Wednesday 22 April 2009

They're all out today. Out for the count.

Stockwell's a funny place. For those not familiar with London, please reference the terms "Jean Charles De Menezes" and "bungled terrorist operation" and see if some bells begin to ring. It's a strange area where everyone seems to know each other; most the housing is in high rise tower blocks or on estates and the shops all look a bit, well, dodgy. But that's just me and my North West London sensibilities talking. There's a little cafe where me and The Writer often head for lunch, opposite which sits a little stall manned by a couple of Jamaican men - and if the smells are anything to go by, I'm pretty sure it's not just fruit and hot food they're selling. Ya get me.

So this is where I headed today to meet the Writer and make sure we were both on the same page. Thanks to Google Docs and Google Calendar, we are well on our way to sharing this same page online. And I have been given permission to nag, nag, nag. Apparently he responds well to nagging. Ha. We'll see about that. He'll know all about nagging by the time I'm done. Thank you for the advice in the last comments, I need as much as I can get. I'm new to this game, after all.

But anyway, given that the Victoria line was being it's usual reliable self (ie. the workers were all on Sun Strike, again), I had to use the Northern Line. Ahh, the lovely Northern Line, with more branches than Argos... and this ever so charming man.



No no no, I haven't caught him mid-yawn. He's having a nap whilst cleverly ridding our carriage of flies at the same time. Before this photo was taken, his legs were splayed and stretched so that the woman in front was enveloped in a kind of foot hug. And every five minutes or so he'd wake up, wave his hands in front of someone, and ask them the time. First up he asked me. Then he was back to sleep, mouth wide open, legs akimbo, before waking up and asking the woman to my left the same question. Then he must have really got comfy. He lent forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and fell asleep on his hands.

Which is about the point that he began dribbling onto the floor.

Dribbling. Strand by strand. Drip by drip. Onto the floor.

Yum.

The mystery here is not what he was doing: clearly he had an hour to kill before The Weakest Link and decided an afternoon Northern Line Nap was in order. No, the real mystery is how he managed to fall asleep on this particular tube; as I suspect that a journey aboard a 3 wheeled skateboard, being pulled by a blind, epileptic horse along cobbled Medieval roads in a hail storm would be capable of producing a smoother journey.

Ahh, the London Underground, where wonders never cease.

7 comments:

Mjohnson said...

I was sick once in Tokyo and because our flat was so cold, or perhaps because I was just exhausted I slept on one of their tube lines. Just up and down the line for about four hours.

Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Open said...

I wish I'd been there to take a photo of you. Bet you were all curled up on the floor like a little foetus.

The Unbearable Banishment said...

There's a blog where people submit photos of passengers sleeping on public transport. I'll try to dig it up and post. It's really fun!

Anonymous said...

I think the Northern Line is my least favourite...it was the one I could get to work but my god there was never an inch of space on it....so I sat on teh bus for 40mins every day instead!

Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Open said...

Unbearable - Yeaaaah find it find it! Post it here when you know...

PJB - Yeah it's always rammed in the mornings. I think I prefer getting on a bus for 40 minutes. I actually like buses and don't mind that they take a bit longer to get somwhere.

The Unbearable Banishment said...

Here it is: Asleep On The Subway

Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Open said...

Leg-end.

 

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