Richard goes to London. Part I

I've known London since my first heady visits in the early 1970's and have lived and worked there several times over the years. Disillusionment started setting in the mid 1990's - poor services, high prices - and I hadn't been back for 10 years. Until Tuesday that is, when I had to pay a flying visit on business. I was prepared for the worst, and so this is the first of a couple of blog posts about my reactions.

I flew into Heathrow from Zurich on Tuesday afternoon, and decided to put things to the test by going to Richmond via public transport. Being used to the Swiss system, and remembering London Transport from previous times, I didn't have great expectations. However it actually went ok. Tube to Hounslow East, and bus to Richmond. No traffic snarl up getting into Richmond even though it was rush hour (5-6pm). Maybe the rush hour has moved.

So it seems there has been a change, and my immediate impression was that it had been achieved my a massive overdose of buses - there were hundreds of them on the roads.

Now the bad news. The tube station at Heathrow resembles some kind of obstacle course with big complicated barriers all over the place. I don't know if these are to foil terrorists or over-enthusiastic travellers with baggage trolleys. In truth they aren't a big problem but they were the first sign of what I soon realised was a very "nanny state" attitude towards the public.

The tube station was full of London Underground staff, none of whom seemed enagaged in performing anything related to helping travellers. I tried the system out by approaching one such gaggle and asking a simple stupid tourist question about platforms. I got a very dismissive reply, I was obviously distracting them from their real business, although what that was still eluded me. Then I tried to get rid of some litter (my sandwich wrappings). Couldn't find a litter bin. I asked another group. Apparently litter bins are just the sort of thing terrorists like to park the odd bomb in.

London seems to have an infatuation with announcement services and I found this irritating to a high degree. The bus to Richmond announced at every stop that it was "the H73 to Richmond" despite there being an LED display with the same info. I expect that it is useful for blind people, but all it is going to do is tell a blind person they have got on the wrong bus, and blind people never do this. Most of the blind people I have met have more awareness of which bus they are on than I do. Political correctness rearing it's ugly head. Same on the trains. The tube always had the "Mind the Gap" announcements which were tolerable because they were an anomaly. Now you are bombarded by announcements at any time the PA system has fallen silent for a few seconds. "mind the gap between the train and the platform", "be careful of the big step to the platform", "remember that there is no smoking on any trains"," do notleave your luggage unattended". Add to this the profusion of notices saying things like "Our staff have the right not to be abused or attacked", and adverts with gory tales of what happend to someone who verbally abused someone. It had never occured to me that I might want to assault or abuse a member of staff, but I was coming round to the idea. Signs telling you not to put heavy items in the luggage rack. Are all Londoners stupid with attention spans of 10 seconds? They must be starting to wonder.

I liked the sign on the Picadilly line that said something like this:

"Going to Covent Garden at the Weekend? Well I shouldn't bother if I was you. Not by tube at any rate. Gets very busy. Best to get off at one of these other stations and WALK"

OH, I should add that the train from Richmond to Waterloo in the morning was actually on time and in fact rather clean. However as someone said about somnething else - these things are a duty, NOT a virtue.

More later