Tube Etiquette

I was on my way home this evening, using the Central Line, embarking at Holborn at approx 6.35pm.

Now, anyone with any sense at all, and with any sort of choice, does not travel on the London Underground (ever?) between the hours of 5pm and 7pm. And definitely not between the stations of Bank and Notting Hill Gate on the Central line. Particularly on a day when it had suffered severe delays due to a person under a train at Mile End.

Now, I did know what I was doing when I decided to get the Central line home from Holborn today, but sometimes people go too far. And it is often business people. Grrrrr. I was stuffed onto the doors of the carriage, not able to lift my head fully because of the curve of the train, when a smelly business man decides that although I don't have enough room to avoid looking like I've got rickets, he has enough room to read a newspaper.

I can tell you, dear readers, he did not have enough room to read a newspaper. This was evident in the fact that every time he turned the page, his newspaper would hit me in my cowed and increasingly angry face. He didn't seem to notice this and continued reading despite my breath wiggling the pages.

I tried sighing and huffing in a really obvious fashion - I couldn't move my head! And he was squashing me into the wall so he could stretch out and catch up on the news! I hate him!

We'd got to Queensway by now and I'd had enough, I had to do something. So I got out my current read (Doris Lessing 'The Habit of Loving' - very good) which was actually TINY compared to his big fat newspaper, but the presence of it made him realise there was not enough room for me to read a paperback you could fit in your pocket, let alone a bloody big bit of media toss. Just as I was about to revel in the enjoyment of asserting myself and passive aggressively educating the selfish business man as to the physics of rush hour and reading newspapers, he got off.