Together for London

My Tube journey yesterday morning was particularly loathsome, thanks to delays caused by a person on the rails somewhere along the Northern Line. To their credit, Transport for London announced the problem as a person on the rails rather than as a "customer incident"; but it still meant that the train, which had standing room only when I got on, was approaching breathing room only by the time I had to get off. The crowding was so bad that some people were even driven to move down inside the trucks (or "carriages", as the PA system aristocratically euphemises them) and stand in the aisles between the seats, rather than simply leaning against the doors. Naturally, the platforms were crowded too; and naturally, those on the platforms were in such a hurry to get on that they could spare little, if any, time or patience for those who wished to get off.

Now, to those who dabble in physics, or to pedants like myself, it seems almost easy to understand that if a particular confined space is full, and if some of what is filling it wishes to escape, an advisable course might be to wait for the escape to be consummated before attempting to fill the confined space further. There are some Londoners who have grasped this concept, but I fear they are still a fairly small elite. As soon as the doors opened, and before I had managed to struggle half-way through the semi-permeable concretion of lard and luggage between me and the platform, some grunting thing with hyperactive elbows had thrust itself into the mêlée. Given its obvious endowments of intelligence and foresight, it probably thought it could get a seat.

I did manage to disembark in the end, at the cost of some annoyance and a good deal of unwanted physical contact; no doubt there were others who were not so lucky. Fortunately, Transport for London has set up an online forum, Together for London, which is a place to get talking and share your great ideas to make London a better place, starting with considerate travel. In future, especially between eight and nine o'clock on a wet October morning with crowds and delays and a hard day's work ahead for pay which is losing its value in a job which may soon cease to exist, I'm sure it will make all the difference.