London
Created: 28//09/00
 
  London is like a warm toilet seat, it has a history, but only a sicko would ask about it. You go to London to use the facilities, wipe, wash your hands and move on. Despite spending their existence in the graffitied cubical that is S.E England, Londoners have an inexplicable pride for their culture. A way of life which arose out of a desperate attempt to hang onto the worst parts of their history. Not that London has a pretty history anyway - London's been the scene of more fires, plagues and wars than the Bible.

The toilet analogy can be stretched further - lift the seat and join me in the shit-caked plumbing that is London's public transport system; 'The Tube'. Squeeze past the beggars and the pushy suits, to buy your overpriced ticket, then step over the puddles of stale urine, and ride with me down the hypnotic chewing-gum embossed escalators into the dank underworld. Here you are alone. You may not be able to move for all of the people crushing you, but none will acknowledge you, especially if you do anything to try to get attention. Now sit still and listen to the soul-crushing misery of the robotic voice of Sonia. Sonia is our Virgil, guiding us by announcing the manifold tortures available at each step in our underworld journey. "Now arriving at ... Piccadilly Circus ... change here for ... The Piccadilly Line." Wails Sonia in antidiluvian tones

As one driver put it, "we call her sonia because she gets sonia nerves." In fact, Sonia doesn't just get on your nerves, day by day she drives you closer to suicidal depression! If only for once Sonia would cheer up, the city of London would instantaneously metamorphise into an orgiastic garden of paradise!

And the delays! I hope you enjoy being crushed between the distended arse of an obese negro irishman and a schizophrenic chinese burn victim, because you're gonna be stuck there for a while yet. The gods of London Transport a rolling those dice:
  1. Signal failure
  2. Flooding
  3. A gas Leak
  4. faulty escalators
  5. Someone pulling the emergency stop handle
  6. Security Alert (someone firing a rocket launcher at MI6)
Don't think you can avoid the tube, either. Petrol shortages and traffic that consists of only taxis and tourists looking for parking ensure there is no other option. My theory is that Londoners miss the good old days of WWII, and they're trying very hard to recreate that old atmosphere. In case you had thought that these days you could trust a stranger, posters warning that 'loose lips cost lives' have been replaced with signs cautioning 'this area frequented by professional pickpockets'. Bars still close at 11pm in most of the city. The demoralizing work of air raid sirens is now efficiently performed by Sonia and her mechanical siblings mindlessly repeating 'mind the gap'. And the bombs? Well, the IRA have made sure they aren't missed.


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Thanks to RGriffin for the sound effects