‘Silly Bunts’. It came up in a comment the other day. It references a Monty Python sketch called The Travel Agent and… anyway, I tried to recalled when I heard that on another occasion and, like a dog to a smelly bottom, it came back for another go.

I was on a train between Denmark and Sweden. It was comfortable, clean and I was writing a poem about Denmark. We’d had a lovely time there and expected a similar experience in Sweden. The people, especially, had been universally pleasant: friendly, a bit reserved, open, interested and interesting.

There was this man sitting opposite me. About sixty, I’d guess. Pointed face, like someone had got hold of his nose and pulled before it had set completely. I made eye contact and smiled.

Oh boy, big mistake.

He called himself Michael Smith – Johnson and said he was Danish but had lived in Ireland for ten years so was probably Irish, naturalised Danish. Certainly his strongly Irish brogue suggested as much. He was missing a front tooth and there was a degree of ugly scar tissue around his mouth like he had ground his face into gravel on more than one occasion. And he wanted to impart one basic fact: he hated his ex. Loathed her with the sort of passion that would have porn directors looking to bottle it and inject it into some drooping stud (actually, that’s an appalling image, but I blame my fellow passenger).

In a stunning twenty minutes of vitriol and virtuosity I captured this  about him (I wrote it in my journal so I didn’t have to remember it verbatim):

• he had two children by said ex
• he had another of 3 and one on the way with his girlfriend
• she was Muslim as was  he apparently
• her father was an ‘ugly brute of a Turk’, his words, who was involved in some complicated affairs in Turkey involving electrocutions and elections
• he was worth €42 million net
• he had a charitable foundation that acted like a dragon’s den helping starter businesses
• he hated the Danes for their insularity as he saw it
• he had been homeless and empathised with anyone needing a start
• he had a PhD in anthropology – and another in business affairs
• he had played a role, not exactly well explained as ambassador to the EU for the Irish government
• he was considering the offer of a chair at Cairo university
• he spoke 17 languages and tested me in German and French, not that I passed
• he had a book being fought over by publishers, based on the story of his life and his unique philosophy which he called democraship or some such and if implemented would solve the financial crisis at a stroke
• And he never drank, even though his hands shook and his eyes belied his professed restraint.

When finally I looked down and refused to look up, he told me the English were the worst race in Europe and generally rhymed with bunts before he fell asleep. We moved seats at that point. I wish I’d taken a photo because  you don’t often meet Walter Mitty in the flesh. Whatever country plays host to him has my deepest sympathy, though the writer in me wants to find a story into which I can insert Michael Smith – Johnson. One day. maybe..

He would make a splendid anti-hero though one would have to add some redeeming features to make him believable. That’s the trouble with writing fiction based on reality: often reality isn’t credible.