Travel Tips: Mind the Gap - Walk on the left - Stand on the right (and other useful British transport tips)

Right. For any of you who might be coming to visit us in London in May, this post aims to set out a few of the more useful tips (or refreshers) which might make getting around London easier.

First, despite the apparent breakdown of cohesion in society (as evidenced by hooded youths and graffiti), Britain is very much a law-abiding, rule-happy place. Just as, at the highest level, the British judiciary is globally reputed to be incorruptible, the average man and woman in the British street holds amongst his / her most prized ideals the sense of fair play (treating everyone equally and impartially). This rule-love is evidenced in sport by the game of cricket, which is really more a set of bewildering rules than a sport. In other aspects of society, the centrality of fair play and rule infatuation can be seen in the British obsession with queuing (i.e., forming a line) – at the bank, at bus stops, wherever.

So, in order that you don’t offend anyone by infringing the rules that hold British society together, here are a few tips.

1. Queuing

Don’t worry about forming a queue (unless it’s obvious there’s already a queue). The truth is, although the British (and Londoners in particular) are obsessed with queuing as a concept – especially queuing for buses – they’re rubbish at it in practice. You of course get proper queues at airport security, banks, etc., where they use barriers to herd people into queues. But that’s cheating. When it comes to public transport, people rarely queue. On the Tube you usually have to fight to get on the train. And people usually crowd around the doors of a bus when it pulls up.

The only time I ever saw an orderly queue for a bus was at Waterloo Station at rush hour one morning. There were so many people waiting for the bus that it was clear they could not all make it, so people just stood in the order they arrived so that they would, eventually, get a bus (without having to fight for a spot). It was a beautiful, but a rare, sight. And it was nearly fatal for one poor lady.

You’ll probably never see an orderly queue.

2. Mind the Gap

Don’t worry about the gap. The infamous “gap” is, literally, a tiny gap which occasionally occurs between a carriage in the London Underground and the train platform. These gaps occur at stations with curved platforms. Although you wouldn’t want to find that you were standing in the gap when the train begins to move, this is a very unlikely scenario, and I think you can safely mind your own business without worrying too much about the gap.

3. Stand on the right, walk on the left

This is rule applies on escalators and moving walkways on the Underground and at airports. If you are not walking up the escalator/walkway, stand to the right and allow others to do so. Department store escalators apparently do not seem to come within the remit of this rule.

4. Don’t wander around looking easy to mug/pickpocket

Be aware of your surroundings, no matter where you are. I’ve rarely felt uneasy, but then this is now my home.

5. Try not to speak too loudly on public transport

Except when everyone on the Tube/bus is drunk (e.g. Saturday night), people generally keep to themselves and will do everything they can to avoid eye contact. In addition to this, most people regard it as an imposition to have to listen to your conversation, let alone being asked (explicitly or implicitly) to participate.

Rats vs Lawyers

Snapped by my colleague, Chris. This poster is located on a wall just off Ludgate Broadway (in the City of London).

Today we found ourselves in the midst of a media-thick protest. There are now 16 police vehicles outside my office alone. Everyone has been asked to come into work in jeans (or otherwise casual), as anarchist protestors are allegedly targetting City workers in the lead up to tomorrow's G20 summit.

Black Salsify

It's a vegetable, but it sounds like a verb from the auto de fe.

Susie made a beautiful salad involving this unique vegetable last night (pictured). The flavour is something like parsnip meets artichoke. Very nice. Next on the list of exotic vegetables sitting in our fridge is Jerusalem artichokes (nothing like any artichoke you've ever seen before).

Coming soon: "Mind the Gap - Walk on the left - Stand on the right (and other useful British transport tips)

The end of the holiday

So I left off mid-way through my tale of our US campaign. What followed would, in descriptive terms, read more like the index of a history book than a story - a blur of place names and proper nouns. In the space of the next six days we met up with some twenty four relatives, travelling through seven states, by car, train, plane.

We travelled to Maryland on day 4 (Shrove Tuesday) to be introduced to the Eight Petrys of Randallstown. As Jennie put it, the theme for this two-day period was 'washing machine'. Prior to our arrival, the Petry washing machine had groaned its last and the laundry was quickly piling up, so we spent day 5 (the start of Lent - no meat this year!) comparing prices and finding a bargain. However, perhaps even better than spending all day sourcing a washing machine was relaxing with Jennie into our favourite Mozart and Pleyel duets. I've never enjoyed playing with anyone else so much. I made a recording on my MacBook, but the sound is not so good. When Susie and I made it back to Connecticut, we found some old home videos from 1993/4 featuring Jennie and I playing the same pieces, but better. Alack.

On day 5 Jennie introduced Susie to ziti (two thumbs up). On day 6, I introduced Susie to grits (two thumbs down).

Day 6 and we arrived in Columbus, ate lunch at Chipotle (two thumbs up), and met Mandy, Ben, Julie, Ella and Sophie. Our defining experiences while in Columbus (days 6 - 9) were:

• Susie spending much longer on the X Box than me (playing Rock Band)
  
• meeting Grandpa Donnelly
• pizza every day (two thumbs up)
• ice cream tastings
  
• introductions to the Kesslers and Parkers (Mater and Aunt KK, Uncle John, Brad, Laura, Aunt Peggy)
• showing Susie around the farm
• late night chess
• dinner out at Rigsby's in the Short North

On day 9 we flew back to Connecticut, and Anne Marie drove down from Vermont to spend the evening with us, just as a snow storm descended on Connecticut. It was this evening that Anne Marie said, profoundly, "He will pursue you until he breaks you." Sadly, neither of us can recall to whom the words apply.

The next morning Anne Marie left and the snow continued. Mom drove us to JFK (memorably, we stopped for food at a random carribean cafe in Jamaica in NYC). We flew back to London.

In other news, we are making progress on the wedding plans. We've reserved rooms for people at the Days Hotel in Shoreditch for 27 and 28 May. And we've agreed that we'll have an organist. I'd quite like to have the Widor Tocatta for our exit music.

Any suggestions for any other non-hymn music which we could have during the service would be much appreciated.

Live from Connecticut

It's day 3 on our whirlwind tour of the North East, and so far we've managed to discuss money, religion and politics.

We flew into JFK on Saturday evening. As it was Susie's birthday (and I was therefore feeling generous), I queued with Susie in the you-aren't-an-American-so-let's-just-see-how-long-we-can-make-you-stand-there-before-you-try-to-contact-your-bloody-consulate queue. We arrived at 4:30, we cleared immigration at about 6:00 or 6:30.

Uncle Craig had graciously come to the airport to meet us. For anyone who doesn't know, Uncle Craig is an engineer on the Long Island Rail Road. So on the train journey into the City, he took us up to the control room and sat us down with the engineer, where we sat until the New York skyline filled the whole horizon. It was breathtaking.

Uncle Craig took us back to meet up with Aunt Gail at their place in Up Town (if that's how you write it? Anne? Rebecca?), and we had margaritas and snacks and chatted until dinner time. We went to a beautiful El Salvadorian place just up the street from their flat. It was my third visit, and the food and drink were exceptional. We stayed up late talking and listening to music. Uncle Craig played music and we did tequila shots (not a good idea, as it happens).

The next morning, groggy from the shots (and a 4 am wake up call from my bank), we ate fresh bagels and lax from a local deli and then drove up to Connecticut. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Uncle Craig's driving was not scary. Except when someone challenged him by suggesting it was not scary, and he deliberately scared us.

We went to Mom's, where Mom, Papasan and Grandmom were waiting with lunch (a beautiful beef stew/soup for the meat-eaters). We spent the whole afternoon, the whole evening and the whole night talking about family history, looking at photos (whenever we finished a box, another one would be brought down from upstairs), and generally testing Susie's limits to see at what point she would crack. Susie's extraordinary stamina shamed me (at Christmas, without the excuse of a 4 am wake-up call or even jetlag, I had fallen asleep in a chair in Susie's parents' sitting room within an hour of arriving to meet Susie's uncle and grandmother).

So today is day 3 and Susie was up at 4. We're seeing Wethersfield today, and just spending some time with Mom and Papasan. Tomorrow we're taking the train to Baltimore to see Jennie and co!

On a completely different note, can anyone identify what my breakfast on 14 February was (pictured below)?

First glimpse of life in Hackney Wick

So, living in Hackney began last week. I will reveal more about the area in good time, once you've all come to see it first hand. For today I'm just posting because we've had SNOW! The first picture is the garden, viewed from the first floor.

London is so ill-equipped for snow that when I woke up this morning I was astonished to find that a mere 4 inches had resulted in ALL bus services across the entire city (population 8 million) being withdrawn. All of them. And about half of the tube lines were down. Most trains weren't running. And as the snow was up to about 5 inches by the time I was ready to go to work, I wasn't realistically about to do a 5 1/2 mile commute on foot wearing shallow shoes. I did give it a go, however, and made it about 100 yards before I was walking with packed snow in the bottom of my shoes.

It's been snowing all day, and these are the views from the window as I work from home.