News|Movies|BD & DVD|Writings|Other

Friday, October 2, 2009

London Bridge is falling down...

12:30 PM / General / 3 Comments

...well, it's not, actually, but it was the only heading I could think of. I was in London yesterday for the first time in over a decade. The people of that fair city have, for some reason, a reputation for being rather rude, but at least going by my experience yesterday, it's completely undeserved, as the people I spoke to were all extremely nice and helpful. And I had good reason to ask for help, due to the slight issue of the Dockland Light Railway line being out of action due to a "computer failure" (originally, we were told that someone had jumped in front of an oncoming train, but a few moments later the story changed - I suspect a hush-up), leaving me stranded at Bank Station with no way of getting to the airport and the check-in deadline rapidly approaching. (In the end, after asking three different people which buses I should take and being given three completely different answers, I gave up and splurged on the most expensive taxi ride of my life.)

Until the aforementioned closure of the DLR line, I was very impressed by the punctuality, frequency and efficiency of the London Underground. In comparison, Glasgow's railway service is not exactly known for any of these qualities, and its single subway system only covers a distance of three miles. (Although, in its defence, the three-mile line does cover pretty much anywhere of note that you would actually want to visit. London, by contrast, is far more spread out.) That said, unless you're a fan of sweltering heat and stale air, the London Underground is not a particularly pleasant place to be. Even on a relatively mild early afternoon in October, I found the temperature pretty close to unbearable. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like in the middle of one of the south of England's notorious summers. One would think that global warming would have prompted someone to think to install air conditioning in the carriages.

3 Comments

 
To combat spam, commenting is automatically disabled on entries older than 30 days.

Did a comment you tried to post accidentally get eaten by the spam filter? It happens from time to time. I get upwards of 200 spam comments every day and unfortunately don't have the time to weed through all of them in case something genuine ended up there by mistake. If one of your posts gets incorrectly flagged as spam, email me at whiggles[at]ntlworld[dot]com and I'll do my best to retrieve it.