London is different. I live close to a tube station on the Piccadilly line, about 30 minutes from the centre of Town and the morning regimen goes something like this:
Get the tube before 8am or it looks like this:
People packed in so tight, face to face, clenched fists hang from rails and expressions universally devoid of emotion, too cowed to even show anger.
Most read free news papers, disposable entertainment and seething predigested anger, a proxy for their own disenchantment at their lives.
The train stops frequently and not just at stations. The "customers," as TFL management call this hot and sweaty cargo, sway and lurch. We arrive at Hammersmith.
Into the underground, as hot as hades, with companions that show few signs of life. No one talks. Not to themselves or to others. Both would be a sign of madness here. We are individuals, not a community. Everyone else here is to annoy "me," the identity constructed by advertising in The Metro.
By Earl's Court the carriage fills once more, the temporary relief of the quick-whitted jumping ship for the District line gone. There is nowhere to put your feet and arms are a cats-cradle reaching for a few inches of empty handhold.
Hyde park. A scramble for the doors. Space, room to breathe and perspire. Soon the scramble for the Bakerloo line. The urgent need for all the exiting passengers to be First through the doors causes a log jam. On the Bakerloo platform the train arrives promptly and once on board the competitors take up positions around the carriage door, ready for the running start for the escalators at the other end.
We swarm out of the train and jostle each other to be first on the escalators. Finally, outside in the morning air of London I can relax. Others reach for cigarettes and take needy gulps of smoke into their lungs to relieve their own tensions.
I savour the moments of space and relative peace, before turning my back on the London Underground experience and begin the working day.
