Welcome to the Future

I was sat on a Victoria line tube train a little while ago, I think it may have been a return journey after a pretty messy night out, and my head was forming a load of half-jumbled half-conscious thoughts about life and the future and other such incomprehensible topics. I thought about Marty McFly and his hoverboard, and how we're way off on whatever his predicted targets would've been about hoverboard production in the 21st century, and considered what technological milestones would have to be reached to move us forward to a hoverboard-using technologically-advanced future.

We pulled into a station, and I was vaguely aware of being told to keep my belongings with me at all times, and that CCTV was in use throughout the train for my safety and security.

Image courtesy of ScoutLondon - thank you!

And, for whatever reason, it suddenly hit me that I was miles under London's surface, travelling through underground tunnels on this electrical transit system with digitalised displays and a disembodied voice announcing where I was, and where I would next be, and where I'd end up if I dared to fall asleep and miss my stop, and that yes, I was being watched, my every move being scrutinised, for safety and security purposes, much like George Orwell had predicted some 63 years ago.

And I realised that, despite the absence of hoverboards, I am very much in The Future.

(Or, you know, The Present, as we now like to call it.)

Magic Moments

I thought I'd share the following story because god knows we could all do with a laugh from time to time. 


Last Thursday I got up and started getting ready for work...unfortunately, it wasn't one of my more leisurely starts, but those are few and far between anyway that I hardly even notice any more. I brushed my teeth, got dressed, packed my bag, probably spent ten minutes fretting that I only had ten minutes left before I had to leave, and then subsequently left ten minutes after that. Walked down the road to the tube station, changed at Finsbury Park, got the Victoria line from there all the way down to Vauxhall and, as I was getting off the tube, swung my bag onto my shoulder thinking I'd seen something dart across the carriage from the corner of my eye - but dismissed it merely as an optical illusion, and went up the escalators to the railway bit of Vauxhall station. 


I got the distinct impression that there were more pairs of eyes on me than usual, but I assumed it was me just being more observant or slightly more awake, so took no notice.


Feeling pretty pleased with myself for being a good eight minutes early for my train, I decided to go and get some cash out, but started getting really confused because they seem to have moved the cash machines from where they used to be located. So I went over to a row of seats to get my purse out of my bag, swung my rucksack over my shoulder and - OHMYGOD - stood there in silent mortification having realised that I'd had a bra dangling from my bag straps for the entire length of my journey into work thus far. Literally, from north to south London. 


Needless to say I've kept my room far tidier in the last week.

Waterloo Station

It's a Monday morning and what that typically means is that I'm on my way to work via Waterloo station.

There's nothing strange about that in itself - I do the Wood Green - Waterloo - Feltham thing at least once or twice a week, it's basically the only time I get any reading done.

What does amaze me, every time, is the particular smell Waterloo station has - specifically, the smell as one goes through the ticket barriers and through the ticket hall and up the stairs to the train platforms. It is so unique and hits you just as you set foot on the escalators. I wouldn't go so far as to call it acrid, but an increase in strength of about 35% would definitely put it into that boundary.

Waterloo escalator (from here - thank you!)

The only way I can think to describe it is by likening it to the smell one might get if one cooked a kilo of dust in a steamer per person to go through Waterloo, then sprinkled it with a generous helping of iron filings, and added some essence l'aluminium to boot.

It saddens me to think that the benefits I've gleamed through (just about) giving up smoking are probably outweighed by passing through Waterloo station a couple of times a week.

Wi-Fi (not) on the line?

So thanks to the fact that lately Twitter has been my major source of info anything-related, it's come to my attention that Transport for London are planning to introduce Wi-Fi services on the London Underground. All well and good, thanks very much. But, given that they're not going to be introducing it on the actual trains, does beg the question - why? If you're using the tube at rush hour, it's never more than 2-3min wait for the next train. How much googling/tweeting does one expect to do in that time..?

However, I acknowledge that it would be especially beneficial to have an outlet for commuters' anger when tubes are delayed/evacuated/too packed.

Though I'd also imagine that pretty soon they'd have to mock up some TfL advisory posters, along the lines of "I will not unwittingly hit into people in stations and on platforms while I've my nose buried in my Wi-Fi enabled device."

(Photo found here - thank you!)