This is basically just an observation/rant/story/other I felt like sharing.
Anyway, about two weeks ago, I went to London to see Dream Theater in concert. To cut a far, far too long story short, when I got out of the bus station in Victoria, we walked to Buckingham Palace, walked back because we realised we were lost, found a map, went north-north-east until we found anything which looked like it wasn’t a residential area, reached Picadilly before realising that Hammersmith (and thus our hotel) wasn’t actually on the map (and shortly after realising that Victoria seems to be in at least three different locations in London – we found countless signs to it, one of which pointing in exactly the opposite direction to that Victoria was actually in) and so we found an underground station. Ever-prepared, my mum had booked three underground passes, good for three days, and so we did a bit of station hopping. None of us had ever really taken the London underground, so it was something of a learning experience for all of us. When we entered the station, we were confronted with two huge panels upon the wall, one of which had a blue heading, and read “Picadilly Line,” and the other of which was “Bakerloo Line,” in brown. There was a huge list of stops there, and we scanned down it, looking for anything of any interest, and pretty much failed miserably. It quickly but uncomfortably dawned on me that though many of the place names were familiar, I didn’t have the foggiest where Maida Vale was, nor whether it would take me closer to or further from Hammersmith. The sign may as well have been written in the Greek alphabet for all the good it would do me. So as mum continued to pore over the meaningless lists of locations, I decided to explore the station a little more. Within a minute, I found a huge map of the London Underground, just around the corner from where the useless (to us, anyway) signs were.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/colourmap.gif
The London Underground map was, surprisingly, something I actually recognised (which wasn’t a sign telling me that I was in the right direction to get to Victoria (though every direction seemed to be, that day)) - from what I gather, it’s the most famous topological map in the world – a map which is deliberately inaccurate, and instead composed purely of straight lines, making it easier to navigate – if you’re underground, the exact nature of the directions you’re going in are negligible. So long as you can tell where you’ll find yourself, and approximately what direction you’re going in, you can use the map with no trouble. The map was originally designed in 1931 by an electrical engineer called Harry Beck. In 1960, publicity officer Harold Hutchinson got his hands on the map and proceeded to hack away at it without Beck’s consent, and Beck fought to regain control of it, until eventually it was instead given to a man called Paul Garbutt, who changed the style to one more similar to Beck’s. Beck preferred this greatly to Garbutt’s, but he later created a revised version, which he submitted. In spite of realising that the authorities would never use one of his own maps again, he continued to draw up new ones until his death in 1974.
Scanning the famous map, I scanned the Bakerloo and Picadilly lines looking for some way to reach Hammersmith, and upon finding one, I repeated it in mum’s general direction. I was relatively proud of myself. See, in general, I’m somewhat… dozy, in general. If someone else knows what they’re doing, then I usually let them do it, and I double check absolutely everything I do with them. My mum’s been persistently attempting to give me as many things to do on my own, but as a general rule I have to be absolutely certain to be comfortable. A typical conversation can go something like this…
“Okay, just go to the customer help desk.”
“That’s that big thing with the people, right?”
“Yes. Just ask for a job application form.”
“I ask the guy with the uniform on the left, right?”
“Yes, either of them.”
“Are you sure? They have cash registers.”
“YES.”
To put it simply, I lean on a crutch whenever possible to save myself the tedious chore of thinking. It’s not that I’m lazy as such, nor dozy (though I certainly appear both), it’s that I don’t like the idea of doing something as wrongly as possible – I’d rather destroy the faintest shadow of a doubt at the other person’s extreme exasperation than go through trial and error. In spite of this, however, I’d already navigated up to Picadilly Circus (we were aiming to reach Oxford Circus, but hey, I got it half right! And besides, we were just looking for somewhere with shops more than Oxford Circus in particular.), and so that was two victories of navigation for me, and I didn’t ask a single person. I was on a roll, here. I explained to mum, complete with finger-tracing-across-map, that we should take the brown Bakerloo line to Paddington Station, and then take the pink Hammersmith & City line to Hammersmith. Due to the way the map is drawn, Paddington appears twice, so I had some time attempting to convince her that it is unlikely that there are, in fact, two Paddington stations right next to each other, and that chances were that we’d be able to change lines there. Eventually I convinced her to give it a shot, and reminded her that our passes are valid for three days, just in case we wound up in the wrong Paddington and had to go back.
[center][IMG]http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/sabreydoo/24e04316.jpg[/IMG][/center]
So we dug out our passes, fed them into the ticket holders (“I like these things. They’re neat.”), and took the correct escalator down to the station. It was a moderate sized chamber, with sparks flying visibly from the tracks in front of me. I looked into the tunnel on my right, but I couldn’t see anything much. Within about thirty seconds of arriving at the platform, however, I heard it. A rumble from my right, getting louder and louder, until I saw the front of the train emerge from the blackness. And, well, I was expecting something a lot more like a train, and a lot less like a boeing 747 cunningly disguised as a train. The thing hurtled past me at a speed I was unprepared for, and I flattened the palms of my hands against the wall behind me. I was somewhat taken aback by the passengers’ expressions – there was not a single one there who didn’t look unexcited. There were people reading magazines, people just staring at the opposite side of the carriage, people looking like they would in any other form of public transport – and of course, that’s what it was to them. To me, an out of towner, shocked at its speed and having never used the subway before, it was incredible. To them, it was another, run-of-the-mill, day in day out run on the tube. It quickly slowed to a stop (and there’s an oxymoron for you) and a door opened right in front of me. Passengers went off, and I swiftly walked on board, raising my eyebrows appraisingly. I stood up, and no sooner had I finally discovered the ceiling railings that the train accelerated back into the darkness, en route to Oxford Circus.
I’ll admit it. Part of the reason that I liked the notion of taking the underground to Paddington Station is because of Paddington Bear. My immediate reaction was “ooh, that’s where paddington bear comes from,” it was about fifteen seconds before it was followed up with “OOH, we can change lines there to get to Hammersmith!” As a result, when I changed my standing position for a seat at Oxford Circus and got a good look at the route plan, I was surprised to realise that it was possible to access the Hammersmith & City line from Baker Street, with no real obvious benefit except that it saved us stopping at Marylebone station. Deciding to be adventurous for once (if you can call departing at a different clearly-marked station adventurous) I clambered off the train (which is not in fact, as I stated, anything like a train at all) at Baker Street Station, where the first thing that came to my attention was the tiling. There were silhouettes of a man wearing a deerstalker, with a pipe in his mouth all over them, at which point I promptly felt disgusted at myself for making the Paddington Station association with Paddington Bear yet totally forgetting that Sherlock Holmes lived at Baker Street. The thought wouldn’t even have occurred to me even now were the walls not covered in him. Anyway, I navigated through Baker Street Station (again, taking the lead! I was getting good at this. :[b][/b]D) and we waited about three minutes for the next train to Hammersmith to arrive, seeing two different trains stop for no more than thirty seconds before continuing on their merry ways before the Hammersmith arrived. There was a helpful panel protuding from the wall which kept log of how long you were going to wait for the next train and which was coming next. This was quite easily the most efficient transport system I’d ever seen, I could have rode it around London all day.
[center][IMG]http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/sabreydoo/LondonUnderground-Route2.jpg[/IMG][/center]
And, that’s the point I’m trying to make. I’ve heard lots of Londoners complaining about how horrendous their transport facilities are, but personally, I love them. I want one to get to school with. D: Maybe the fact that they use them so frequently jades the experience slightly, but I can’t understand how anyone could possibly be dissatisfied with them. It’s the same story all around London. The Hammersmith bus station (which I used to find my way back to Victoria the following day – Victoria seems to be incredibly easy to find, except when you’re making a conscious effort to. Then it’s twenty minutes away) was streamlined, was modern, had concessions kiosks, was litter-free, provided us with benches giving us a useful view of what’s going on outside, gave quick access to all buses coming and leaving, exhibited the same panels as at the Baker Street Station. When I got back to Gloucester bus station later that day, however, I noticed that it was a slightly dilapidated concrete slab filled with litter and puddles, with buses arriving maybe once a day. The buses were far more prompt than any public transport service I’ve ever seen in any other city, town, or village, and the tube was efficient beyond words. I don’t see what’s to hate, and I’d love to see something similar implemented here. London public transport is, in my (limited) experience, efficient, modern, and wonderfully run, and I’m of the firm belief that any Londoners sneering “yeah, right” should come to Gloucester. I’d be more than happy to trade.
Well, that's my long post for the year over with.
I can't believe I read all of that...
Though you managed to make it interesting and funny. So that helped.
Um, awesome. That was actually very entertaining. The reason, I think, that you were able to take charge in this situation is that the London Underground map is probably one of the best-designed things in the entire country. And I'll probably stretch that to the underground itself. As you said, you can get completely lost in London, find an Underground station, and hop on a train, and come back up knowing exactly where you are without the bother of knowing how to get there. I love London for that very reason - I feel safer that most other places, simply because I know I can never be stranded.
Oh, and Paddington Bear was from Darkest Peru :)
I should send you a song called London Underground. You might enjoy it.
Oh and tl;dr.
I'm still sending it to you whether you like it or not.
If you refuse the file transfer I'll mail a floppy disk to you.
I'm not wasting a CD on it.
Why not email the song?...
I don't know his email adress.
sabredog AT gmail DOT com.
But, send it to me and I yell at you.
Repeatedly.
In the throat.
I will fly over to personally sing the song to you.
Heeeeeeeeeeey good idea!
lol
Sabre, nice read (I'm kinda surprised that I read it all, too ;)). Ahh, this just makes me want to visit London/UK even more.
Ahh, the Amateur Transplants. Legends, every one.
And Calpol with no sugar in.
