The pernicious creep of Big Nanny

Waiting at a coach station recently, in the space of seven minutes I was cautioned three times by the disembodied voice of Big Nanny. No smoking or vaping was allowed. Cycling was prohibited. Pedestrians were directed to use only the designated crossings. I almost wished I’d opted to travel by rail, but then I remembered that Big Nanny rides on trains too.

In a quieter era of rail travel the only announcements, apart from service cancellations, used to be the one about refraining from urination when the train was in the station, and advice not to poke your head out of the window of a moving carriage. Which some dimwits nevertheless did with tragic consequences and so removed themselves from the gene pool.

Now, though, Train Nanny never shuts up. She reminds us to keep our belongings with us at all times and to take them with us when we reach our destination. To carry a bottle of water in hot weather. And most gratuitously of all, to take care when alighting. To what extent this last is just a bit of legal ass-covering, I’m not sure. If I choose to ignore the advice and do a reverse pike somersault on to the platform, will it be entirely my own foolish business? I hope so.

Nanny’s script suggests we are infantile, that as soon as we leave home we become clueless waifs, but the spectrum of human fallibility is broader than that. Some of us are deaf to everything save our own thoughts; some are reckless, or plain anti-social. After hearing those announcements do people still leave behind their umbrellas or briefcases containing sensitive government documents? Do passengers still faint from dehydration on hot, crowded trains? You bet.