We have got one under, here

Today, I can say, has been probably one of the most stressful, long and tiring day of my life.
Everything I tried to do just went wrong, inevitably wrong and the thing is that...the day is not over jet!

These are the days when I actually get the urge to commit suicide, but while to me the desire to kill myself passes after a deep sigh and a kind of hysterical laugh, for other people, refrain from committing suicide is a bit more difficult, sometimes impossible.

London Underground has a long and sad tradition about people injured in the Tube and suicides, so, when the film Three and Out came out it caused lots of protests and complaints from both the train driver union and the passengers.



Now, the most common phrase I say when I am joking about committing suicides is: "Well, lets jump off a bridge" or, in anyways, the setting I have always imagined for my death is completely different from the London Underground, such a boring and depressing place, but apparently there are people who do really love the London Underground "to death".

Apparently King's Cross and Victoria stations are the most chosen places, I don't know, I don't have my "favorite suicide Tube station", I hope none of you have one, but is it possible that the atmosphere in those two stations is so depressing to incite suicides?!

Some station have pits beneath the track, originally made to aid drainage of water from the platform, with the intent to prevent incidents, injuries, and falls .
They are called "anti-suicide pits" or "dead man's trenches", and they actually don't seem to work well enough.

I know that take the Tube doesn't have to be a fun experience, but if Transports of London could make the atmosphere in the Tube more pleasant and "agreable", but maybe if there were some flowers, colored cushions, who knows...

The Cheaper, The Better.

When I first came to London, I took the train from Heathrow airport to Russell Square...I t was my first time in an underground...the first of a long series of times coming...

I was completely unaware about what an Oyster was and so, for a month or so, I just used to buy tickets every time I had to take the train, spending a huge amount o money I could have spent in more worthy things like: food, clothes and beer.

I think that for all that month long, with the money I spent in tickets, I have been paying the whole salary of a Tube driver, but I was lucky that one day, a security man at the station, made this expensive nightmare finish, shaking a brochure about the Oyster right in front of my big, sparkling eyes, with such a hypnotizing waving that I couldn't not to get one, immediately!



Transports here in London are all pretty expensive, especially the Tube tickets, which can last you no more than 24 hours, but there is a secret not to spend £££ in them, and this secret I am going to share with you is....the Oyster card!

Even if your stay in London is no longer than a few days, getting an Oyster is the cheapest and easier way to travel through the Tube and buses.
Oyster cards are available in each tube station and they cost just 3£ that you can get back when you return the card to the ticket office.

There are several types of Oyster: Pay As You Go, students and ordinary season cards (monthly, weekly and daily); however, I would suggest one of the season cards or the daily one as, once you top up your Oyster, you can travel as much as you want for all the period you have paid for.


For students +18 in London things are even much easier as, providing the name of the University the study at, they can get an Oyster in which is displayed their picture and full name.With this student Oyster every time they top up, they get a 30% discount.

Oyster cards can ruin other magnetic objects if kept too closely to them, but don't worry because Transport of London look after you any time, that's why when you get your Oyster at the tickets office, they also give you a nice, free, Oyster plastic folder!

This morning I went to King's Cross St. Pancras to take the Piccadilly line towards Holloway road where my University is.

Taking the Tube is always the same, boring daily torture, going this order:

1: being squeezed in the lift with that annoying "STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS", which goes on for ages till there is no more oxygen in the lift and people give up, waiting for the next one.

2: getting, or at least trying, to get to the platform before the train you need to take leaves, doing a slalom between those tricky people who stand stuck in the middle of the stairs, talking about the weather and stuff, making you arrive at the platform just 20 seconds after the doors have been closed!

This is pretty annoying, and the worst thing is that it happens every single day, but today, something new, an unexpected event made my day in the Tube.



I was standing at the platform waiting for the train, staring at random advertisements, still half asleep, when suddenly the scream of an apparently terrified woman helped in waking up, definitely.

At first I thought: "ah, freak people...never mind", but then, when two huge rats passed close to my feet, I screamed as well. That is that kind of emotions that you don't want to feel early in the morning at the beginning of a very stressful day, it doesn't help you at all!

That was the first time I have ever seen a rat so clearly and closely, but apparently, is something I need to get used to as London Underground is populated by those huge rodents.
You see, many people think that the Tube is boring and depressing, but actually, there are some exiting emotions, like this one, that only the London Underground can offer.

Certainly the Tube is not the cleanest place in London and the fact that it suits rats so well makes people think that there might be something unhealthy and unsanitary.

I have a question now, a big doubt: if rats are well known as inhabitants of the Underground along the network and sometimes also take the trains through it, shall they have their Oyster card or are they generously funded by Transport of London?

Wheelchairs in the Underground

Being on a wheelchair can be a serious problem when you need to move through the Tube stations as many of them have long and steep staircases, which are really annoying.

Some of them are really good and skilled in this kind of "extreme sports" as "climbing" the stairs when you can't use your own legs can be a serious and challenging "adventure"...like this brave boy did:



and even if it could be easier in the case of an escalator, thing for wheelchair users are still too difficult.

Just some Tube stations can provide good access for wheelchairs users, and they are signed on the map with this symbol:



The number of step-free stations is now 48, but it going to grow as Transport of London is working on several stations to make them more accessible to disabled passengers especially now that the Olympic Games are coming here in London and the efficiency of the transports is need to be "impeccable".

Sometimes is not only a fact of inaccessible staircases, sometimes is a problem of politeness and selfishness as the London Evening Standard titles talking about how people in the tube care only about themselves, not respecting and counting the needs of people on wheelchairs or with nay other mobility problems.

Anyway, if you don't trust your athletic skills in climbing stairs with your wheelchair, there is a very useful link through which you can check the accessibility of the stations.

The Tube's voice

Have you ever noticed how noisy the Tube is?!?...just to cite a few of noisy sources: people speaking loud at 50 cm distance to overcome the surrounding noise, the voice from the microphone which kindly reminds us to stand clear of those damn closing doors and to not fall in the gap between the train and the platform, the ring of the ticket gates, the screech of the approaching trains...and so on...

Many other things can cause noise, at different levels, in the Tube...there is a view pack made by WIM in which a series of different "sounds" taken from the network are listed and measured.

If you put on the records all at the same time, you feel like you actually are in a Tube station, however, if you want to complain about the noise is possible to report directly to the competent offices.

I Think I'm Being Watched...

Advertisements are everywhere in the underground, EVERYWHERE....in the trains, in the tunnels, next to the escalators and in the lifts.

Sometimes i feel like someone is doing me a kind of brain washing as, even if I don't want to, I can't avoid to watch them and spend a few time in reading whats written on them.

Even the most silly and unusual one can catch our attention, and some of them are also joking about that, like this one which is not a proper advertising but it gets the point...



After six months I am a customer of London Underground I have made a kind of "hit parade" of my favorite advertising placard is the one of Jack Daniel's whiskey!
I love the black and white style and I never get tired of it.



On the other hand, I just feel sick when I see the one about the "Legally Blonde" musical which is so pink that my eyes hurt and those silly facial expressions make me nervous and I feel like a want to punch them....punch a paper advertisement....the final proof I am with no doubt seriously compromised in my brain...anyway, that is without counting that I hate that little dog in the pic, which actually I find more similar to a too well developed mouse!..but I would never beat a pet!



Come on...look at them...don't you agree with me?!?!?... feel free to punch them, swear at them, whatever you feel like...you have my support!

Lights, Camera, Action!!!

In the last few years London Underground has been a good set for some horror films and comedies like Creep and the largely criticized Three and Out accused of being immoral and inappropriate as suicides in the Tube are a very serious and sad issue.

Creep, a film which came out at the cinemas in 2004, is about a girl locked in overnight on the London Underground, stalked by a deformed killer living in the sewers below.
The film, directed by Cristopher Smith, retakes the plot from two other horror films set in the Tube: Death Line (1972) and An American Werewolf In London.

Sliding Doors , directed by Peter Howitt, is a film, a bit tragic, but not a horror, whose turning point is the London Underground, in particular the so much hated closing doors of the trains between which people get stuck every day trying to get in.

The story is about Hellen Quilley (Gwyneth Paltrow) whose life is split into two parallel lives; one of the Hellen who managed to take the train and got home finding her boyfriend cheating on her, and the other one of the Hellen who didn't take the train going towards a different destiny.

It's really incredible how a "closing door" can make such a difference to your life...so, thats made me think that: every time I get to the platform two seconds too late and the doors close in front of me...would my day have been different if I have caught that train?...who knows...