The Blog of Rob

I had a thoroughly annoying trip home from work today. Everything went fine until I got to Waterloo where it seemed there were some delays on the Northern Line, the dot matrix display said 'check front of train for destination'. of course, since the train was already standing at the platform that little nugget of advice was already moot so I leaned into the train to listen. Since the standard announcement lists all the places you can change to before giving you the information actually relevant to the train's destination this is always slightly risky because the drivers are always keen to get the doors closed before the automatic announcement gets onto that bit. It turned out the train was destined for Edgware so I took a seat and waited for the next one to appear...

The next train was also heralded by a 'check front of train for destination' notice on the dot matrix, this time I checked, this train was also going to Edgware. I waited.

There were more or less constant announcements explaining that there were delays on the Northern Line so I wasn't too surprised at a run of Edgware bound trains, but generally you're much more likely to be sitting comfortably for the whole journey if you just wait for the right train at Waterloo instead of going to Camden and remembering to get off. There were also constant announcements that there were delays elsewhere on the network, but I pretty much ignored them, as well as reminders that smoking was not allowed on London Underground property. This seemed odd at first, but a few minutes later a guy did walk past me smoking what was left of a fag, at this point they announced, once again, that smoking was not allowed on the underground, so let me pause in this tale to make an aside:

• If smoking is banned on LUL property, they really should get their staff to stop doing it in the little copse beside Finchley Central, taking the ash trays away would probably send the right message too...


• They had obviously been sending out these stop smoking announcements since this guy walked into the station, it was just as obvious after five minutes of them that this guy was paying no attention whatsoever. I would like to point out to LUL staff that sitting in a control room repeatedly saying things to someone who is not listening to you is not a good way to stop them doing what you don't want them to do, but it is good at annoying the rest of us. If you really want him to stop smoking get off your arse and go and take the cigarette off him, or would that be too stressful that you'd need more than your standard nine weeks of holiday to recover?

Anyway, smoking guy got on the next train, also bound for Edgware. I had the PDA out by this point and was happily playing patience while awaiting a High Barnet train. I waited.

The next train also turned out to be Edgware bound. I waited some more. Another Edgware train. Some more waiting. Since about 25 minutes had elapsed since I arrived on the platform I figured it was time to cut my losses and just get on an Edgware train, and of course this is the moment the driver chooses to tell you that all trains through Waterloo are bound for Edgware this evening. Despite more or less constant use of the PA since I'd got there, nobody at Waterloo had decided to share this nugget of information, and, another note for LUL staff, you can't hear the train driver announcing stuff unless you are on or near the train - yes those people sitting down you were referring to can't hear you, much like the guy smoking the fag earlier.

So thank you, London Transport, for wasting 25 minutes of my life that I will never get back...

(On the plus side, the chocolate machine, which still says ** Thank You ** and shows little sign of life, did have a box of Trebor spearmints and a roll of Wine Gums sitting in it's dispenser )

This nearly makes it into The Ranting Category, but I'm going to make an effort to be restrained and reflective. A thing I've noticed about people and queues is that, whenever they're queing for something they like to orient themselves so that they're facing the thing they're queuing for, and it's quite hard to persuade them to do otherwise. The prime example is cash machines - take a walk down Oxford Street any Saturday, fairly busy, people bustling up and down the street. Let me stress here - people bustle up and down the steet, bustling across the street tends to be far less common than people using the pavement to get from one end of Oxford Street to the other (diving into shops along the way). There are several cash machines along Oxford Street and it is quite common for someone to already be using one when you walk up, now when this happens the person waiting to use the machine ignores the fact that he's standing in the flow of pedestrian traffic on one of the busiest streets in England and stands directly behind the person already using the machine, facing towards it. The next person to come along repeats this and stands directly behind the person in front so that, gradually, a human wall builds up across the pavement. What amazes me is that people don't even think this is strange, in fact when I've queued to the side of a cash machine alongside the wall I often find that the person who joins the queue behind me will stand far enough away from the wall to be able to see the cash machine, and since I'm a fairly large person this can end up being quite a long way from the wall. And not just with cash machines, ticket machines at stations, hot dog stands, anything. So I wonder, do humans have some basic instinct that requires them always to be facing the thing they're queuing for, or do they just care so little about everyone else trying to use the street around them?

Message on display: ** Please Wait **
Credit in machine: Unable to determine
Chocolate available: No - broken

Amazing, really, that in the two weeks I've been recording it's status this machine has only been operational twice (possibly...). Mind you I shouldn't be too amazed, it did take them nearly thirty years to figure out an alternative to litter bins.

The book I'm reading this week is Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's not a new book, by any means, and the third of a trilogy which I have been slowly working my way through over the last five years. I've been sort of looking for this book for a while, every time I was in a bookshop I'd have a quick check, but I finally found it in Waterstones in Leamington Spa, of all places. The author obviously has a good enough grasp of the technology, ranging from terraforming through orbital mechanics to genetic manipulation, but the stuff which really seems to interest him is the interplay between political structutes and personal relationships and how each shapes the other. This weekend I've come across my favourite paragraph in any book so far this year (not much competition yet, granted...):

If democracy and self-rule are the fundamentals, then why should people give up these rights when they enter their workplace? In politics we fight like tigers for freedom, for the right to elect our leaders, for freedom of movement, choice of residence, choice of what work to pursue - control of our lives, in short. And then we wake up in the morning and go to work, and all those rights disappear. We no longer insist on them. And so for most of the day we return to feudalism...

Inspiring stuff! Almost enough to convert me to socialism But since I'm not (yet) part of a Mars colonisation effort I guess for now I'll just stick to updating my CV.