So you’ve been standing at Hammersmith Underground Station for about ten minutes waiting for a District Line train. At least five Piccadilly Line trains have come and gone, but they, of course, don’t stop at your station (except late at night and early in the morning when, one presumes, London Transport workers need to get to work or reach home).
The platform is silting up with commuters, pickpockets, and the evidently deranged. Everyone’s starting to get a trifle antsy, hoping against hope that some poor soul hasn’t succumbed to the temptation of ending it all at Baron’s Court.
The electronic board keeps us up to date with the hot news that smoking isn’t actually allowed in the station – a surprise to everyone, no doubt – when the tannoy crackles into life (we’d all assumed it was broken). At last, someone’s going to tell us what’s going on!
“We’d like to remind customers that luggage should not be left unattended…”
Really? You amaze me! Having dodged bomb attacks by homicidal psychopaths for the best part of four decades, I feel extremely relaxed about leaving luggage lying around tube stations while I wander off for a bit of stroll.
But it’s not the obviousness of the message that’s irritating. Maybe there are visitors on the platform who don’t understand how sensitive we natives tend to be when it comes to ownerless luggage, and anything that reminds us that, when we see something suspicious, tell someone - RIGHT AWAY! – is probably no bad thing. No, what’s really quite fantastically irritating about this perfectly sensible message is the timing of it. Tell us where our bloody train is, or admit you don’t have a clue, but tell us something relevant. RIGHT AWAY!
But still, we are civilized people. As Londoners, we have learned to put up with a lot, and we know only too well that our creaking old tube service is suffering from – wait for it – “years of underfunding”. That, and union leaders who, I suspect, would leave anyone who isn’t actually a member of some demented Far Left sect hankering for a modern-day Margaret Thatcher or Norman Tebbit to step in and start laying about them with gusto. But what has absolutely nothing at all to do with underfunding or malevolent union mavens who loathe the poor suckers who pay their rather reasonable-sounding wages (after all, how hard can it be?) is the ability of whoever is responsible for keeping customers informed to do their bloody job!
So, after we’ve all scanned our immediate vicinity for potentially lethal luggage, and wondered whether the backpacker next to us isn’t looking a bit shifty, and managed not to snap at the chorus of people using their mobiles to tell other people who really don’t care that they’re going to be a bit late – then, right then, is when a reasonable but annoyingly bossy voice breaks the official tannoy silence again by reminding passengers that “smoking is not permitted at this station”.
WE KNOW! HONESTLY! King’s Cross was 22 years ago and even those of us who used to be 40-a-day fiends have got the message. Look, if anyone is actually smoking right now at this station, point them out, and we’d all gladly kick the crap out of the silly bastard. Just don’t keep telling us not to smoke!
WHERE’S MY SODDING TRAIN???
Contumacious mutterings ensue. The language is getting a tad fruity.
The tannoy crackles back into life and we wait to be told to remember to drink water on hot days, or that obesity is bad for you, or that night follows day, when a lovely old-fashioned cockney voice (and I mean real chirpy, cheery, salt-of-the-earth, quick-witted, friendly cockney – not the vile brand of “innit-speak” that seems to have taken its place) apologises for the delay, and tells us there’s a Richmond train at Gloucester Road which will be here in eight minutes, and there’s an Ealing Broadway train right behind it.
All it needed was another couple of announcements earlier promising to let us know what was happening as soon as they found out and we wouldn’t feel like hauling the driver out of his cab and making an example of him when our train does actually, finally, arrive.
As we fight our way onto the train, the announcer informs us that, despite delays on the District Line, there’s a good service operating on all other lines. Of course, that’s just what we all want to hear.
Timing - you’ve either got it or you haven’t. Innit.
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