13 July 2005
This is mostly a bad-tempered grumpy whingefest. Feel free to stop reading now.
Sign outside the florist: "Don't forget to buy your teacher a present - Sunflowers £4". Wonder how many teachers are going to wind up with enough sunflowers to open a health food shop come autumn.
The benches are gone. The open backed, can see all the way around and through the slats in the metal benches are gone.
At my local overland station, the benches are gone. There yesterday, gone today.
The waiting room is locked too.
The train is late.
It's really hot, and the train is late.
There's a security alert at Finsbury Park. The train isn't going to stop at Finsbury Park. Until it does. The same Finsbury Park station that's currently full of people. Sitting on benches. The same benches that are gone from further up the line.
We're not allowed to get off the train. People can get on, but we can't get off. Not even to change to the other side of the platform to get the train to Kings Cross, which all the other people left on the platform will be getting on. Not allowed to get off the train because there's no exit from the station. The fact that I don't want to exit and the Kings Cross train is in two minutes time is immaterial.
On we trundle. To Highbury and Islington and the Victoria Line, where I've landed smack in the middle of tourist-time, with people barging in front to get on the train first then faffing and dithering and stopping at the entrance to the seated area with their huge luggage rather than getting out of the way and letting all the people without the huge luggage past first.
We stop at Kings Cross, but the doors don't open. I'm particularly struck by the footprints in the as yet uncleaned dust.
At Euston I get off the train and as soon as I turn the corner to exit the platform my ears are assaulted by an old bloke playing O Sole Mio (badly) on an accordion. I almost run up the escalator to get away from him the sound. What muppet gave this guy a busking pass?
Buy some chilli rice crackers. Achieve the impossible and tip exactly 100g into my paper bag. Feel smug.
Euston bus station - walk or bus, walk or bus. Two buses, both still in the bus station, neither open their doors.
Third bus. Great. Air conditioning. Get on. Get a seat. 20-odd tourists with more luggage that my entire wardrobe get on behind me and proceed to stand in the door exit area circling their luggage. Thank you for staying with your luggage, but would it be too much trouble for you to MOVE IT an inch or two so I don't have to climb over it to get off the bus. Thanks.
Kings Cross at last. Can't get across Euston Road. Traffic is manic. Bloke in Jeep with "Hieronymous the Mad" on the side makes me smile.
Still can't get across the road.
Get across the road. Walk to work past huge queue of cars and accompanied by the sound of crankily pressed car horns. Obviously hooting your horn always makes the cars in front levitate to let you through. Obviously your journey is more important than anyone else's. Shut up, damn it, shut up.
Office.
Desk.
Work.
See, everything back to normal again!
Come out and play tonight in Brixton! It'll make you feel better. We've got a spare ticket for Nine Inch Nails! :)
Going south of the river will make her feel better?
:-)
Seeing NIN will make you feel better?
Be safe.
How exactly does a lack of benches deter a suicide bomber?
I mean, for sure he might get tired standing waiting for the train that's running late, however its a bit of a long shot...
Madness... :(
AlanG, they hide behind the benches.
Pix, so much why I love London. And I love that their is so much to grumble about and we love it all the same. Watch one of my friends get off the boat from SA and bitch like you did and I'll defend all the transport nightmares with the most bizaare logic. But if we (you, me, londoners) bitch, it's kinda ok, because it's our city and we can bitch.
You know it's not even like the bombings have actually made transport any worse or any stranger. For the last 7 years transport here has been strange. Where a return is cheaper than a single, and bus drivers range from being sycopathic ex racing drivers to people who manage to ignore everyone to people who are actually quite sweet. I've just got so attuned to how nuts the transport is that I don't even get bothered that much.
Ah yes. Nothing makes London seem more normal, bombings and all than deranged transport.
:-)
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