The Joy of Tube

Last weekend, I was going to be staying overnight at a party in North London. So I get on the tube at Oval with a suitcase. The obvious place to put it is at the very end of the carriage, by the 'between carriage, emergency only' doors, so I do. I then sit down nearby.

At some point in Central London, a group of about six men get on and stay standing in that area. Coming into Camden Town station, I can see my suitcase. They get off there or at Chalk Farm, the next stop. Coming into Belsize Park, the stop after that, I look and… no suitcase.

So I get off, and go and find the station staff. They're very helpful and the station supervisor sets up a call to the British Transport Police. While I'm chatting to them, he calls Chalk Farm and discovers that they have a suitcase. He also warns (?!) me that the station supervisor there is… a… woman!?!

Gosh, they let women work now? 🙂 So it's off to there. Ooh, yes, that's it.

What seems to have happened is that the group got off there, taking the suitcase with them, because erm, well, clearly it must be lost property. The idea of actually asking anyone nearby if it belonged to them doesn't seem to have occured to them!? (Ditto the idea that it might go 'bang' if they messed about with it.) At the exit, they got the staff on duty to open the 'luggage' barrier for them because they had it, and disappeared off into the street.

A few minutes later, they come back and say that they were going to take it to a police station, but then thought that they would hand it in at the station instead. I'm not terribly surprised that the ticket barrier person took some convincing to accept it, but he did.

A look inside showed nothing missing, and there were a couple of obviously valuable items in it.

Phew, but overall it was a definite WTF?!

The Helpful Laundrette

Last night at dinner time, the phone rang. It was a nurse wanting to speak to L16?! It turned out that his father, L's ex, was in hospital. He seems to have had a stroke at some point on Saturday evening. He felt some symptoms, but didn't do anything about it. On Sunday, he goes to the laundrette, they notice the asymmetry of his face – thank you recent ad campaign about this – and call an ambulance. He's talking (if not entirely clearly) and lucid, but various tests are being done today to see what the damage is.

Part of today has been spent thanking the laundrette and looking through his 'I thought I could be messy' bedsit to find various important papers etc.

Chessington

Yesterday was the last day of Beanoland at Chessington World of Adventures. They're redeveloping the area, and finished up with a giant custard pie fight. On the one hand, it's been noticeable that various things the area started with ten years ago, like a live show (including someone sliding from one side of the area to the 'tree house' in the middle and someone falling into the fountain), have long gone. On the other, I'll still miss it.

The day before JA was born, L16 (then L8!) and I went to CWoA and spent a lot of time in that bit, so it has memories for me. It remained fun to see people sitting on the outside of the 'Billy's Whizzer' flying chair ride without bothering to think about why there were some big puddles of water at two places on the outside! Ditto carving up teenagers on 'Roger's Dodge'ems'. And I wonder what's going to happen to the soft ball-shooting air guns that came from the Millennium Dome…