Tube Snot

Apparently travelling 40 minutes on the tube is the equivalent to smoking two cigarettes.

After two days in London, I already had 'tube hack'. You know the cough - a dry rasp when your lungs become coated with toxins making you think you are actually a coal miner living somewhere in the Midlands.

'Tube snot' quickly followed my newly aquired 'tube hack'. I'll spare you all the details on that one.

Despite its toxic dust, it is quite an amazing system, the tube. It opened in 1863, and by the end of the nineteenth century, had a fair bit going on. Considering New Zealand still doesn't have anything that constitutes an underground rail system, I find that quite advanced.

The Tube has also created a number of sideline industries. Such as the trashy free newspapers given out to people as they enter a station. An excellent way of finding out what happened on 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here' the previous evening. It is also a great place for religious fanatics and generally crazy people to congregate. If you want to busk, you will have to audition however.

A website has also come about, for all those that spot their prospective soulmate, whilst attempting to avoid all eye contact and stare vacantly at the Tube map. http://www.isawyoutoday.com/ was created for those wanting to track down that cute 'metro reading, hacking, vacant looking' Tube rider.

Big news this week was the voice of the Tube being fired for putting joke recordings on her website, such as "a reminder to our American tourist friends that you are almost certainly talking too loudly".

As much as people complain, any system that leads you to moan if you have to wait more than 5 minutes for the next train, must be pretty good.