After enduring an increasingly dull CRM conference in central London, my colleague and I decided to skip the concluding question-and-answer session and make our separate ways into the city. I got hold of my dear friend Tom, and we agreed to meet outside Tottenham Court Road tube station before heading off east to meet up with some more nice folk. I stood under the covered entrance to the Dominion theatre where we had agreed to meet, smoking a cigarette and killing a few minutes until our agreed meeting time. It was wonderful to be back in the hustle and bustle of the city I call home. I remember savouring the noise, the smells, the drizzle.
When Tom appeared, we rounded the corner to the first bus stop in New Oxford Street, and pratted around with the ticket machine before stepping back to wait for the right bus. “So,” said Tom, for we had not had a proper catch-up in a long while, “what’s this I’ve been hearing about you having seizures?” With spectacular comic timing, and part-way through a word in my reply, it happened again.
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These days, I don’t often have cause to encounter the Metro newspaper that clutters the entirety of the London public transport system of a morning. For something that used to play a vaguely significant role in my morning routine, I feel I should miss it.
The truth of the matter is that I don’t. In fact, I’m rather glad that I don’t encounter it, as it saves me from the temptation to read it. The paper is a muddle of articles partly recycled from the previous day’s Evening Standard, awkwardly-written “light interest” items, and a crossword.
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“Everything you ever wanted to know about London — written by Londoners.” Those of us in the city should throw ourselves at this—it could be mindblowingly useful.
They say that, in central London, you’re never more than a couple of metres from a rat. It’s also slowly becoming apparent that you’re never more than a metre from a Starbucks or a Pret, and never more than half a metre from a tourist.
Londoners are elusive creatures—you’ve got to look damn hard to find them. They only come out en masse during rush hours, and tend to move very fast from place to place. If you’re out in London at any other time, you’ll see plenty of tourists—but no Londoners. Interestingly, rats are just as elusive. It would seem that rats and Londoners survive by being as invisible as possible.
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As a general rule, I try to avoid blogging stuff that other people have published already. This rule is broken only if it’s groundbreakingly significant, or if I can add something to it. On that note, I apply the latter: Catherine found us some glorious variations of the London tube map, specifically one showing the relative geographic locations of the lines and stations. Then, Dan wondered why London Underground generally used schematic versions of the map—particularly as the geographic ones are really not that difficult to comprehend. As far as my reliable sources have led me to believe, the answer is security—London Underground would prefer it if people didn’t know where everything actually was. This became gospel during the frequent bomb attacks on the British public transport network, particularly in the capital, by the IRA during the Eighties. There now, you can all sleep a little easier.