Tunnel Visions - a book review

But it's not all about the London Underground. It's part travel book too as Ross recalls his life in Japan and the very "zen" way of life out there.

If you want philosophy that is based on the real world then this book is for you. The language is simple which helps to draw the reader into a very real world. Every so often there are moments of beauty in Ross's work. He recalls a situation where he is guiding a blind man around the Underground. The man is very perceptive and seems to interpret what Ross is about to say to him, before he actually says it. Ross cannot remember what they actually spoke about and what the man looked like, but:

"I can remember two things: that he wore a green necktie, and that as a train pulled out of the station, a pale white butterfly hovered momentarily in the place he had been standing, then flew away down the platform, over the heads of the crowd. I noticed that no one looked up and it passed unseeen until I too lost sight of it."

Read this book and you probably will have a different view of the London Underground when you next travel on it....or indeed travel on it for the first time. Underneath the grime, the bad tempers, the late running, the mice and the general rush, it makes you take a moment to stand back and watch.

Perhaps one day you will see a white butterfly emerging from the dark tunnels.

Tunnel Visions is available from Amazon and will shortly be out in paperback.

For more on life on the London Underground try Goingunderground.net

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