The Global Citizen's guide to: London transport (part 1)
Familiarity with London's transport system is a source of great satisfaction for the seasoned Londoner. The unwritten rules of public transport in the city can be mastered only after many years of stringent training and daily practice, and are the cause of many a faux pas for those outsiders unfamiliar with the social subtleties that accompany mass travel with millions of fellow inhabitants. For this reason, I have decided to compile a series of blog entries on the subject, with the aim of helping the bourgeoning Londoner to avoid some common pitfalls. Herewith, I offer part one:
Mastering the art of London transport is not simply a matter of becoming familiar with the tube [subway/underground/métro] map, or knowing that the number 73 bus takes you from Tottenham Court Road to Angel (but takes bloody ages during rush hour). The first rule of London transport that you should internalize is this: TRUST NO ONE.
Repeat after me: "TRUST NO ONE".
The sooner you accept this, the less unbearable your commuting will be. Let me illustrate this with an example:
The newly-arrived at London's City Airport might decide to take the Jubilee Line [that's the gray one] into London from Canning Town station and be quietly reassured on hearing the following announcement over the tannoy system:
"The Jubilee Line is operating a good service in both directions from Canning Town."
That's good news, right?
"Nuh-ah, you sucker!" would respond the savvy commuter. It's merely your naïve interpretation that leads you to this flawed conclusion. While you might think you're interpreting this announcement literally, what you should in fact be hearing is this: "The Jubilee Line is operating a good service in both directions from Canning Town [but service is crap everywhere else on the line]." It is only by interpreting the unspoken part of this announcement that you come to fully grasp its true literal meaning, i.e., that service is indeed good out of Canning Town, but that this in no way guarantees that any trains are running 100 metres down the line. And so it is with this in mind that you come to North Greenwich [the next stop] two minutes later, without any such prior misguided expectation, but strangely content of actually having gotten there. And so on, one stop at a time, until you reach your final destination, two and a half hours later, completely free of stress.......
Mastering the art of London transport is not simply a matter of becoming familiar with the tube [subway/underground/métro] map, or knowing that the number 73 bus takes you from Tottenham Court Road to Angel (but takes bloody ages during rush hour). The first rule of London transport that you should internalize is this: TRUST NO ONE.
Repeat after me: "TRUST NO ONE".
The sooner you accept this, the less unbearable your commuting will be. Let me illustrate this with an example:
The newly-arrived at London's City Airport might decide to take the Jubilee Line [that's the gray one] into London from Canning Town station and be quietly reassured on hearing the following announcement over the tannoy system:
"The Jubilee Line is operating a good service in both directions from Canning Town."
That's good news, right?
"Nuh-ah, you sucker!" would respond the savvy commuter. It's merely your naïve interpretation that leads you to this flawed conclusion. While you might think you're interpreting this announcement literally, what you should in fact be hearing is this: "The Jubilee Line is operating a good service in both directions from Canning Town [but service is crap everywhere else on the line]." It is only by interpreting the unspoken part of this announcement that you come to fully grasp its true literal meaning, i.e., that service is indeed good out of Canning Town, but that this in no way guarantees that any trains are running 100 metres down the line. And so it is with this in mind that you come to North Greenwich [the next stop] two minutes later, without any such prior misguided expectation, but strangely content of actually having gotten there. And so on, one stop at a time, until you reach your final destination, two and a half hours later, completely free of stress.......
posted by CCT at 10:32 pm
5 Comments:
pienso que su vocabulario es magnífico y estilo de escritura está
fuera de este mundo. ¿usted consideraría el escribir para los CDR? ACCA xx
I'm deleting random, irrelevant comments from my blog translated into Spanish using Worldlingo...... but nice try, Ush...
However, I'm leaving the first one, as it actually makes sense and is quite complimentary.
And no, I'm not writing for the stupid CDR.....
I tried to leave a comment but was REJECTED. I'm trying not to take it personally...
RS
Well this one seems to have gotten through ok!
Nothing to do with me, I assure you. There's no option on Blogger to block laconic Canadian comments...
Go on, give it another try.....
Yes, but now I can't remember what I was going to say. Something about the alarming number of "medical emergencies" on the TTC that always occur when I'm late for work..
RS
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