Wednesday, October 02, 2002
Another tube strike
Week-day-world: Being at home today, it seemed a good idea to pop out at lunchtime to see what the world round here looks like during the daytime. I risked a trip to the post office across the road, in what used to be the local high street until post-war planners concreted it over. It clearly wasn't a normal day out there, with big queues at the bus stops and unusually heavy traffic, all courtesy of the tube strike. However, normal life was still going on for all the people round here who don't have anywhere to commute to. Our three local alcoholics sat on the brick wall by the shops, well into their third hour of lager drinking, heckling the passers by. An old man who hadn't washed either himself or his clothes recently walked past, just too close for comfort. A large group of spotty schoolchildren stood around outside the kebab shop eating their nutritionally balanced lunch of chips and more chips. In the post office an old lady in fully knitted costume spent unfeasibly long sorting out her pension in front of me, savouring her one social contact of the day before dragging her shopping basket back to the nearby block of flats. And when I finally got to the front of the queue the man behind the counter looked at me as if I was speaking in a foreign language, which of course I was, and I walked away empty-handed. Back home I was glad to be able to get on with some work - it's a different world out there for those who can't.
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