Man spends 35 minutes rolling anticipatory cigarette in train held outside station

A British man is believed to have unwittingly set a new world record for time spent rolling a single cigarette yesterday, after his train was held up at a red signal just before it was due to pull into the station.

Lifelong smoker Simon Williams, 52, explained irritably.

“My office job is bloody stressful as it is, and so is my commute,” he told us.

“Greater Anglia trains haven’t made things any easier by banning smoking on trains, as well as in and around the station – the bastards – so by the time my train draws into Thetford at the end of the day, I’m typically gasping for a fag.

“When the familiar rooftops finally pull into view behind the setting sun, I get out the Rizla papers and the tobacco and soothe myself by constructing a soon-to-be-smoked roll-up of luxurious size, that will be luxuriantly inhaled just as soon as I’m clear of the station concourse.”

But Williams’ plans received an unwelcome setback when his train juddered to a halt within sight of the platform, and a soothing female voice announced over the tannoy, “For your safety and convenience, you are being held outside the station.”

“Yeah,” Williams confirmed acidly, “For the next thirty-five f*cking minutes.”

By the time his train finally advanced the last twenty-five yards of its journey to pull up at the station platform, he added that the roll-up was “virtually unrecognisable as its original incarnation,” but he told us that he had smoked it anyway.

“God yes,” he added.

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