anatomy · of · distance

There were problems on the Central Line today, possibly due to a fire. Trains, which normally would run a few minutes apart at peak hours, were rather thin on the ground. And so, when the last train for 10 minutes rolled by*, it was already packed solid, and there was physically no space in the sweaty crush of bodies onboard for those on the platform wishing to travel eastward. Which didn't stop people from packing on, standing in the doorway and looking like tits as they realised that the doors probably wouldn't close with them onboard.

The train waited at the platform for a minute before the excess passengers left the doorways. Some time into that, the air was permeated by the loud sound of 1970s disco music. "I'm In The Mood For Dancing", to be precise; filling the station platform, as if it were piped through the PA, only loudly. People laughed as the incongruous music highlighted the absurdity of their predicament.

I wondered what that was all about; whether it was (a) some new psychological crowd-calming technique being tried by Transport For London to prevent outbursts of Tube Rage, or (b) the prelude to a rather surrealistic terrorist attack, like something out of a Christopher Brookmyre novel. It turned out to be (c), a manky, vaguely homeless-looking chap with a personal boom box.

(I got a photo of him, but the machine hosting my website's down again.)

* "Pah! You Londoners have it easy", I can hear the Melburnians in the audience saying.