Successfully navigating a tube strike is a difficult and unpredictable game. You're never quite certain how it will effect you until you're right in the thick of it. Sometimes you end up going nowhere, unable to find or board any mode of transport; sometimes you end up on an empty train as if the whole world is on holiday.
It is through a tube strike that I found myself on a 295 going south from Hammersmith. I got lucky and set out my sun lounger with the "whole world on holiday" scenario...
Read MoreA signal failure on the District line. Quelle surprise.
We are hovering antagonistically outside Wimbledon, the final stop of the line (hindsight will later inform me that we are waiting for one of four empty platforms to "become available").
It's a busy weekday morning and there's a man in the carriage who looks a bit like his conveyance via public transport was far from his first-choice mode of travel. He doesn't necessarily exhibit wealth - he's tanned, slim, camp and fashionable - but he looks like he has manipulated his existence, at great personal cost, to avoid such hardships as the tube.
Anyway. This delay is causing the poor lad considerable distress...
Read MoreThe tube strike of 29/30 April led me a merry dance indeed. While largely unscathed I did find myself, twice, at Earl's Court with two equally unideal choices.
1) Cram onto a tube for a hellish three stops, or:
2) Walk 2 miles home along the dreary A4.
On the first day I managed to lure some friends to a pub in Kensington, therefore dividing the journey into two manageable chunks - the second chunk decidedly more pleasant than the first.
On the second day I took my march on the chin and stomped up beside the traffic of the A4...
Read MoreI'm stood on a platform at Wimbledon waiting for a train to zone 6. It's a chilly March morning. 8 degrees Celsius if you must know.
On the platform across from me, an extremely fit and toned man ambles along. I can tell this because he is not wearing a top and I can see his six pack with my own eyes. He's wearing some quite loose jogging bottoms that start just above the belly button, and that taper to an elasticated halt just above the ankle. Socks and trainers complete the look. Essentially he looks like he has just stepped out of a martial arts dojo...
Read MoreI get on the Piccadilly line going north from Holborn. I stand in the bit for suitcases and prams. It's a Thursday in February, about 8pm. The train is reasonably busy but this prized area of leaning space seems to be ominously empty. Then I realise why.
It stinks of shit. Actual human shit. I'm half expecting to see a shit on the floor, and I look for one too. I actually dip my head and look at the floor for a shit. But there isn't one that I can see.
Someone hasn't just farted here. They've bowled a googly and followed all the way through. It's bad.
I'm now in a classic Tube dilemma...
Read MorePiccadilly line, going west from central London, about 11pm.
I notice a young girl in her early 20s, small, slight figure. Quite cute, wearing a woollen dress and black leggings. She's got a small clutch and looks likes she's on her way home from a night out.
I notice her because she's cramped behind a couple of people near the end of the carriage, but at the next stop a few people alight. There's plenty of space now so she moves over to the window by the emergency exit, leaning against a cushion.
At this point, a guy, fairly stocky for his average size, mid-20s - wearing rubbish jeans and only a long-sleeved shirt to fend off the cold January air - sidles over to her as deftly as a penguin with no legs. He's absolutely hammered. He starts to say something but is immediately shot down.
Read MorePaddington, Monday, 9.45am. Heading to Wimbledon.
I arrive on the platform just moments before the train pulls in. I make a bee-line for the front carriage as Wimbledon is a typical terminus station (exit at the front).
I've got enough time to make the front but decide to eschew it in favour of a business class seat in the second carriage.
I can see that the train is quiet, there's no-one near where I'm about to sit.
The tube comes to a stop and the doors open. To my surprise there is a passenger waiting to alight who I had not previously spotted - a pigeon. Let's call him Percy.
Read MoreSat in my usual business class position going east from Wimbledon, District line. It's about 1.30 on a weekday afternoon. Off-peak.
A fellow business class passenger takes the seat opposite. She has with her a pram and a small boy.
On the back of his little t-shirt he has a suitably amusing phrase. LETS PLAY (sic). It expresses the assuming and obvious to-do list of a child who is a long way from any notion of responsibility.
The missing apostrophe from LETS, however, is particularly aggravating and a constant distraction.
Read MoreGoing west to Wimbledon one morning, busy(ish) train, standing room only. A couple of stops before the tennis capital of the world a woman gets on, mid-20s I would say. Pretty. Blonde hair down to her shoulders.
She's stood in the aisle between the seats and has her left arm in a hefty blue sling. The hand is heavily bandaged and the rest of the arm looks similarly cast.
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