I hauled my sorry ass out of bed the other day after a nice night on the town (well village it was Lingfield) and caught the late train into the office. Readers should note I one of those sadoes who like getting in early in the morning while the birds are still singing and the dew is just clearing from the dossers at Charing Cross.

Ensconced in my slot in the first class cabin I noticed that the revenue men were on board. Now the revenue men are a breed apart on yer Southern Rail. These are the guys from revenue accounting who take absolute delight in catching would be ticket free travelling and freeloaders in the first class cabin. They look surprisingly like praying mantises complete with a feral glint in their eyes as they pounce on some poor unsuspecting old lady who's left her seniors pass at home. Well this day they hit pay dirt! Fresh from checking some guy in the end carriage - who apparently jumped off the train to avoid paying the penalty fare - (I know this as the main revenue man was chortling to the others that although he managed to get out of the train he left his travel card and pass behind and he was now stuffed ho ho ho!) - they then approached the FC cabin I was in.

'Can I check your tickets please?' - and a deathly pall fell - whilst several erstwhile first classers jumped ship by climbing over each others heads to get away. Except that is for the guy one chair ahead who pre-emptively said to the rather large revenue man and entourage that he always upgrades his wife's ticket on the train when they travel together and today she only has a second class. Now this is quite a good ploy, you know how it is when you get caught out, one does like to come up with some cock and bull story as a form of discourse of justification so you don’t look a complete **** before you pay up all sheepish like. However this guys then goes into a complete rant about not paying the penalty fare and this is unfair (incidentally he was travelling with a valid first class ticket), Southern rail are a load of rubbish (OK that's true) and on and on. This started to get quite heated whilst the revenue men just kept calmly reminding him of the rules and they had a duty etc etc. and they want their pound of flesh or if not twenty quid. And all the while he was getting more and more irrational and borderline violent. In the end it got so bad that his wife was in tears and this guy was really so aggressive that they arranged for the rozzers to meet us at London Bridge. Whilst they were taken off to speak to the law - the rest of us trooped out all to a man/women with a knowing smirk happy that some jerk was pulled up for going over the top. What had just happened was he had upset himself, wife, revenue (no he was happy) all for the sake of a £20 penalty - and risked a criminal record for an assault on rail staff. We all know the score you have a most 50/50 chance of getting your ticket checked so it’s a good bet not to seek out the guard and pay the excess - they had made no attempt to do so and I am sure if they were not checked they would not have paid - so the gamble this time did not work - so pay up act sheepish and put it behind you. This was definitely a fair cop guv here's the dosh scenario.

Strange isn't it we always have to concoct some cock and bull story to justify why we have done something perhaps we shouldn't have - wonder what the psychologists make of this??

Your ever calmly

Shown in this small pic is a revenue man checking a ticket from the last century - nothing changes
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Royston

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It is lovely when people get their come-uppance! Although I hate broad generalisations there do seem to be two types - those who panic if they cannot get a ticket at the station and try to catch the guard as soon as they get on (or am I the only one?), and those who sit and furtively eye the corridor so they can run off if the ticket collectors get on.

The latter are the ones who continually avoid paying and therefore inflate our train fares.

I for one am always happy to see the ticket collectors, just feel it is unfortunate that we live in a society where they are needed.