The next time you’re riding the subway and you become part of someone’s captive audience, think about this story … “Freedom to Preach” from Englishman in New York.

Perhaps hearts sank when the doors closed at Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and the evangelist, a slight, black woman dressed in a black frock, which sprouted white frills, began exalting the Lord. Or perhaps spirits were raised (“thank God, for it is still too early to appreciate another guitar-playing Latino”). Either way, the preacher failed in her duty of reaching out to the one in the carriage she may have thought needed saving the most when she addressed the subject of “gay evils.”

An Asian woman, slightly rectangular in build, rose a full 5ft 1ins from her seat and beseeched the bible reader to cease her proclamations: “Why do people like you always have to do this? Can’t you just let these people travel in peace?”

But the people did not want to travel in peace and the riders rose in unison and turned on the short-haired devil: “Let her speak! Let her speak! Freedom of speech,” came the cry from a sizeable and wholly black section of the carriage, all of above average age and of a mainly female persuasion. “Let her testify.”

But the Lord worketh in mysterious ways. And the woman refuseth to back down, warning: “If you do not be quiet, I shall be forced to sing show tunes.”

To find out which show tunes are useful in these situations … you will have to read the whole thing … and then read the showtune singer’s account here … it’s good she didn’t have her ukulele with her …