Good Service

“There is a good service operating on all London Underground lines”. This is an announcement I hear about ten times a day on the tube.

No there isn’t. There is a normal service operating. What LU means is that there aren’t any leaves on the line, snow or striking tube drivers. No trains have hit scaffolding at Aldgate. No-one has pulled a passenger emergency alarm at Baker Street. None of the customers have decided to use a Circle Line train as a one-way ticket to heaven (or hell).

A good service would be one where trains arrive every minute, there is always a free seat, there are no rabid, ranting lunatics in the same carriage and where there isn’t a chav playing crap music through the tinny speaker of their mobile phone.