A Very English Construction Project

Any seasoned commuter will tell you that over time you learn to calculate the distance remaining to your stop not by looking up at the scrolling on-board screen or by swinging your head left to right to catch station names as platforms flash past, but by using your peripheral senses to keep a constant monitor on your whereabouts. A bend in the track, A highway passing beneath you, a clearing in the trackside brush. Anyone of these minor deviations from the norm can be detected while reading the paper or sending emails and will act as a nearly subconscious indicator as to your whereabouts. None are easier to read along the Chiltern Line than the low-lying horizontal halogen lighting which illuminates the Gerrards Cross tunnel.

Ah....the Gerrards Cross tunnel. A 300m long never-ending paean to modern English engineering prowess. For those unfamiliar with the original intention, Tesco was to cover a length of track east of the station, pile landfill on top of it (so it's not even really a tunnel) and thereby create a new patch of real estate upon which Tesco would construct a supermarket, and presumably a few hundred much-needed parking spaces. Brilliant.

So in the face of 90% local opposition they moved forward with the project. That was in....2004. In 2005...the tunnel collapsed, narrowly missing a west-bound train which had already departed Denham Golf Course and in full view of passengers waiting on the Gerrards Cross platform. Oops. The mess, which was blamed on a torrential rainfall the previous day, was tidied up and after a period of assessment and consultation the project resumed again. Five years on and the site still looks like...well, a site, and the good citizens of Gerrards Cross are no closer to having a new Tesco, the added parking spaces or even just the absence of a gigantic eye-sore in the middle of the town. In fact, it doesn't even look as though they have fully buried the concrete tubing over the tracks yet. I'm no engineer...but how hard can this be?!

A quick comparison for you. The Channel Tunnel connecting Britain to France took six years to complete and covers a distance of 38kms. The Gerrards Cross tunnel connecting Gerrards Cross to, erm, Gerrards Cross has thus far also taken six years to complete and covers a distance of roughly 300m.

We all know these things are never as easy as they look, but surely this project cannot be nearly as hard as they're making it look.

Warm, Unwelcome Smells

Any homeward-bound journey is rife with hazards which may offend and upset the commuter. The risks vary in a sort of sliding-scale manner depending on the hour of your return. Between 5pm and half seven you will deal with the annoying crush of crowds. Between half seven and 9pm trains run less frequently, so being two minutes late to the station will ensure you are 30 minutes late getting home. Post 11pm you will obviously be sharing the car with loutish drunks and their bad breath, loud voices and frequent trips to the loo. By far the worst window to choose is the 9 to 11pm slot. Why? Because travelers in this window are too early to have been out for dinner and too late to make it back for supper with the family. The result is a carriage full of commuters (usually male, usually in suits) indulging in the most grotesque and inconsiderate of evening meals...the publicly consumed hot Cornish pasty.

The first indication of what's coming your way is the crinkle of the West Cornwall Pasty Co. bag. How will you recognize it? Simple. Most everything else these days is carried in plastic, so the sound of a hand manipulating paper can only mean on thing. Any doubt is immediately laid to rest by the on-rushing smell-wave of hot, wet meat which very quickly envelopes your head, chair , clothes and, indeed, the whole carriage. What is it about the smell of other people's food that is so disgusting? Is it possible for smell to have a temperature? Why is the sound of people breathing through their nose and chewing so vile? You will be tempted to move seats but don't waste your time. Remember, you are traveling in an enclosed space often with heater fans on full blast shifting the food stink back and forth from one end of the car to the other. And secondly, these inconsiderate West Country carnivores travel in packs. No, all that's left for you to do is breath through your mouth and try and channel your anger and disgust into something positive. Like remembering to leave earlier tomorrow.

The Psychology of Free

The commuter's pleasures are few. Occasionally an interesting conversation with a stranger. Occasionally an orange sunset sneaking through the trackside trees on the journey home. But mostly it is a study in the layers of dullness. It's no wonder then that whole carriages of grey men stare into their Blackberries the entire length of the workward journey to avoid, one suspects, having to look up and face a sea of unwanted reflections in the mirror.

So, thank heavens for the Evening Standard. For generations a familiar source of end-of-day news and b-grade gossip. Unlike all the other London dailies (some newsier, some gossipier) the Standard has a genuine point of difference beyond its editorial slant; it prints during the day, not over night. It is precisely this difference in timing which allows it to so regularly scoop the next morning's dailies and provide commuters with a first crack at the big story of the day.
Above and beyond, it has decent sports writers, a readable TV guide for that night and a small crossword puzzle which perfectly strikes the balance between too easy and can't-be-arsed.

Recently, however, the Evening Standard became the 'Free'vening Standard, joining the ranks of Metro, the London Paper and various other forms of waste paper jamming up the city's rubbish bins.

The thinking behind the shift in business model is not hard to understand. Free equals more readers. More readers equals higher circulation. Higher circulation equals more expensive advertising rates. Which equals more profit.

Considering the Standard was well on its way to bankruptcy one can't really blame the new owners for trying something fairly radical. However, in their efforts to fatten the goose I wonder if they aren't sewing the seeds of its arterial clogging and inevitable (and now far less honourable) death.

The first change I noticed in a post paid-for Evening Standard world was that they're not where they used to be. In the case of Marylebone Station, the newsagent's. Why? Because the newsagent was getting tired of the entrance to his shop being jammed up by the hordes of people drawn to 'free stuff'. The second was you can never get one anymore! If you take the train home any time past 7pm the vendors are all packed up and gone. Sold out - or whatever the free equivalent of sold out is. Never mind the late-working long time customer.

In truth, that last point is a lie. You can get them past 7pm...you must just be willing to pick one up off the floor or out of a bin because that's where so many of them wind up.

Which brings us to the bigger, more serious consideration in all this...what role does paying for something have in raising it's perceived value?

To my mind it plays a very big role. When something is free it is, by definition, of no value. I don't ever remember garbage-picking Evening Standards when they cost 50p. No, you read it, you held onto it, you finished it at home. And beyond just a very evident willingness to toss Evening Standards aside, has this perceived lack of value not also carried over to the ideas and opinions contained within? I suspect it has. Who dreams of writing for a paper that gives it opinions away free of charge? Who trusts or values the content of a paper that is trying to appeal to everyone? Are its notions balanced and fair or are they of whichever sort will attract the most readers, however fleeting those readers may be?

In a period of seemingly constant change one comes to depend on the comfort of small, familiar things. A friendly pub, a local market and, for me, an Evening Standard...that I pay for.

Oh...and one with a glossy magazine on Friday, too. My wife will never forgive them that one.

Beaconsfield to London

A funny thing happened to me on the way to work the other day...I realized that whether I liked it or not (and in spite of my wearing trainers, T-shirt and big dark sunnies), I had become a suburban overland commuter. I knew the train schedule. I knew how long it took to cycle to the station. I knew where to position myself on the platform so as to be perfectly aligned with the doors when the train came to a stop. I knew which carriage was most likely to have a free seat (the rear one). I knew which seats had more shoulder room and more knee room. I knew all the things a suburban commuter knows because...I was now one of them.