What Happened to E-Commuting, By the Way?

[liadnan]

To have one nutter on your tube carriage may be regarded as unfortunate. Screw Oscar Wilde and Lady Bracknell, to be sandwiched between two, taking no note of one another's rants, rising and falling in counterpoint, may be regarded as unfair.

Then there's the woman, rather good-looking in a small and ferocious kind of way (in fact, she reminds me of someone else I met a month or so ago) who storms down the stairs at Chalk Farm a minute or two after me every day and promptly declaims "FUCK!"

To be fair, for reasons with which I shan't bore you as they are comprehensible only to those of us who are Masters of the Ancient and Mystical Art of London Tube Rush Hour Tactics, if I'm standing at that end of the platform it means the next train is showing as a Charing X train and it may therefore be that she wants the Bank Branch*. Nevertheless it's happened at least five times in the last couple of weeks.

Not, however, yesterday, when I worked at home. Well, tidied the flat and did my paperwork, actually, since I had no paying work to do, and generally had a good day. Now I have five sets of papers to deal with by Monday. And therefore really ought not to be pissing around here.

*If the next train was a Bank Train I'd be standing right at the other end of the platform from the entrance and stairs. Obviously. D'ye'see?

Comments

[boondockeorla.livejournal.com]

when i was in london trying to get around via tube i spent a lot of time just getting on something and saying 'hmmmmm...i hope this is what i was hoping to do'

[liadnan]

That can work too. But the ways of tube-fu are hard to master.
(In all seriousness, if you cared, it's about knowing where the exits are on the platform you're going to, knowing precisely where the doors are going to end up (there are clues marked on the platform), and knowing which bits of the train are likely to be least-rammed.)

sounds too complicated

[nikandra.livejournal.com]

to remember when you're only visiting London for a while. Sounds too complicated to remember when you are living in London. No wonder it's so difficult to master.

I'm obviously tired of life.

[nicnac.livejournal.com]

Thanks for an excellent reminder of how happy I am to no longer work in London :0)

Also thought I'd better quit lurking and say "hi" and "thanks for the humour".