Tuesday Tube

[caddyman]

West Finchley tube station, just two stops down the line from Totteridge and Whetstone, where I embark upon my daily journey into the surreal is one of those quiet little stations on the London Underground system that is far enough out from the centre for the line to have emerged from the depths and run like any self-respecting train along the surface. If it wasn’t for the tell-tale station signs and the fact that only tube trains run through it, you wouldn’t think you were in London at all, much less on the Underground system. It’s a sleepy, leafy little hideaway suburban station that could be anywhere in England; it comes alive for about 90 minutes in the morning and again in the evening before being left to the squirrels, starlings, finches and the occasional flasher.

So quite why the place was the centre of a security alert responsible for the suspension of the Northern Line between High Barnet and Finchley Central this morning is entirely beyond me. Some absent-minded cretin must have left his or her bag sitting on the platform and scared the willies out of the bloke in the ticket office.

Now I know that we have to be careful in these days of heightened lunacy, but really: West Finchley. Somewhere in the centre or on the route out to one of the airports, I could understand. Finsbury Park perhaps, about the same distance out as West Finchley, but the site of a rail intersection; but West Finchley?

Having texted the office to warn them I might be late, the system reopened and I got into work at the same time as usual, despite it all. The relevant idiot just managed to raise my blood pressure for a few minutes, is all. I daresay it was all a little more inconvenient for several thousand other commuters though.

I mean really, West Finchley?

NB: The hassle was not enough to warrant the relevant icon.