h a l f b a k e r yNot the Happy Cuddle Club.
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One of my artistic fantasy projects goes like this:
You know the DLR tunnel that goes from above ground (near Royal Mint Street) to below ground for a fairly long run in a tunnel until it reaches the Bank-Monument complex? I've always thought that it would be the thing to do, to arrange that
the tunnel mouth has a thick and curly vine plant growing around the mouth of the entrance - preferably of a dark brown colour.
This would, in a short space of time, hopefully completely cover the area that surrounds the tunnel entrance. It would need frequent trimming to prevent contact with the trains, though. At about the time that the vine growth has achieved enough density and shape, the interior of the tunnel should be painted bright pink.
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Very often (more often than not) I position myself on the Bank train right at the end of the train, facing the rear door so that I can look out at where the train has just been. The effect of disappearing into that dark tunnel suddenly and at high speed is exactly like running the birth trauma in reverse (presumably - I wasn't born that way as I was dangerously too big, apparently, well, I say apparently as if I wasn't there, but I was). |
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It might encourage use of the Poplar - Bow Church(DLR) - Bow Road - Aldgate East (District/Metropolitan) alternative of getting into town from t'East, in order to avoid what might later become known as "The Enormous Vagina". |
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Plus, there are those who are lucky enough to travel in the opposite direction who would be effectively reliving their births every morning, only to be reclaimed (is there a better word?) at about 6ish on their way home every evening. |
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It might be interesting to conduct studies on these two groups of people in order to determine the psychological effects. |
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//only to be reclaimed (is there a better word?) //
"envaginated"? |
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[Ian] "I wasn't born that way "
<Austrian psychologist> Eeenteresting... Maybe zis iz vy you spend your adult life reliving the experience of birth again and again and again vith train journies?<Ap> |
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Well, it sort of does make me wonder if there's an innate urge for people to start crying as soon as the train bursts out from a tunnel into the bright daylight, but I've not noticed this mass effect thus far. Maybe people have somehow got over this daily birthing? Maybe they haven't and they repress the screaming and that's why they're all so screwed up? |
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Perhaps train companies should employ people to lead commuters in a massed primal scream when the train leaves a tunnel? This could be confined to a specific carriage, the "rebirthing carriage", just between first and standard class. |
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And for those actually born on a train in aviney tunnel? |
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Pre-ante-natel bun for you + |
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Someone's bound to come up with the idea of disguising all the tunnel mouths as anuses (is this a valid plural?), painting all the tunnel interiors brown and making all the trains dirty and smelly. |
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No, wait, hang on...it's already like that. |
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There's a Hays Code-referencing filmic pun (if that's what I mean) here:
Man and woman in bedroom, all buttoned-up desire. Cut to
DLR train passing into Ian's Tunnel, with a very slow fade to black as train keeps on ramming into the darkness, then cut to
Half a second of Ian's train bursting from the tunnel, before cutting to
The woman sitting in shabby bedsit, the man standing by the door regarding with apparent distaste, the screaming newborn in the woman's arms. But wait, doesn't that baby look like- like- like Ian?! |
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A former friend once turned the London
underground stations into adverts for
Black & White whiskey. He created the
slogan "you are about to enter the longest
whiskey advert in the world" at the end of
a series of station platforms just at the
tunnel entrances. |
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[calum] Once this train is in operation, I can see the reverse happening. In a film, when a shot of a train going into a tunnel is needed, it will be tastefully replaced with a shot of a couple having sex - viewers will understand the metaphor but won't explain to their kids that it means <whisper>a train going into a tunnel</whisper>. |
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For all those in the UK, this Sunday (18th
March) is "Tube night" on BBC4, including
an "Arena" documentary (9pm) on the tube
which includes (according to my TV guide)
"academic musings on the psychology of
going deep into tunnels" - it looks like
they've stolen Ian's idea. |
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"You know the DLR tunnel that goes from above ground (near Royal Mint Street) to below ground for a fairly long run in a tunnel until it reaches the Bank-Monument complex" |
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In a nutshell, no. Is this related somehow to the "tube thingy?" |
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Yes. It isn't the tube thingy, but it's
related to the tube thingy in that it joins
onto it, and it is part of Transport for
London (buses, trams, Docklands Light
Railway, the tube
thingy and riverboats) and adheres to
the same zonal ticket system as the
tube thingy. However, unlike the tube
thingy staff, the DLR have different
unions and are overseen by Serco
Docklands, an entirely separate
administration to the tube thingy, so
that when the tube thingy goes on
strike the DLR often doesn't. But the
DLR shows up on the London
Underground tube thingy map as the
lines to the East, that have turquoise
with a white stripe down the middle. |
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Not much of great interest to report from the BBC documentary on the tube (see above) except for the nugget of information that the first time Sigmund Freud saw his mother naked was on a train. |
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//the first time Sigmund Freud saw his mother naked was on a train.// I'm wondering why a presumably respectable middle-class Austrian woman should have been naked on a train. |
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I assume it was one of those sleeper trains, with compartments - but I could be wrong, it might have been a crowded commuter train. |
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Really, [AbsintheWithoutLeave]? |
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Tell me about your mother. |
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Embarrassingly laughed out loud in quiet office at "The Enormous Vagina". |
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Anyway, this is a nice idea. They are doing a lot of public art on the tube now, cf. Gloucester Road station, this could be an extension of that, getting artists to decorate the tunnel entrance and interior. A big swirly spiral thing would be good, to give the impression of time travel. Or something to recreate the chocolate boat scene of Willy Wonka (with the train captain doing the crazed poetry a la Gene Widler): |
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Round the world and home again / That's the sailor's way /
Faster faster, faster faster |
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There's no earthly way of knowing /
Which direction we are going /
There's no knowing where we're rowing /
Or which way the river's flowing |
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Is it raining, is it snowing /
Is a hurricane a-blowing |
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Not a speck of light is showing /
So the danger must be growing /
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing /
Is the grisly reaper mowing / |
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Yes, the danger must be growing /
For the rowers keep on rowing /
And they're certainly not showing /
Any signs that they are slowing |
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But what if it's a breech? Would the
commuters all have to stand backwards
whilst blowing through the tunnel exit/
entrance? |
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