Point To Point

So… London… the beating heart of Britain perhaps? The commercial forefront of the British Isles?

No, not quite… London is a mess. A huge, sprawling, disgusting dump of a city, it doesn’t exactly stand out as a showcase of what is great about Britain. I mean, superficially, it looks just about presentable, with its meager ’skyscrapers’ and stand out landmarks such as The London Eye and Big Ben. But if you delve a little deeper, say 30 meters beneath the ground, you find what this city is actually about. I am, of course, talking about the infamous London underground.

The chosen method of transport for 3 million Londoners every day, the London system is the oldest Underground in the world, and it shows. I struggled to find on my first journey why so many people use it, and I hope you will empathise with me: I’m going to paint a picture of a normal journey on the London Underground in the summer months. You are waiting on the packed platform for the Victoria Line traveling North to Brixton. A train pulls up, and as it slows down you see bodies literally crammed against the windows- the doors open and people are thrown out onto the platform by the mass of bodies on the carriage. You then attempt to try to find your way onto the train, before the doors slide closed suddenly onto you arm or backpack.

“Please mind the closing doors. Please mind the closing doors” calls the pre-recorded message.

Once on the train, you look around, realising the point that you are crammed into the space normally reserved for someone half your size; don’t forget the fact that your face is stuck in someone’s armpit. As the train begins to move the heat sets in, and you pray for some form of ventilation. The blistering heat only abates when a gust of wind manages to find its way into the carriage, and you pray for your stop to come. Well, I hope you get the idea.

The tube, whilst being a big problem, is only one of the things that is wrong with London. When you look at the city as a whole, one of the main issues I find is the overall cost of living there. The general living standards aren’t higher than anywhere else in the UK, but the cost of a carton of orange juice in Marks and Spencer’s is around £4. What is it about London that means companies can get away with charging ridiculous prices for inadequate goods?

Well, at least I’m only here for a week. However, it seems as if the citizens are unsatisfied with many aspects of their city; at the moment most of the problems at the moment concern the 2012 Olympics. To be fair, who can forgive the committee which allowed a logo which looks like a 3 year old child’s drawing? I just hope the added pressure of the Olympics in 5 years can help to give London the clean up it needs. And as a side note, what does everyone out there in the blogosphere think of this logo?