The Tube is insane

Interesting thing about my job. Casual dress code, lower pay, flexi hours, but these arts org people are just as heads down as they were at the capital investments firm with their snazzy outfits and high wages.

On the other hand, the staff at both solicitors' offices I've worked at were very chatty.

**********

According to Doctor Who, the Daleks built the Empire State Building.

**********

Funny things I read on the message boards on Fridaycities London (Note: I did not write these):

A discussion on the irrationality of commuters' behaviour during train delays and other annoying travel incidents.

-- I’m sat on a delayed tube train in a station, the doors are open and every now and again people go
outside and look down towards the front of the train. What are they
expecting to see? A traffic jam?

-- the moment when people are running for a train and the doors start to
close, so rather than chalk it up as a missed train they jam whatever
body part is nearest into the door to hold it open. Then follows the
moment when everyone wishes the driver would drive on with them trapped
in the door, instead of the prolonged battle by the person to lever the
door open to escape or enter

-- Once, and this is the God’s honest truth, the beeper noises started on
the Metropolitan Line train and half the Circle line train sprinted
over. I stayed where I was because I was comfortable and a bit pissed,
and suffered the glances of smugness from the M passengers. Then the
Circle Line doors beeped and shut, and off we chugged.

-- If you’re ever on a train which stops for more than a minute, you’ll
get updates every 5 – 10 minutes from the driver. Even if it’s only “We
still don’t know how to move the wildebeests from the track” it’s
calming to know that someone, somewhere is in control and feeding you
information.

Who's had the longest delay on London transport.

-- The Silverlink is the slowest, most ponderous & life-draining form of transport known to man ... (I believe it’s called Silverlink, cos customarily that’s the colour of
your hair by the time the twatting thing’s arrived where it’s meant to
be going)

-- Not terribly spectacular, but two hours ten minutes from Stoke
Newington to Soho this morning, including the amount of time taken to
walk the last half mile, the bus having given up totally on Gower
Street.


Did you know that Tube trains have horns?

-- this evening when I was standing on the southbound Northern line
platform at Stockwell, the (delayed) train pulled in and beeped twice.
It was a quite piercing horn. Anyone heard this before?

-- They were installed after a group of mice lobbied parliament…But the thing I can’t understand are the indicators!

-- And the steering wheels.

-- The Met Line’s horn sounds really pained. Like it’s just travelled over
a nail or something. I always feel sorry for it. Poor thing.

-- From the heading of this thread, I’ve now got this picture in my head
of this new London event, “The Running of the Tube Trains”,.. locals
and drunk tourists getting gored as they run along narrow windy streets
pursued by a stampede on wheels. It would explain the indicators and
steering wheels, sort of…

Mouse sightings on the tracks, all over London.

-- I want to know which tube stations have mice running around by the
tracks that I can look at. I haven’t seen any in ages, and I do miss
watching the little loves scurrying around while I wait for TFL [Transport for London] to sort their lives out.

-- There are some at South Kensington that don’t so much scurry as swan.

-- wesbound Central Line at Oxford Circus. I once saw a mouse carrying a chip that was twice as long as its own body there.

-- They say that in London you’re never more than 1 metre away from
someone who’ll tell you that you’re never more than 1 metre away from a
mouse.

-- Have you thought about getting one as a pet instead? There’s one in my shed that you can have for nothing.