When 59-year-old Watsonia resident, Hugh Francis, boarded the city bound train yesterday morning for his regular morning commute he did something he’d wanted to do for a few years now. He looked around the carriage, took note of the usual scene of every person being glued to their phone screens, and loudly proclaimed, “have a look at you all, stuck on your phones, being antisocial, losing the art of conversation, and not living your lives to the full. You make me sick!”
After making this grand statement, Francis then loudly flicked out his newspaper and stuck his nose in its pages for the entire trip to Flinders Street Station. The irony of his actions was not lost on fellow commuters, with one anonymous man telling The Watsonia Bugle, “I’ve seen that bloke on the same carriage almost every day for the last five years and he’s always got his head stuck in his newspaper. He loudly ruffles it every time he turns a page, takes up more elbow room that he should, and occasionally mutters disparaging remarks under his breath. Stupid old fossil!”
When contacted by us yesterday afternoon, Francis was both short and gruff in his response. He asked, “what newsagency is your publication available in?” When we told him that the Bugle was purely an online news service he hung up. All subsequent attempts to gain comment from him have failed.
The Watsonia Bugle 