Morning:
8°c
On the side of a building near Euston station is an artwork of a giant electric fan. On a hot day your brain can be tricked into expecting a waft of cool air - a clever optical illusion. But by the time I descend into the tropical heat of the Northern line, I often wonder if it is actually a sick joke.
This week, when Tube bosses installed industrial fans at London's hottest stations, I had the same thought. How can it have taken so long to come up with the idea of plugging in a few big fans?
There are few worse London experiences than being stuck on a sweltering Tube. This summer we're lucky - it's relatively cool - but temperatures are still nudging 30C and the Northern line at rush hour is like a mobile sauna.
So why this sticking-plaster solution to what's actually a life-threatening situation? For years we've been promised answers, my favourite being the Heath Robinsonesque notion that ice-cold water will be drawn from waterways deep beneath London and piped through boiling carriages. Yet the best we get is a blast from a fan in the station.
TfL never tires of reminding us how complex our beloved Victorian Tube is to upgrade. A £150 million renovation programme should go some way to delivering a more 21stcentury travel experience. But cooling the deepest lines still eludes our most brilliant boffins. The rising volume of passengers is blamed for increased humidity although it was a deliberate policy to divert us onto public transport. You'd think someone would have seen this coming.
We might have more sympathy with struggling Tube bosses if overheating was an isolated problem. But while our journeys continue to be blighted by other, unnecessary irritations, it's hard to be understanding. Why can't someone install a useful information system at Edgware Road - a key interchange? And there seems no good reason for the number of times the Central line boards display the wrong destination. Meanwhile, Oyster readers still insist on rejecting perfectly healthy cards. And malfunctioning speakers mean announcements are distorted beyond comprehension.
Despite all this, London's commuters are incredibly tolerant. We squeeze sardine-like into carriages and stoically inhale the scent of mothballs and body odour for up to an hour each way. When the promised Circle line train home fails to materialise we pull out the paper and read it for the third time.
But it all adds up to a perception of clunking incompetence. And when we go abroad - to Madrid, Paris, New York - we invariably find more efficient systems. The signs, announcements and ticket machines always seem to function.
That's all we ask. A journey that's as smooth as can be reasonably expected.
Yet the only thing TfL can be relied upon to deliver is a range of plausible excuses. The last thing we need is more hot air.
Anne's my new tennis hero
London has a new role model. Anne Keothavong, the British No 1 set to play Venus Williams today at Wimbledon, seems to have come from nowhere. But like all successful tennis players, she's been training since she could pick up a racquet. The difference between her and most who make it to Wimbledon is her background.
The child of refugees who came here from Laos in the Seventies, Keothavong was brought up in a Hackney council flat and sent to Kingsland secondary school, where she and her sister were the sole tennis players. Not only has she proved you can excel at this most middle-class sport if you come from modest means, she's also a talented violinist and academically gifted. The LTA should hold her up as a shining example of the sport's future. She might struggle to beat Venus but she'll give it everything. More power to her elbow.
Hair today, gone tomorrow
Politicians should beware of hair: get it wrong and it can kill a career. Young pretender James Purnell, take note. The Blairite work and pensions secretary's sideburns are fast advancing down his cheekbones with razored precision. They give him a raffish look, reminiscent of Life on Mars character DCI Gene Hunt. Or perhaps he's just channelling his inner teddy boy. Either way, it's a risk to make a statement with facial hair.
And a straw poll in the office proves my hunch - sideburns are polarising. Should he continue to sport his lambchops, Purnell is gambling with the loyalties of the female electorate. If you want my career advice, James, get a shave.
Reader views (1)
Stop crying about 30 degree heat on the tube. Some cities have that on a daily basis.
- Jane, London, UK, 27/06/2008 16:04
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