Indifferent Service
Indifferent Service
TfL are due to announce a new categorisation for its service boards. The service boards are traditionally displayed at stations in an attempt to misinform passengers on the current running incapacity of trains. After a wave of complaints from customers on the inaccuracy of the boards, TfL has decided to overhaul the system and make it more realistic. The proposed changes are as follows:
Indifferent Service – about the same amount of impact on your journey as any normal day. This means the train will lurch to an abrupt halt in a tunnel for no reason, causing the one person not holding onto something to stumble across the car and drop their book. The driver will not make any announcement, though every now and again you may hear a hiss and crackle from the speaker. Indifferent Service is most common in summertime and rush hour when passengers run the additional risk of being boiled alive, during which time stations are also festooned with cretinous and patronising posters suggesting passengers bring a bottle of water with them.
Slight Delays – inspired by the Tube Minute (a time/space phenomenon where a minute is not a minute, but an infinite period of time dictated by how much of a hurry you are in). A Slight Delay will mean that a pregnant woman standing at the end of the carriage because no-one will offer her a seat in case she’s just fat may have to consider the possibility of her child being of nursery age by the time she gets off the train. A Slight Delay will also occur when you are near the end of your book, thus forcing you to read a free London paper, which will have the integrity and editorial content of an Oxo cube.
Supreme Delays – if your line is suffering from Supreme Delays, you might as well go home. No, really. Supreme Delays will see you standing on the platform, staring forlornly at the matrix board which will say something like, ‘Morden 17 mins’ even if your line doesn’t terminate at Morden. You will start looking at the tube map to work out an alternative route which will take you via Croydon, involve 27 changes and get you home for about 11.15pm. A non-English-speaking tourist will also approach you with a tube map and ask how to get to Bond Street from Kensal Rise.
Bus Service – TfL have given up and drafted in the dregs from the local maximum-security bus driver training facility. The drivers will have a limited grasp of the English language, no understanding of maps or directional capabilities and a lead-lined right boot which will ensure that your journey is spent hanging onto a strap like an oversized primate and swaying helplessly into your strap neighbours, who will be a large, bearded, sweaty man and a baseball-hatted youth wearing a hoodie and playing tinny rap music on his mobile phone. Every roundabout will be negotiated twice so the driver has a chance to read the signs and 17 new stops will be invented along the way.
There are also plans afoot within TfL to reduce overcrowding on platforms by not stopping trains and closing certain stations during rush hour. When asked how this would benefit commuters, a TfL spokesperson shrugged and stated that they didn’t really care but it would be funded by a 27% fare increase.