Happy Mondays (The fuck off mix)
Monday, November 22nd, 2004 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanOnce you're in the system you're doomed.
I've been in the office 15 minutes as I start typing this. That means door-to-door it has taken me 90 minutes to commute 3 miles. The same distance in London on foot, allowing for interminable stops at pedestrian crossings and detours over footbridges takes 50 minutes to an hour depending on whether the signals are with or against you.
Only by public transport can it take 90 minutes.
The Northern Line was fine. Unfortunately, no-one bothered to mention the fact that the Victoria Line was dead until after I'd made the change. "Customers are advised to take alternative routes and change as necessary…" (Note that we are customers not passengers - the latter would suggest a sense of movement, a concept the former is blessedly unencumbered with).
Back then, to the Northern Line and up to Bank to change on to whichever comes first of the Circle/District Lines. "Ladies and Gentlemen. Due to signal failure at South Kensington, westbound Circle Line trains have been cancelled and westbound District Line trains are subject to severe delay".
See, I could have avoided all this if I'd known there was widespread hassles with the bits of the system I wanted to use. But no-one thinks to tell you until you are locked into it.
So, turn around at Bank station and back down to London Bridge, which I've already been through once. Jubilee Line three stops to Westminster, where we get back to the Circle/District Lines. However, Westminster is only a 15 minute walk from the office down the back streets, so I do that and get in to find that everyone has gone to a meeting that was originally called off a week ago (I know, I took the minutes), but which seems to have reactivated itself in my absence.
So I am hot, bothered, late and pissed off. And I have been "volunteered" for stuff in my absence.
I've been in the office 15 minutes as I start typing this. That means door-to-door it has taken me 90 minutes to commute 3 miles. The same distance in London on foot, allowing for interminable stops at pedestrian crossings and detours over footbridges takes 50 minutes to an hour depending on whether the signals are with or against you.
Only by public transport can it take 90 minutes.
The Northern Line was fine. Unfortunately, no-one bothered to mention the fact that the Victoria Line was dead until after I'd made the change. "Customers are advised to take alternative routes and change as necessary…" (Note that we are customers not passengers - the latter would suggest a sense of movement, a concept the former is blessedly unencumbered with).
Back then, to the Northern Line and up to Bank to change on to whichever comes first of the Circle/District Lines. "Ladies and Gentlemen. Due to signal failure at South Kensington, westbound Circle Line trains have been cancelled and westbound District Line trains are subject to severe delay".
See, I could have avoided all this if I'd known there was widespread hassles with the bits of the system I wanted to use. But no-one thinks to tell you until you are locked into it.
So, turn around at Bank station and back down to London Bridge, which I've already been through once. Jubilee Line three stops to Westminster, where we get back to the Circle/District Lines. However, Westminster is only a 15 minute walk from the office down the back streets, so I do that and get in to find that everyone has gone to a meeting that was originally called off a week ago (I know, I took the minutes), but which seems to have reactivated itself in my absence.
So I am hot, bothered, late and pissed off. And I have been "volunteered" for stuff in my absence.
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Tell me why? I don't like mondays
Date: 2004-11-22 10:29 am (UTC)Darrell was stuck on a bus for nearly 2 hours on friday coming home from work; it took half an hour to move half a mile at one point. I asked him, but what about the Blitz spirit? Did no one hand out sandwiches or share their flask of tea? Did anyone start a sing song? Or is it a complete myth? This idea that Londoners, jolly Cockerneys etc all pull together in difficulties is what I was brought up believing ( in the middle of middle class Bristol). Such a disappointment! ;)
Re: Tell me why? I don't like mondays
Date: 2004-11-22 11:06 am (UTC)Unaffected passengers just turn up their Walkmans. However, anyone with a set of white earbuds either gets their ipod nicked or loses several social levels if it turns out they were plugged into a walkman anyway.
When everyone gets home we have the chance to log into the TFL website and download a picture of Uncle Ken, but we have to buy our own darts to throw at it with whatever funds the Thieving B*st*rds have left us - meaning the people who sold us travelcards in the first place...