The Guardian on Tuesday carried the headline: "Fight on UK train after people kept placing bagels on travellers' heads." Your first instinct may be to laugh but really, despite the absurdity of the story's opening paragraph, it shouldn't be.
Police were called to break up a fight on a train as rowdy passengers repeatedly placed bagels on other travellers' heads.The Guardian
The incident occurred at Potters Bar station in Hertfordshire at around 1a.m. on Sunday -- clearly a time when people are operating without the full use of their faculties. Video posted on Twitter shows a group of people harassing and intimidating those around them. And yes, the harassment and intimidation involved putting bagels on people's heads and then pointing and laughing at them.
Things got ugly quickly, as this video posted to Twitter showed.
The video also shows an altercation on the station platform, but as the Guardian reports, "it is not known if these were connected to the bagels". Police were called to intervene and there was an 18-minute delay on the train line while they took witness statements.
To their credit, the British Transport Police was pretty sanguine about the entire incident, which is now being referred to online as #BagelGate.
ViceUK is looking at the video, which it aptly describes as "a load of adults getting mad at a bagel," as a study in British Aggro. Their frame by frame breakdown of what is actually happening in that video might or might not make your morning.
Now, clearly bullying, violence and intimidation are never OK. But can we just all agree that this surely ranks among the most British things that have ever happened?