Welcome Back To London!

The friendly, smiling Bobby on the beat.
In a busy airport, exactly what he'd do with the piece of artillery he's lovingly cradling,
should shit happen, is a question nobody appears keen to answer. A standard Glock-17
would be far more practical for targeting a Beardie-Weirdie in a crowd.
I'd imagine anyone drawing a Glock-17 would deprive this doubtless highly-trained but
utterly useless ornament of his existence before he could raise his impractical penis extension.  

     Heathrow Airport.

     Sunday morning.

     I arrive back in the UK and, in common with just about everyone else on the plane, I walk straight through. Unchallenged.

     Nice to see the Border and Immigration lads showing the level of dedication we all associate with the Public Sector.

     The laissez-faire policy contrasts sharply with that demonstrated when I left the country last autumn. 

     I left by ferry. 

     For various reasons, including signal failure and heavy rain, possibly of the wrong type, national rail franchise firms were not in "Good Service Operating On All Lines" mode on the day of my departure. This meant that rather a lot of passengers, who'd normally have arrived at the port on several trains, over a period of an hour or so, pitched-up on the same train. It was less than 30 minutes before the ferry was due to sail. 

     Having checked in, we turned a corner towards the departure area. About eight yellow-jacketed bozos, supervised by a world-weary, Welsh-accented constable, stood by conveyor belts, metal detectors and desks, clearly intent on scanning & searching every traveller. 

     Most passengers, stressed and running late, were not prepared for this. On a cold, wet, autumnal day, many had coins, keys, combs and other metallic items in inconvenient places. I forgot I had a key in one inside pocket, set the metal detector off and had to walk through again. I gave the "Dragged-off-the-Dole" G4S imbecile enough lip to have gone a shade of odds-on to be detained, but he took it uncharacteristically well as he patted me down. 

     I was just about first through. I assume someone with some common sense, presumably PC Taffy, realised that searching hand baggage and scanning & patting-down 100+ passengers, who'd already missed the official check-in deadline, wasn't practical and instructed the G4S goons to wave people through, as the ferry left on time.

     Still, it's comforting to know that the Home Office and G4S, under the sagacious guidance of former Home Secretary John Reid (Ker-Chinnggg!), are attempting to ensure that no foot passengers smuggle any Pakistanis out of the country under a raincoat or in a handbag - unlike that Romanian lorry driver who got three years for removing seventeen aggravating Allah-agitators only last week.

 

Profiting from paranoia. John Reid is coining it in from his role as
a G4S bigwig, selling security contracts to his former colleagues at
the Home Office. When he's not accepting hospitality from convicted
war criminals. Just so long as he remembers not to whistle any IRA
ditties while passing through his firm's airport checkpoints.  

     The train from Heathrow to Paddington zips in. It isn't under direct Transport for London control. 

     London Underground is. 

     As is the Public Carriage Office. 

     Which organises and oversees The Knowledge. 

     The number of passengers waiting on the westbound District & Circle Line platform at Paddington is disconcerting. It suggests trains are not running as frequently as scheduled. Not to worry. Within a minute, the reassuring voice of a TfL monkey informs us that there is a Good Service Operating On All Lines. As is normal on that platform, 80 of the 100 passengers are clustered within 15 yards of the entrance. As usual on that platform, the train indicator gives no information. I've never seen it indicate a train until that train has left Edgware Road, all of 600 yards down the track, at which point "1. Wimbledon - 1min" or "1. Circle Line - 1min" flashes-up, at about the same time the reflection of the train's lights appear down the track.

     Over the next 10 minutes, the TfL monkey assures us twice more that there is a Good Service Operating On All Lines. No sign of a train, though.

     At 10:30 or so on Sunday morning, services on each of the two lines are supposed to run at 10-minute intervals, 5 minutes apart. It would appear two trains are a.w.o.l. - and that's without considering just how long the 100 passengers already on the platform when I arrived have been waiting. Yet there is a Good Service Operating On All Lines. Apparently.

     We are also reminded a couple of times to keep our belongings with us at all times and to report anything suspicious to a member of staff or a police officer.           

     "Reporting something unusual won't hurt you."

     No, but spreading fear and paranoia to the extent that TfL and many other branches of the Public Sector do so frequently that they could reasonably be diagnosed with an obsessive disorder almost certainly will.

     "You can't be too careful."

     Yes, you bloody well can.   

     The train indicator flashes into action. Wimbledon train. One minute. Wrong train for me. I hop on. I can change at High Street Kensington.

     The platform indicator works at High Street Kensington. "1. Wimbledon" is followed by "2. Wimbledon - 7mins."

     For crying out loud!

     I hop back on the Wimbledon train. I can change at Earl's Court and come back to Sloane Square.

     A TfL monkey - live, rather than recorded - informs us that there are delays on the Circle Line (No? Really?) and Circle Line passengers should take the Wimbledon train to Earl's Court, cross over the footbridge and double back. Good thinking, Batman!

     At Earl's Court, an eastbound District Line train soon appears and I disembark at Sloane Square.

     A TfL monkey at Sloane Square has been taught a new announcement. I'm impressed, though I think of the "Holy Stone of Clonrichart" episode of "Father Ted" - specifically, Father Jack being coached to say, "That would be an ecumenical matter."
     How long does it take to train a TfL monkey to master a new announcement, word-for-word? How much does this training cost?
     The monkey asks passengers to take care when using stairs and escalators. Given just how oblivious to danger Londoners are when rapt by their Apple & Samsung toys, I would have thought asking them to take care on the platforms might make more sense. TfL trains may arrive at unexpected times and occasionally at unexpected places, but they're not going to mow anyone down on a staircase or escalator.
     Not even at Moorgate.
     I hope.

 

Sloane Square station.
Chelsea is so upmarket that the monkeys employed by London Underground
here must be capable of memorising more announcements than staff elsewhere. 

     I make my intended rendezvous with an acquaintance and retrieve a scooter he's kindly been allowing me to park in his company's underground carpark space. I purchased the scooter from a newly qualified taxi driver in a trip over to London last month. It took him six-&-a-half years to pass The Knowledge, though there were mitigating circumstances. I doubt I have the discipline or determination to pass at all, but I definitely won't still be cracking away at it come Christmas 2021.

     After five weeks in a carpark, the scooter starts first time.

     I resurface and return to the shop managed by my acquaintance for a coffee and a muffin. A redheaded staff member is displaying a lack of cultural diversity. She arrives for work extremely pissed-off. Waitrose have refused to sell her cigarettes. She was asked for ID. When producing the ID, she was informed it was inadequate. I'd have guessed her age at mid-to-late 20s. She's apparently 28. She's a big girl. The notion that anyone might think she was under sixteen is bizarre. Gary Glitter wouldn't give her a second glance. Even after a long spell in chokey with only Big Bubba for company.

     Still, you can't be too careful.

     I get on the scooter and ride towards a Bayswater hotel.

     At the Sloane Square pelican crossing, an invalid in a mobility scooter waits diligently on the "red man" signal... until deciding to engage first gear just as the traffic light goes green and the traffic in front of him moves off. Well, I move off. On the outside. The transit driver on the inside decides not to present the raspberry retard with a richly deserved Darwin Award, satisfying himself with a "You arsehole!" as the fortunate-to-be-in-one-piece motorized mong darts across his bow. The "I have a right!" raspberry replies with a "Fuck off!"
     As the "A Taxi Driver Writes..." column in Private Eye often used to say, "That Adolf Hitler had some right good ideas."

     London's still a lunatic asylum.
     Just remember to take care on the stairs and escalators. The Green Cross Code's for the birds.  

     What am I doing back in this shit-hole of a country?
     The Knowledge, I hope.