All I had to do was drive from mine to Imperial College. It’s about 10 minutes drive. Free parking outside the college for me. Had to be there for 9 so shot and edited a short self tape first, then jumped into Bergman but I forgot that today is one of the regular holidays for London Underground staff.
It’s a great job, working for London Underground. Very much better paid than most jobs like it, and you get these semi-regular holidays (or “strikes”) that sometimes result in being paid even more. The job description is: Do fuck all most of the time and occasionally gawp at someone or push a button. Then sometimes do even more fuck all for a few days and get a pay rise.
Tube Strikes aren’t treated like other protests in this city. If someone sits down on a lawn because they don’t think its a great idea to try and kill literally everyone on a patch of land thousands of miles away, they’ll end up with a criminal record and they’ll be carried by four policemen into a van to go get it. If tube staff stop the whole town working properly so they get even more money pushing buttons for fewer days per week then they usually get more money for their lack of effort.
Occasionally there’s a drunk person shouting. Welcome to London, kids. They’ve got us over a barrel, knowing how much disruption they can cause by not showing up. Imagine if it was air traffic controllers playing this silly crap. Or Nuclear power plant workers.
So yeah, 10 minute drive. I knew within a minute that there was a tube strike, cos suddenly everyone is driving for the first time in ages. Assertive when they don’t need to be, passive when they need to be assertive, closing gaps when gaps need to be left open, causing gridlock and then just sitting there looking helpless and complaining about the gridlock they have caused. I know the rat runs in my area and I know they’re all using Google, and I know what Google tries to make people do so I got to work and back fine. After work though I walked back to The Kings Road, and ended up helping two awkward situations resolve on the way. There was a black cabbie shouting “Salaam aleikum mate you need to fucking reverse,” at an Uber driver with his face switched off who did need to reverse but was pissed off. And there were some terribly well off cheerful useless ladies in a mini cooper convertible that were terrified at having to reverse ten foot. I walked backwards behind them, reassuring them the whole time, “left hand down a bit” “You’ve got a foot and more between you and the bikes”.
I don’t know how many days of this shit we will have to put up with, but they don’t need any more money, they pull this stunt all the time, I’m not on their side here. Tube fares are already so much I just drive and pay for parking. I’m not certain but I’m pretty sure they get paid a whole hell of a lot more than the secondary school teachers whose morning they fucked today, and those teachers earn it – I’ve been into some of those schools and probably worked to teach the kids of some of those London underground staff members and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Workshops once in a blue moon are fine for me. Every day? No. No. No.
There are massive schools in London where you can’t hear anything all day – some smart kids might learn to tune their ears to frequencies and understand a small portion of the lessons, but largely the places are just kettles for the restless between the hours of 9 and 3. And after work those exhausted disillusioned teachers are either gonna have to fight through the traffic, luck into a Lime bike or, I dunno, walk to wherever they’re going, to mark things first and then collapse into shit sleep knowing it’s all happening again tomorrow. I remember Luke worked in one of them and they stole his bike by throwing it over a wall. “Sir, sir, we stole your bike sir,” and they had as well.
AlBarclay 