Notes on commuting.

It was a week full of train trips - somewhat exhausting on my first few days back here. I made a few notes, mostly in transit, and mostly on transiting. Here they are:

One.
Rushing out of the Underground this morning to catch my entirely-too-early train, I passed by a man with a coin-box raising money for a cause, singing out like a doggerel, 'Please help the disabled, help the disabled please.' He had the sort of accent you would find in a movie set in some unspecified Ireland of the past and aimed at an American audience - light, lilting, brogueish but entirely comprehensible to these delicate ears. Hurrying past, with tickets to buy and, oh please, a cup of coffee, I didn't get a chance to look at him, but let my mind conjure an image from one of those films, a broad-faced whiskered man with pouchy cheeks and glum expression but bright and shining eyes. Probably wearing a flat cap. And a vest.

When I returned at the end of a fairly long day I was surprised to find him still there, and more surprised to see that he was bald, with a long thin face and spectacles.

Two.
The escalator I rush up to get from the underground to the train station proper is lit from below, I'm talking below the steps themselves, as though they put a bright neon light somewhere amongst the gears and pulleys that drag people up into the world. In general I would say this light serves no purpose, just a low weak gleaming along the edge and cracks of each step. It barely shows through. When the steps break configuration, though, for instance at the top where they go from being steps to being flat, the gap between each segment momentarily opens, and there's this brilliant burst of light from below. It is a cheerful thing in the mornings.

Three.
A commonplace, but today during rush hour I was standing huddled by the doors of an Underground train on the Northern Line when a woman walked on amongst the throngs that join at Tottenham Court, well into her pregnancy. There were no seats. She walked up to the center pole and grabbed hold, and in the meantime I and every other man of a certain age scanned the carriage, thinking surely someone would see or sense that things weren't right. It was not to be. All sitting had their heads buried in a book or one of the free papers they give away throughout the city, and where ignorant of the situation - while all of us standing could not help but notice and had nowhere to look, so after our passes around the carriage proved fruitless we just looked at each other, and shared the embarressment in our eyes.

At the next stop a young woman got up from her seat to leave, saw the pregnant woman and said, "Oh God, I'm so sorry - I didn't notice."