I found out something today! Yes, it occasionally happens, and don’t worry, I do think and discover things occasionally, and no, noone got hurt. Standing on the tube this morning, leaning my full wait against the door. I realised if the train shuddred with my weight on the small slidey doors at the ends of the carriage, I can quite easily open the door while the train is in motion. Little did I figure that by doing so, the trains engines instantly cut off until the door is either closed again or someone gets smacked in the face. Needless to say, going 80-100kmph in a train then feeling myself slide sideways slightly and all the lights in the train go out for a couple of seconds with a big shudder is not exactly fun. Not for everyone else on the train at least.

To make matters worse, I did it twice. Maybe this door was weak, maybe next will with stand the power of Shan. I shall find out, I will fight for the RDOTMAPD’s, that’s right, the Righteous discoverers of train mishaps and possibly deaths. Course, I don’t think anyone was in any danger through my split second of fun, as everyone knows the only danger on the London Tubes are the mystical death doors:

I know, I shouldn’t re use past pictures, but you have to understand the back and front door of each carriage has this message. Why do signs around the place, but especially in this new land of weird and wonderful oppurtunity have to be so blatent? Has the American wave of sueing people for walking down the wrong side of the road with blue shoes on taken over the whole world?? Must we warning stamp everything?? Another good one is the voltage warnings on the train platforms. I’ve seen:

Danger: Ultra High Voltage DO NOT TOUCH

Danger: High Voltage (10kV) , do not pass! (I think it was 10kV’s, some big number anyway)

and, my favourite;

Danger: 600V! Stand Back (with a logo which looks like it was taken from engrish.com instructing people not to litter or a big red cross would slap them on the hand)

My complete ignorance toward the dangers of electricity have not taught me much, but my mere brain has conjoured up the thought that, 600V is indeed rather dangerous as its probably an area of high current due to torque required to start from a stand still at a station. Physicists, Electricians, Engineers even janitors and social workers should step in here and correct me as to what is actually going on here. All I know is, you see loads of signs stating danger (multi hundreds thousand volts here), and then a sign with danger, 600V!! and it doesn’t exactly sound terribly dangerous. It might be just me, but that sounds like the difference between a sign stating Danger: 3M deep water, and then another stating Danger: 0.6M deep water except a well bit more deadly.

It just begs the question, why would someone touch the electrified rails, or the bright sparking transformer at the end of the platform. Let them die, they deserve it.

I made another discovery today too. We had a lockdown at the office today. This involved making sure all the doors which are usually left open, like fire doors and the security doors between us and the lobby, and us and the stair wells were locked all day. This would usually require pass card entry. I forgot my pass card as I went out to lunch and realised my mistake as I walked back into the building. After thinking about it for about 10 seconds, I jumped in the lift, and went straight to the sub level below, without a pass card, only to walk straight around the corner into the (fantastically secure) office. Interesting topic of discussion for about 10 minutes.

I leave you with a final note:

 

Yes star bucks, I’m as much for July the first as the rest of us (anti smoking ban, pretty much all public places across the country), but you would have to be completely up yourselves or on something whacky to believe in anyway that others smoking has an effect on the quality of your coffee. I’d rather you protected the quality of your coffee by not burning it every morning, giving me latte’s that taste like hot milk, and cappicino’s that are about 3/4 of head (asking for a wet one solves this little issue though, it took me weeks to find that one out).

Maybe I should write some of my own signs and put then in every Starbucks.

 

Yes Shannon, you are as much of an anarchist as your drunk tired mind thinks you are will writing a conversation with yourself about coffee on the internet at 2am.

 

Peace

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