By now I seem to have a separate compartment in my head for things like the blasts in London. And I do all I can not to get stuck in there.
I've had this link for a long time - Going Underground, a blog about the Tube - but I only remembered about it now: because London Underground had never belonged in that special compartment in my head, and it just didn't occur to me there was any urgency to check it on July 7...
Well, it's a wonderful site, with lots of interesting Tube-related pictures and text - so much more than just the post-horror updates...
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For some reason, it reminds me how, a few days before the Moscow subway blast of 2004, I was in a cab in Kyiv, describing to the driver my love for Moscow's subway. He wasn't getting it at all, I could see, even when I tried to explain the subway's beauty by emphasizing its convenience: very often, it's ten minutes underground vs. an hour and a half up above. But to the driver it all boiled down to "Moscow is a fucked-up city and it's impossible to live there."
Shortly after the blast took place (I was in St. Pete then), I could almost see the cab driver having beer with friends and telling them about a crazy girl who'd spent 20 minutes telling him how wonderful Moscow's subway was...
The Northern Line is hard to love, but some of the others - Jubilee and Bakerloo, maybe - are not too bad, I suppose. The tube could really do with a complete overhaul and modernization, something that doesn't seem likely any time soon.
ReplyDeleteThe situation at King's Cross is still grim, by all accounts. But the streets elsewhere in the centre seem normal for a Saturday.
One thing that's striking about Thursday's bomb attacks is their synchronized nature: they were apparently timed with great precision and accuracy.
I've spent most of today so far in central London at my harmony and improvisation classes, though haven't been on the tube. DLR and overground Network trains look to be running ok, though there are some long delays. Police presence at Charing Cross was fairly large, with vanloads of police waiting outside the station - I'm not sure why, as it seems unclear how they can help if there are more blasts, and that seems improbable so soon after Thursday.
07.09.05 - 6:24 pm