LUL Drivers Protest

LUL drivers are to protest about a new comedy film because it trivialises railway suicides:

Train drivers will stage a protest tonight at the premiere of a British comedy about suicides on the London Underground.

Members of Aslef will hand out leaflets when Three And Out, starring Mackenzie Crook, is shown at Leicester Square, London, this evening.

Crook plays a tube driver in search of a volunteer to commit suicide under his train so he can get compensation. Union members have criticised the subject material, saying that deaths on the railway are “never funny”.

I’m sorry, but haven’t they got something better to do?

No, deaths on the railway are not funny. That didn’t stop us cracking black jokes with the local BT Bobby while standing over the dismembered body of a young woman who had put her head on the line at Westbury some years back. We were waiting for the coroner’s office to send out a medical practitioner to declare the body pieces formally dead – we knew she was dead, but we were not experts, you see. When the doctor did turn up an hour or so later she tottered along the line to the scene, took a brief look and told us what we already knew – yup; dead. Including the bits the foxes made off with before we got there.

As I’ve helped recover the body parts from suicides, I concur with the view that there is nothing funny about it (despite my facetious tone in the previous paragraph). But… But… Writers and performers will always try to push the envelope of acceptable source material. Sometimes it is funny and it works. Sometimes it is plain distasteful. Why not let the viewing public be the judge?

Do I want to watch this film? Nope. Do I plan to protest about it? Nope.

Keith Norman of Aslef thinks that it shouldn’t go unremarked:

I don’t want Aslef to look like some sort of kill-joy organisation, because we’re not,

I’m afraid that’s exactly how you come across – and as stated, I have personal first hand experience in the matter.

but there are issues which we shouldn’t ignore – and this is one of them. I want the public to be aware of how distressing it can be for a driver to discover a body under the wheels of his or her train.

Maybe you should trust them to be able to tell the difference between a piece of fiction and reality?

Of course, as is often the case, someone comments on the article and in so doing displays that they are have qualified with honours from the university of cretinry. In this case, gil from Bristol:

I have read that once a train driver has killed a person he is never able to return to his job because it has so unnerved him. This film should be banned. I have every sympathy with train drivers over this stupid film.

No, gil, some drivers become so distressed that they cannot carry on driving. And, no, it should not be banned, you fucking ignorant little control freak.