SL11: The end is nigh…

Just like hydrogen, Werther’s Originals and David Attenborough, bad advice has been around since the dawn of time itself.  Recently, archaeologists have uncovered a cave painting in the south of Mexico, depicting a sequence of three scenes – the first showing a man pointing out a tiger-like-creature to another man, the second showing the second man sitting atop said tiger-like-creature, and the third – and very final – showing the second man’s legs protruding from the tiger-like-creature’s bloody mouth.  Experts claim that this artwork is the earliest known illustration of human careers advice (NB it is not known whether tiger-riding was a public or private-sector profession).

Today, careers advice continues in the same way it began – awfully.  Think back to secondary school when you no doubt at some point had to take a careers aptitude test (or some equivalent) – for me it was ‘Kudos’, a computer programme that asked approximately 50 million questions about whether you would like to work outdoors, upside-down or inside a blue whale’s blowhole, and then assigned you a post that best matched your responses.  In my case, a croupier i.e. someone who deals out playing cards in a casino, leaving me to marvel at the programme’s shockingly accurate surmise from my desire not to work with children and preference for a non-military vocation that I was also a dab hand at shuffling a pack of 52 and would love to wear a waistcoat 5 days a week…

Imagine the Kudos report for your typical London commuter.  Even more laughable than my personal ‘croupier’ diagnosis is the notion that a train passenger may have ever received the suggestion of ‘bomb disposal expert’, and in today’s final post (I hear the sound of your crest falling…) I shall explain why, as I regale you with five miscellaneous tales from my travels that have so far not made it into the blog but that each shed light on the average commute into London.  Five final lessons from Selfish London – let us begin this Final Countdown (queue music)…

At 5. A platform change is one of the most exciting things that can ever happen to a station worker, EVER.

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the frustration of the ‘platform change’ – that moment when you realise your train isn’t in fact about to pull in to the platform upon which you are patiently waiting, as you see it veer off unannounced to a distant area of the station you didn’t even know existed.  The subsequent rush up and down flights of stairs, along corridors and through wormholes in the space-time continuum is sufficiently taxing to raise any commuter’s heart rate.  However, it’s not just the passengers who feel the adrenaline kick in – I once witnessed an Elephant & Castle station worker observe the Sevenoaks train veering off towards Platform 2 instead of its advertised 4, making his jaw drop and eyes boggle cartoon-like, and producing in him an excited scream worthy of Dave Benson-Phillips himself: “SEVENOAKS!  PLATFORM 2!!”  It was as if he’d seen a favourite celebrity, like Sian Lloyd or Lee Sharpe.

This reaction might seem a little OTT, but on closer thought what more exciting things actually happen at a train station?  The ticket machine jams?  A pigeon builds a nest?  A Metro is left on a seat?!  Very few trackside happenings can truly match the thrill of a jaw-dropping, eye-goggling, Dave Benson-Phillips-morphing platform change…

New entry at 4. If you run out of loo roll, try a spreadsheet.

In my opinion there are several must-have items for any half-decent toileting experience: warm water, handsoap, a working towel, a little privacy and a toilet are some.  However, now I must add to this list: Microsoft Excel.

It’s customary for people on the train to use their laptops and it’s also a regular occurrence to see some people leave their possessions with a friend or neighbour whilst they answer nature’s call (“Hi, it’s Nature – just wondered if you fancied going for a wee some time – it’s been a while…”).  However, it was a new one on me when I looked on as a commuter, who moments earlier had been sat next to a colleague discussing an Excel spreadsheet on his laptop, headed into the train toilet… with his laptop, and Microsoft Excel still very much running.  Why?!  Just why would you do that?!  Everyone knows spreadsheets are the least absorbent of all sheets…

Up 8, it’s this week’s 3. The radio does not exist underground.

If you regularly use the London Underground and haven’t got the time, patience or stupidity to strap up your arm in an uncomfortable position and see how people react to you for 8 weeks then here’s a smaller experiment you can try.  Get hold of an FM radio of some kind – preferably, on your phone or mp3 player rather than a 1980’s ghetto blaster; plug in your headphones (you don’t want to annoy people now), tune into any FM station – for the sake of argument, Classic FM – and head for your Tube station as normal.  Note the point on your journey when your signal disappears but keep listening.  See how long it takes for the signal to return.  To save anyone on the Waterloo-Elephant & Castle route the hassle, your radio dies two storeys below Waterloo platform-level and reappears only when the lift doors open at the above-ground E&C exit.  It’s pretty euphoric when the eerie silence is shattered by the blissful sounds of Mozart’s 5^th Ventricle surging into your cochlea, let me tell you.

Down 6, at 2. Lifts break.

Whereas it’s not unusual to see a couple of emergency service vehicles in South London, it is out of the ordinary to see eight…  3 fire engines, 3 ambulances and 2 police cars were all in attendance one day when I arrived at good old E&C.  As I passed through the ticket barriers I realised why – through the glass window of the lift doors I could see half a lift; on its way down it had somehow lodged itself firmly stuck just short of the top of the shaft.  Outside it a vast swarm of firemen and Network Rail engineers were assessing how best to rectify the situation and a host of paramedics waited nearby for the call to assist… because the lift was full… very full.  In fact, the lift was so full that faces were pressed right up against the glass (still attached, fear not).

It made me feel so sad to think of all those terrified people inside (who had apparently been stuck by this time for half an hour) crowding, crushing and claustrophobing each other in a confined space, with no freedom to move, no idea whether they would safely be hoisted up or left to plummet into the depths of the earth and certain death, oxygen levels rapidly depleting and little or no sustenance short of cannibalism – with one exception: I had no sympathy whatsoever for those people who had barged their way on board last, thoughtlessly urging others to pack themselves in tight in order to occupy a piece of floorspace well within several strangers’ comfort zones.  People should have learned by now – lifts have a finite capacity, there is not always ‘room for one more’ and sometimes if you overload them they do break, just like tacos…  But with less chilli.

And back for the 38^th week in a row, it’s still number 1. Everyone is still afraid of anything that might be a bomb.

Picture the scene: you’re on the train, in an aisle seat, having had a jolly uneventful trip to work.  People are standing up in preparation to leave the train at the terminus, and you just happen to glance beneath the seat across the aisle from you, whose occupier has just leapt up to join the we’re-nowhere-near-yet-but-for-some-reason-I-just-have-to-be-at-the-front-of-the-line-several-miles-before-we-arrive departure queue.  As you do you spot a red shoulder bag, all alone, abandoned by its owner, slumped on the floor beneath the seat (the bag, not the owner).  You reason logically that the person who has just vacated this position is most likely the owner of this baggage and would doubtless feel agonised and inconvenienced by leaving their luggage on board an express service heading back to the far reaches of Exeter.  So you pipe up: “Excuse me sir/miss…  miss, sorry, yes…  I just couldn’t tell from where I was sitting…  I mean, you never know do you these days…  You may even have once been a man, I wouldn’t know, would I?  It’s not like I stalk you…  Anyway, to cut to the chase: is that your bag?”

Speaking this simple sentence had several interesting results on a crowded London train.  For one, the person to whom I was directly speaking not only said “Erm, no,” but also moved away a lot quicker towards the doors.  Similarly, various neighbours in close proximity decided that today was the day to see what would happen if they also joined that queue over at the other end of the carriage.  People were actively trying to get away from the bag – why?  The answer: everyone is still afraid of anything that might be a bomb.  Stations consider it necessary to besiege us with posters and announcements asking us to report any ‘suspicious articles’ (like a shifty ‘the’ or a particularly creepy-looking ‘a’) to a member of staff, and even though we haven’t had a major terrorist event in this country for several years now it is still a natural reaction among Londoners to assume that at any given moment a suspicious (i.e. foreign) -looking character with a Puma sports bag will leap up from his seat on the 07:40 to London Waterloo with a jubilant shout of “Commute this!” and promptly detonate a nuclear warhead to wipe out Weybridge, Surbiton and most (but not all) of Esher.

It may sound silly but we can’t help but dwell on it from time to time, because we just wouldn’t know what to do in such a situation – and that worries us.  These commuting bankers, stockbrokers and information analysts for psychological therapies would be so unsuited to ‘bomb disposal’ as a career – every misplaced bag, every stray coat, every lonely crisp packet is regarded as a potential threat to national security.  If they did take a sudden lurch in career path towards such a hazardous profession, ‘disposal’ would probably be redefined ‘moving-away-and-just-leaving-it’.

And so it was amidst this air of growing suspicion and terror that I decided it best, once the seat’s occupier had declined possession of the satchel, to stand and announce to the whole carriage, “Excuse me, but has anyone left a red bag under this seat?”  To be honest, I may as well have put on a turban, hoisted my Puma sports bag into view and yelled “Commute this!”  The reaction I produced was one of everybody present instantly sweating their body weight, opening their eyes wider than bushbaby-ly possible, snatching up their possessions and wheeling round to join the early departure queue.

We didn’t arrive at Waterloo for another five minutes after being held at a red signal.

And that’s all from me folks – the end of the Selfish London series.  We’ve seen that London commuters look out for each other very rarely indeed, although they do generally look out for those with visible impediments at least upon boarding and departing trains (although paying little care and attention in other parts of the station and virtually never going so far as to offer a seat on a crowded train).  Levels of selfishness are high at the start of the week and the end of the day and commuters look out for Number One when it is light, rainy or cold.

So what’s the main moral of this whole escapade – what pithy advice should you take away from this social experiment?  Just this…  If travelling to London, make sure it’s on a warm, dry, cloudless Friday morning – and bring a wheelchair.  Oh, and look out for each other.

Laters.

Tags: Baby It's Cold Outside, bombs, bushbaby, careers, cave paintings, Classic FM, claustrophobia, croupier, Dave Benson-Phillips, David Attenborough, Elephant & Castle, Esher, experiment, Final Countdown, fire engines, Get Your Own Back, hydrogen, Kudos, left luggage, lifts, London, loo roll, Mexico, Microsoft Excel, Mozart, paramedics, Platform 2, Puma, radio, selfish, Sevenoaks, sports bag, spreadsheets, statistics, Surbiton, tacos, terrorism, tigers, toilets, trains, turban, waistcoat, Waterloo, Werther's Originals, Weybridge