I got them commuting blues again

[caddyman]

I think I may have been a bit previous complaining about the heat yesterday. Having spent the night acclimatising, the weather has notched it up a few degrees today as if to say, "Congratulations! You've passed the beginner stage, now let's move on to intermediate level."

I regard the unpacking and plugging in of the fan as an unfortunate indicator that sleep is otherwise unobtainable. Tonight it makes its first appearance of the year, and with it comes the complementary rise in electricity costs.

It's nice to know that life continues apace in its unbounded variety annoying sameness. The Victoria Line was shagged this morning. It is amongst the newer parts of the Tube network, and thus more prone to breakdown than say, the stately old Bakerloo Line (Having said that, it doesn't derail like some of them, so thankful for small mercies, eh?). As I got into Stockwell station they announced that severe delays were occurring due to a signal failure. Well, I went to the platform on the off chance just to watch a train leaving the station at a speed suggesting it was being towed by an arthritic mollusc. Before it had fully pulled out the next one was coming on to the platform. Now, call me crazy, but I like to think that there is more than the width of a credit card between trains at the best of times. This is doubly true when you're a couple of hundred feet underground.

Having satisfied myself that the announcers weren't fibbing or pulling my leg or in any otherwise having a laugh, I crossed back to the Northern Line platform, where I proceeded to, as we Salopians say, "walk around the Wrekin to get to the Ercall" *.

Ah yes, a cosy trip up to London Bridge, on the Northern Line, which is only miles out of my way, a change and thence to Westminster on the Jubilee. At least I was standing next to the door at the end of the car so the air was blowing in merrily. One final change on to the District Line and up to Victoria.

The strength of the Tube in the centre at least, is that there is generally an alternative route. The weakness is that the alternative is seldom direct and is invariably crowded and hot.

But we enjoy sitting at our desk in a soggy shirt shivering because of the air conditioning, don't we?




* The Wrekin is an isolated hill in Shropshire, the Ercall is its smaller companion. Neither are very large - the Wrekin manages a mere 1,320 feet above sea level - but given that the local land on average is around 250 feet, it does tend to dominate.

Comments

[caffeine-fairy.livejournal.com]

I may be completely unpopular for saying this...but you know you can get to Victoria from Clapham High Street station, a short walk from Clapham North? *ducks*

[willowing.livejournal.com]

Well, I went to the platform on the off chance just to watch a train leaving the station at a speed suggesting it was being towed by an arthritic mollusc.

LOL!! :)) you write funny - bless you bless you for it ..

I'm tres grateful that I no longer have to endure the wonderful joys of that which is the underground ... scooter is good.. :)

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Ah, but they only go once every half hour...

So nya nya. ;-p

[spasmsproject.livejournal.com]

Re the shivering at one's desk in the air conditioning: I have the same problem at my job. Two desks over from mine is for some reason an unbearably hot spot, compounded by the fact that it is the desk of a menopausal co-worker, who would be having hot flashes anyway. The poor thing is desperately hot every day at her desk and must wear short sleeves and keep a fan running to augment the AC. It is not her imagination -- everyone who stops by her desk comments on the heat. For the same incomprehensible reason her desk in ridiculously warm, mine is ludicrously cold. Yesterday I wore a velvet jacket over my dress and added a big sweater just to keep warm, but my fingers were still cold, and I found myself going to the ladies' room a lot to warm them under the hand dryer.

I've suggested twice in the past year that we switch desks, which should solve everything, but we're networked to different printers and apparently the Sys Ad doesn't have time to switch the wires.

[keresaspa.livejournal.com]

Trying to understand the tube gives me nightmares. Everything seems to have at least two possible destinations with no real indication of which one it's actually going to.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

It's not that bad once you get used to it.

But I agree, my first few weeks in London were a tube nightmare...

Re: Wrangling the wrekin

[pipsytip.livejournal.com]

I didn't realise that the saying mentioned Ercall.

Round our way we just say going round the wrekin as an expression of somewhere out of the way...

[keresaspa.livejournal.com]

Trying to figure out how to get to Angel almost gave me a panic attack. The way the line divides into two just before (at least according to the map) left me baffled.