I was never cool in school
I’m sure you don’t remember me
And now it’s been 10 years
I’m still wondering who to be…..

But I’m not here to talk about Ben Folds. I’m thinking of starting a serial about The London Underground, I’m sure no-one will read it, nor want to, but if I’m going to get famous I at least need something that I can look back on in ten years and regret, especially when Billie Piper (famous singer, Doctor Who Actress, and now an author thanks to her autobiography which has been selling like hot cakes) decides to write a biography on me with her new found writing talent. Her or Plato, formerly known as Aristocles (yes this is news to me too), as a man with such brilliant foresight surely pulled a Nostradamus and sensed into the future that I, a fellow philosopher shared a common interest, that being red wine and Beer, and felt the need to etch out a biography, detailing events right down to their last accurate detail.

Really, he would.. And he did:

Shannon - The Words of Plato - B.C 17034

Underground Serial #132

As many who’ve talked to me in the past few months will know. I could talk about the Tube all day, it provides much entertainment for me, the 45 minute trip into the City and home every day is something that one doesn’t normally enjoy, but I look forward to it anyway. It’s like watching television, but you get a new instalment almost every day:

• News - Heart Attacks and people collapsing in the heat, station closures due to bombs, suspicious packages and overcrowding, suicide attempts, trains going the wrong way (though I wasn’t there for this episode, I had to watch it on TV later) and even derailments!!
• Reality - The Simple Life with the Posh girl who gets on and spends the whole journey on her phone shout at the top of her lungs to her friend that her boyfriend doesn’t want to buy her x thousand pound jewellery
• Soap Opera - The two guys, talking in an equally loud voice about their love lives, work, drugs and partying; and the horrible old Australian woman who couldn’t shut up about the fact that Britain has Digital TV now, and its going to change everyone’s world (apparently its a government conspiracy to make everyone spend their money, for fantastic quality television with more channels, nonetheless!)

and the list goes on…

Anyway, up until last Friday I hadn’t thought of using the London Transport site as a source of news and speculation into that nights episode, ever since, I’ve been checking it every half hour at work. Friday was the day the first car bomb was found near Piccadilly Circus station, before the other in London and attempted bombing at Glasgow Airport. On that morning, the station was closed, I didn’t realise what was up until later when some people in the office were talking about the goings on of the night before. Now i frequently check the London Transport site, and often see an update table like this:

A day in the life of the London Tube System

 

Since Friday I’ve seen severe Delays caused by closed stations due to suspicous packages and bomb threats about ten times, and all sorts of other reasons for delays, like train breakdowns, signal failures, fire alerts and overcrowding (sometimes due to other closures).  Then today, to my surprise I came upon a derailment:

“…It is not thought to be terrorist related and Superintendent Phil Trendall of the British Transport Police described it as “a relatively minor incident”.

It is thought 37 people were hurt, 11 of whom were taken to hospital with minor injuries.

The accident happened just after 9am and the affected passengers were still on the train around an hour later while the track was checked.

It is believed that six carriages came off the track but the train was still in an upright position…”

- Quote: http://news.sky.com

Now once again, I’m not engineer, or one of those button pushers with the news paper who sits at the front of the carriage and drives  myself and 500+ other people at once into the city (yes, thats the driver, no apparently they don’t do anything except a button for go, and one for stop),  but I would have thought that a train derailment in any shape of form is a very serious incident.  Despite the fact no-one died and the train managed to stay upright, a workmans stupidity (I think, by the sound of the story) caused a train, carrying 500ish people, to jump off its rails in a deep tunnel and leave people stranded for well over an hour, is problem, and a serious one at that.  You accidentally remove a section of a freeway on-ramp, and people are going to be surprised, and upset, and just because their cars are in an upright position doesn’t mean squat when they’ve slammed into a wall or embankment instead.  That was pointless, hooray for 2 in the AM.

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