Thinking for Dummies

It's bad news on the tube today, the driver has a personality and he's not afraid to use it. He issues squawk after squawk of non-stop pronouncements that scrape on the tinny speakers like nails on a chalkboard, telling us things we already know. I’m being attacked by tannoy. His sentences are as interminable as the delays, his interference a wall of static, a white noise I have to close my book against. I get off the train and change lines but it's not much better here. What do they think will happen if they stay silent? A whole station of people disappearing down the gap? Stand behind the line, comes the instruction, I'm surprised they don't tell us which side. Before the PA was installed were people plunging lemming-like onto electrified rails? But to be honest, with all these voices in my head, it's beginning to look quite attractive. I take a step back from the platform in case it all gets too much, and out of the corner of my eye, I see the platform attendant swell with pride at a job well done.