Commutation

[caddyman]

For the second day in a row I have come to work via the Jubilee Line, getting off the overland at Stratford and then tubing into Westminster, changing to the District for a couple of stops and arriving at the office at something like the time I aimed for. It is a far less stressful route than taking the overland to Liverpool Street and then hoping for a sight of the Occasional Circle Line, which is beginning – especially since it is part suspended for engineering works – to be regarded as the mass transit equivalent to the Loch Ness Monster. A lot of people believe it exists and that it has been seen, but there is no hard evidence and the photos are grainy and unreliable.

The difficulty at the moment with the Jubilee Line is the eternal heat around here. It is a forty minute sauna in working clothes, which leaves me feeling somewhere between an old lettuce and a chamois leather by the time I get to Victoria.

It has proved to me one undeniable truth: I may well be a lardy boy and horribly unfit, but my ability to wilt in soggy clothes is second to none. I am Olympic class.

Well, we shall know in two years if that’s true. Stratford is, of course, the centre of the Olympic Village for 2012, which means that for two weeks (or is it a month? Please don’t let it be a month) in that year, every tourist in England will be clogging the area like a crowd of expensively dressed zombies. Assuming, of course, that RMT don’t call a strike over the filling of the sandwiches in their luxury canteen or something equally important, like they usually do.

Comments

[itsjustaname.livejournal.com]

It's three weeks I think.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Oh Lord.

I wish Paris had got it. Though I must admit Stratford looks the better for the investment.

[itsjustaname.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to the Olympics being in London but not the commuting. I may hide out at the North London pied-a-terre for the duration.

[keith-london.livejournal.com]

Stratford is a dump, and will always remain one even with Olympic money. It's a transport melting pot hell hole, with all sorts of people meandering around it like fenzied ants. I used to study there, and now avoid it if at all possible, but I'll have to brave it in 2 years (or less) to visit the Olympic sites.

[velvet-the-cat.livejournal.com]

Time for a fortnight somewhere not in Nodnol in Olympic season? :o)

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

How about a change at West Ham to the District there? For now, that would be one stop on the Jubilee, but in a couple of months the DLR will do it too, then you can be surface on the District the rest of the way.

The Jubilee line is faster, though.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

That way lies madness, pain, even more sardinage and more pain.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I remember that pleasure of the Jubilee in the Summer (still better than the Central though) - the carriage has all that time to cook happily in the sun, slowly broiling the passengers.

[drjohnsilence.livejournal.com]

May I just say that this line

the mass transit equivalent to the Loch Ness Monster. A lot of people believe it exists and that it has been seen, but there is no hard evidence and the photos are grainy and unreliable.

is teh awesome. Do you mind if I steal a variant for my next book?

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Of course, of course.

Will I be in the blogliography?