Famous Novelists Take on the Tube
Dick", sobbed George with a tear in her little eye "What is this horrid goblin-thing talking about? I can't understand a word it's saying.
"Its all right George", replied Dick. "It's working class, that's all. The ruffian wants a £10 penalty fare from each of us. Well he is jolly well not going to get it!" and he clenched his fists in a manly way.
"Look here," he said. "You jolly well go and bother your own kind. We are following some spies."
"Yes just take this shilling and be off with you," chimed in John, fishing about in the pocket of his shorts. "and take my advice and don't spend it all on drink or tobacco"
"Woof" said Timmy the dog....
A rejected stanza from Metroland Revisited
by John Betjeman
Crimson train and sun dipped station
Giggling girls in summer clothes
Cotton and dirndl, gloves from Woolworths
Pinstriped bank clerk picks his nose
Frottage on the crowded carriage,
Gross indecency on the trailing car
Fast to Evesham, talk of marriage,
Thoughts of what beasts all men are
Around the circle line in 80 minutes
by Jules Verne
Phineas Fogg, and his trusted companion Passepartout have embarked on another wager - the gentlemen at the club wagering that it is impossible to ... oh work it out for yousrelf...
"This is intolerable," thundered Fogg. " One station away from St James Park, and already a red light is preventing our progress."
Passepartout lit a Gauloise, in flagrant breach of the regulations and inhaled deeply. Le Governer, he concluded was like all Englishmen, quite mad. In his beloved Metro, in his beloved Paris, the trains, they run on time, nest ce pas?
"Passepartout, we shall get out and walk!"
"But Monsuier! The volts in the rails! and les amperes!" Good French words, he noted. As a Frenchman, he had a duty to use them to remind everyone of les superorite de la francais scientifique. Still, he knew that his master was not a man to change his mind, so stubbing out his sophisticated cigarette francais on the dull upholstery, he stood and began levering open the doors
A final thought from the works of Lao Tze (An inspector on the Piccadilly Line)
The longest journey does not start with a single step. It starts with the purchase of a ticket for the London Underground.
(c) Richard Mitchell, 2002
For more fun and tales of life on the London Underground visit Going Underground.
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