Trains and Libraries - Not quite as exciting as Dungeons and Dragons but I'm working on a budget here

Libraries:

Why is it that whenever I go to the library I seem to spend half my time reading comics?

It's because they trick you by labeling them as Graphic Novels which I'll admit sounds all hip and cool but you're 5 books in when you think

"Hang on ! I've read this before. When I was 10"

Another 5 books in and you're taking entire shelves of comics into the dark corners of the library and drooling over the art, the flow of the writing and the fact that Wolverine has the mutant ability to join every superhero time on the planet.

 That being said.  Usagi Yojimbo and Groo remain forever cool.

Trains:

Trains are nice, Steam trains are the best but even the electric ones possess a quiet charm.

It's always nice when you have a whole car to yourself but this is a very rare luxury, for in these hectic days we are squeezed in to rub shoulders with noble and base alike. [1]

Most people bring along something to serve as a distraction. Some of us read [2]

others text or appear to be busy on mobile phones while some of us use their earphones and escape into a world of our own.

and thats all fine.

As I write this a fellow passenger who didn't bring any kind of distraction with him is eyeing this notebook with what can only be called an undisguised longing. But the joke is on him for if he managed to get hold of my notebook there is no way he'd actually be able to decipher the strange hieroglyphs and scribbles that make up my handwriting. [3]

The point to all this is that train journeys used to be a kind of event with passengers trading witty banter and pithy remarks whilst adjusting top hats, monocles and making certain that their mustaches were properly waxed [4]

But in these modern days train journeys have become as dull as doing a particularly boring laundry

"Do you have a solution or are you just moaning?"

Here's my proposal. Train journeys have become tedious because nothing ever happens on them. So lets get a small troupe of young and hungry actors together, put them in fancy turn of the century clothes and have them ride around on the trains all day.

It would be a talking point almost instantly because of the costumes but that is only part of the plan. When two or more of the actors get together they will talk about how their day went with much improvised dialogue and humor will prevail.

This will have the double bonus of teaching the actors to properly think on their feet and also entertaining the passengers who will talk about this with their friends

Their friends will ride the trains in the hope of seeing the actors but, and here is the extremely cunning part, the actors don't take the same trains every day In this way the modern day railroad barons can guarantee themselves a steady supply of passengers and we'll have made riding trains something to look forward to again.

Da Notes:

1. It depends on when you leave but if you catch the last train of the evening then you generally manage it)
2. If the car is full don't attempt to look important by reading the newspaper. It is the path to sadness and a broken nose if you keep on invading other peoples space [5]
3. And if he did it would probably drive him mad. So take that unprepared notebook envier
4. Quite frankly the men weren't much better
5. Off the topic here once a teacher attempted to teach the class about personal space, for reasons that were never made clear although I think that there had been a confrontation or something similar between a few students. She instructed us to rearrange ourselves in a way that would allow us our bubble of personal space remain unbroken. Dad was very surprised when I arrived home so early and quickly sent me back to school.