Day 2 - The Tube

My first experience of London is the tube. It is so easy to get anywhere from Heathrow by tube that it makes Sydney Airport and its “Airport Line”, with its “first class fares” and “tin can carriages” seem positively anal. Where my first thought on hopping on the tube at Heathrow is “wow”, I wouldn't be surprised if the first thought of a tourist purchasing a Sydney Airport Line ticket was “fuck”.

The tube trains look quite futuristic. They are not very high – slightly taller and wider than monorails – but they are fairly quick. Most of my trip to Paddington was above ground. London was drizzling, of course, but I like the gloom, especially after many years of Sydney’s relentlessly happy sun.

The train’s final destination is Cockfosters – a name the female robotic announcer reinforces at every stop without a single passenger flinching. I guess Cockfosters is nothing for a country that, until recently, had a street called Cunt Lane. The windows reveal oldish but charming houses, and also some grey tenements that weren’t so charming.

There are lots of subcontinentals in England and this is immediately evident. Some have British accents, others a more Indian twang. Where Australia has its Asians, London has its Indians. The glut of Asians in Sydney memorably caused Australia’s red-haired anti-immigration firebrand, Pauline Hanson, to flee Australia for Britain, only to discover Britain wasn’t the all-white paradise she had hoped for. Hopefully this will also make Jeremy Clarkson flee Britain.