no one shows any astonishment. No one even damn well looks.

A lady sits down next to a friend from work. Pulls a pencil out of her hand bag, then a box cutting knife and proceeds to violently sharpen the pencil. Shavings flying all over the place.

I'm going down some escalators into the subway here. I notice a woman looking over my shoulder. I turn around and see a the long black hair and the uniform of a school girl. I look at the face and I'm greeted by a toothless grin of 60 year old man....in the school girl's uniform.

A friend has been out for an all nighter and is waiting on a platform in Tokyo at about 5am. This homeless guy appraoches him and out of a plastic bag pulls a massive dildo. He must have found it in the rubbish somewhere. Then with a face splitting smile on his dial he pops the thing in his mouth and starts sucking on it.

I'm on the train and at the next station on gets this old guy who is holding and caressing a teddy like it's a new born baby. They are dressed in matching outfits. No one looks.

A guy running up and down the carriage hopping about with arms flailing all over the shop...pretending he's a monkey...with full sound effects. Not even one sideways look of curiousity from his audience.

It's not so much the nuts that are the shock it's more the fact that I'm the only one surprised by this behaviour. Experiencing such insanity and apparently it's so normal it's not worth a turn of the head for the other 20 people in the carriage. Gets you thinking if everyone thinks this is normal who's really lost their marbles. Me. It's a surreal situation.