Copyright Hell

(From "Copyright Hell")

 

It was 6.15pm and I was stuck on the High Barnet to Morden, via Bank. Again.

 

For those who are strangers to London, take heed. If you must use the unpredictable contraption better known as the Tube, avoid the Northern Line—aka the Misery Line, aka the oldest tube line in the world. Call it what you will but avoid it like the plague.

 

The Northern Line has given new meaning to being fashionably late. Leaves on the line, the two-hour lunch breaks that trade union rules stipulate must be taken between Stockwell and the Oval. You name it: the Northern Line will act up with all the stroppy and sulking mulishness that befits a true Diva of the underground. Another thing you should know about the London Underground: this is where spontaneous conversation goes to die. Victoria, Finsbury Park, Hammersmith and City, Charing Cross: it matters not. Even the most exhibitionist chatterbox will falter mid-sentence once over the threshold. “So, when his decapitated head rolled onto the —”

 

Mm-hmm. Just so.

 

Thus, it was I found myself in the third carriage of the 6.15pm with my fellow travellers, avoiding each other’s eyes as skilfully as movie actors phasing out a camera lens on set.    In an attempt to while away this exhilarating hiatus in our journey, I picked up one of the free rags from the ledge behind me. Usually it would be the Metro, London Lite, or The London Paper, no—scrap the last: the London Paper had met its demise just last month. But anyway, it would be one of those.

 

However, this paper was something new, albeit with a highly unoriginal and overused tag: The Underground Seen. Mentally I added but not heard. Par for the course with the tube passengers really. We were conversation-killing, eyeball-averting, unapproachable, non-communicative bunch.

 

Totally predictable.