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Thursday, November 5, 2009

Deep-sea angler train

Hm: pondering the designs for the new extension to London's Circle Line.  Seems it will no longer go round and round.  Now it will go off into a dangly bit at one end, and on the map it will look like one of those deep-sea angler fish that suspend a light over their faces to attract prey. (If you look at the east end of the Circle Line, there's even a stubby tail-like bit, too.)

This also means that you will now have to change trains if you want to stay on the Circle Line forever.  The days when you could fall asleep and go round the whole Circle four, five, or six times in peaceful slumber are over. 

There's even an ad on the Tube at the moment, which shows a stressed-out female executive type asleep on someone's shoulder.  Caption: "It was Claire's third time round on the Circle Line."  Sorry, Claire! From now on you will have to take more vitamins and keep yourself alert.

On reflection, why is it called the Circle Line anyway?  It never did look like a circle.  Why wasn't it the Vaguely Rectangular Line With a Stubby Tail-Like Bit?  

But convention is a powerful thing, and anything that plods over its own footsteps like this, keeping going without realizing it is going nowhere, is thought of as "circling".  The actual shape doesn't matter. 

Anyway, henceforth in London, I guess everybody will be going somewhere whether they like it or not. 

2 comments:

Jane Bakewell said...

Is there no time in life now for meaningless and repetitive behaviour?

Anonymous said...

Is the dangly bit something to do with the Olympics? Set a sprat to catch a mackerel?