London Diary (1)

The DLR is catching up on delayed repairs; Tower Gateway is running in a British sort of way and they managed to fix the screen display at the stations. The screens now show changing times; they bear no relation to the trains running from the platforms, but I suppose it’s better for the screens at least. Seven months to fix a minor bug, and then to get it wrong, can anything be more British?

Something I like about the DLR are its in train announcements. Driving into Devons Road station, the train stops. There’s a gong and the doors open. Then comes the announcement: ‘This is a train to Stratford, the next stop is Devons Road.’ There’s the going again and the doors close. Driving out of the station, there’s the announcement: ‘This is Devons Road, please take all your personal belongings with you.’

But at least the announcement is in English. The Tube on the other hand has taken equal opportunities to the limit and is employing a French employee at Bow Street Station. The announcements made by her are incomprehensible to all but me; it’s pure Clouseau. I am all for equal opportunities, but I balk at stupidity; what do you want with an employee who is understood by me and a few frogs?

The tube has its own agenda on announcements as well. I sometimes wonder how many years it took them to get them down so pat to the worst possible moment. Imagine, you are standing in a tube station, and all is quiet, no train is moving. There comes the announcement: ‘Bank Station is not accessible ...’ or 'Blackfriars Station will be closed until late in 2011.’ Both these announcement are shouted at you every few minutes in a stentorian voice at a decibel level that is illegal in Switzerland inside a dance club. If you've heard it once, you heard it a thousand times.

Now the train is approaching, and while it is clamping into the station, there is a whispered announcement starting off with the line you are just going to board: ‘On the Hammersmith and City Line’ after which you can’t hear a word for all you try. By the time the train has come to a noisy standstill, the announcement is finished, and you board the train none the wiser as to what is the matter with the service.

The in train announcements are as enlightening as all the rest. While the train is standing at a red light, a perfectly clear and loud announcement by the driver is transmitted, informing you that you are standing at a red light. How thoughtful of him or her. Then there are the whispered announcements during the ride, usually telling you of lines that are not running from the next station where you wanted to change. But as you can’t understand a word being said, you have to find that out at the next station after you left the train.

I saved the best for last, though. Having got onto a train that is already running late, it suddenly stops for several minutes at a station. The stentorian announcement rings through the quiet train: ‘The train stops here for some time to equal out intermissions between trains.’ What a positive way of saying that they are utterly incompetent. Where even the smallest train line on the continent is able to insert trains to keep delays to a minimum, the tube services just lengthen the delays. Probably regular delays are counted as good services in the books of the London Mayor.

Please Boris, we all know you are a complete incompetent, but can’t you find at least one person who isn't? Just one single competent person who will work, instead of all those welfare recipients called tube employees?

Read the prequel ‘Oh, to be in England’