Nobody really expected the slow-burning social media sensation of 2020 to come from a 60-year-old comedian who mainly spends his time online making up names for cats and rating the snacks in The One Show's dressing room, but here we are. Train Guy is the slow-burning social media sensation of 2020.



On one level, Train Guy very easy to explain. He's comedian Bob Mortimer's business mover and shaker, forever sailing the rails to and from London – "the opportunity knocking shop" – FaceTiming his strategy partner Col about his meetings with fellow business titan Jeff Linton, and discussing all manner of exciting new ventures in a creamy mid-Atlantic drawl.

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On another, much like a lot of the characters Bob has come up with alongside comedy partner Vic Reeves over the last three decades, he's very hard to explain. And anyway, why would you want to explain him? Let's not poke too hard at Train Guy. He's too brilliant, too perfectly daft, to flatten with analysis. But let's have a quick ping-pong with him – there's more to him than meets the eye.

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He didn't come out of nowhere. Train Guy is a close cousin of a couple of characters who turned up in Athletico Mince, the podcast Bob hosts with Andy Dawson: Barry Homeowner, who started as a tech-obsessed dinner party bore who couldn't help shouting "LASAGNE" before becoming a pinpoint parody of every humblebragging LinkedIn Branson; and The Landlord, who turned up at his tenants' homes to levy increasingly mad extra charges to fund his jet-set lifestyle.

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Then Train Guy arrived. The first video came on 30 October last year, and since then things have snowballed.

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Bob's never seemed that interested in observational comedy – Mince ultras will remember his own attempts at 'have you ever noticed' material, which usually ended up as complaints about living with one hand made of brass, and he and Vic Reeves have ripped the piss out of Peter Kay before – but everyone's been stuck next to Train Guy at some point.

He steals your plug socket then takes up most of a four-person table with his Windows Surface and a Leon bag. Does he care? Nope. He's just a chillaxin' business bro, chewing the fat about the latest and greatest product he's brain-boxed to shoot himself into the business sky. You can hear him saying, in his booming Train Guy voice, that a meeting "felt like driving an Aston Martin straight at a fox – quite a rush-a-doodle-doo".

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Clearly loads of people feel the same way. Since meeting in a room above the Goldsmiths Tavern in New Cross, south London, in 1986, Vic and Bob have managed to be both relentlessly strange and enormously popular, and Train Guy is way up there with the pair's biggest crossover hits.

Unlike other comedians – and particularly unlike certain ex-Wernham Hogg middle managers we could name – Bob's Twitter and Instagram game isn't based around winding people up or getting fans to stroke his ego. Come to think of it, what Bob's doing isn't even Twitter and Instagram game. Zoomed in slightly too close, wobbling about, a bit blurry: Bob's videos are a welcome throwback to a much nicer, much less ruthlessly career- and commerce-driven era of social media.

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That's the basic joy of Train Guy, and one of the many reasons we need to cherish Bob. There's absolutely no reason why these little 50-second slices of gold need to exist. They're not promoting anything, there's no agenda. (Apart from occasional shouts to Cats Protection. Bob loves cats.) He's just mucking about, like your uncle dropping a picture into the family WhatsApp of a bloke on Segway unicycle, and adding the caption: "Must have bought his bike on finance." He's had a funny idea and thought you might like it. That's it.

That he had a traumatic triple-bypass operation on his heart not too long ago and had to be coaxed back into everyday life makes it all the more intensely enjoyable. Via reliably amazing appearances on Would I Lie To You? and his gentle, lovely buddy-up with Paul Whitehouse on Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, he's become a fixture again in spite of his own preference for staying at home watching Teen Mom. There's only one Bob Mortimer, and we must protect him at all costs.

So, yuh, OK. That's why Bob's exactly the man we need to promote to Official National Treasure Status as soon as possible. Yuh-yuh-yuh. OK. Have a campachoochoo on me. Yuh. OK, cheers Col. Ciao.

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