Relationships & the London Underground

The London Underground is kind of like having a bad relationship. When you meet it for the first time, you're excited by the novelty of it all. You want to go for a ride, you think it is taking you places you've never been before and you kind of like it. In fact, you like it a lot. Things are off to a good start.

Then you get to know it a bit better. It never arrives on time, you can never count on it to be there when you need it to be. You expect it to work but then suddenly, it doesn't. You realise it gives you mixed messages, it tells you to "Stand to the Right" on the escalator and then to "Keep Left" when you exit through the stairs. So you never know where you stand with it. It has signs that lead you astray, that get you lost telling you Trafalgar Square is here, when actually it's really over there.  Or worse yet, it doesn't give you anything at all, leaving you alone, lost and confused. If anything, it's a nuisance and it drives you mad. You can't live with it and you can't live without it. So you keep coming back for more, time and time again because things go back to being good. But really you go back simply and purely because you have to.

It also doesn't know where it is going sometimes. Which really drives me nuts. Take the Northern Line for example, it splits into four directions. One line, four directions. Could you be anymore absurd? You are deliberately doing this to wind me up aren't you? And if you are looking to go off into one direction (out of the four), it says something ridiculous like "via Charing Cross" or if you are going another way "via Bank". God you are not making any sense at all. Wouldn't it have been easier if you had of just said wherever it is you are actually going, being the "final destination", similar to every other transport system in the world? Why can't you just get to the point? Or better yet, safe the confusion and call it something completely different as opposed to having four different versions of the one line.

And sometimes people throw themselves in front of the tube rather than go on it. Really they do. Not because they hate it that much. Well, I couldn't say for sure. But it happens often enough, that when there is an announcement that the, "The District line to Wimbledon is experiencing delays due to someone going under", everyone's first thought is "Again? what a nuisance?" Sounds cruel I know, but that is how people think here. There was even one of those group emails circling around titled, "You know you have lived in London for too long when..." and one of the dot points read "You think it is a nuisance when someone kills themselves on the tube". Wow, that is bleak.

I even googled suicide rates in the London Underground and I found that it was 1 pound 50 plus VAT. Ouch, A bit steep hey? And the reason they announce someone has gone under is because they want to inform passengers that the Transport for London is not at fault for the delay. And here's a fun fact. If a tube driver witnesses three people who kill themselves on the job, policy states they are entitled to retire and access their pension immediately.

At the heart of any relationship, you kind of can't help but have a soft spot for it, maybe even love it. Despite its flaws, it is so London and one small part of what makes it so.

Welcome to the London Underground and my relationship with it, till death do us part.