I’m on the Tube every day, and let me tell you, something terrible is afoot. Simple things we Londoners used to take for granted — you know, people standing on escalators on the right, people stepping to the side of the doors and letting others off carriages first — have fallen by the wayside.
These days? It’s the wild west down there.
As a lifelong Londoner nothing gives me greater pleasure than living somewhere where every single place I could ever want to visit in a 20-mile radius is available to access via the Tube. I’m constantly ducking and diving underground, popping up like a periscope at various unexpected locations, working, visiting friends, going out.
I pride myself on taking full advantage of living in the most glamorous, most exciting, vibrant, thrilling city in the world and the Tube is my key to the kingdom.
Something awful is happening underground. It’s the wild west down there
In the past week I’ve been to Elephant and Castle for a baby shower, Uxbridge for a football match, and traversed the city daily from Acton to Liverpool Street for work. (Acton might not be everyone’s first choice, but where else, may I ask, has three Tubes, an overground and the Elizabeth line? Acton is a London adventurer’s dream. I can get to Bond Street in nine minutes, Hackney Wick in 20 and South Ken in 10. Can you?) But something awful is happening underground. A growing savagery. Vulgarians who haven’t been educated about the exquisite etiquette of the London Underground. Rude, ill-mannered. “After you, obviously,” is something I’m forced to mutter endlessly in my pass-agg tone to the shovers, the pushers.
A litany of rudeness
My current bête noire? Lone tourists taking up four seats in rush hour on the Lizzie line with their enormous plastic suitcases. You’re not wanted on this train during commuter hours. Unforgivable. Your train is the irregular, temperamental, overpriced Heathrow or Gatwick express. Don’t stray from that.
Also? Don’t eat on the Tube. Nothing. Ever. Eating McDonald’s on the Tube means you are basically a savage. Control yourself. You’re disgusting. And unbelievably selfish.
Drinking gin in a tin on a Friday evening on the Tube? Jolly.
Stand aside when the doors open and wait for people to come off the train before getting on. I could not entertain the idea of a friendship with someone who had not learnt to do this. Seriously.
When you are in a crowded carriage and you arrive at your stop, don’t try to hurl yourself like an Exocet missile at the doors. Wait patiently, you fool. Everyone always has time to get off. Always.
Is your rucksack bashing into people whenever you turn around? That’s extremely rude. The polite thing to do, rather than knocking into everyone and squashing people’s faces with it, is instead to place it carefully at your feet. Is someone elderly or infirm struggling to carry a suitcase or a buggy? Offer to help.
Are you actually going to listen to your phone without headphones? Completely unacceptable
Wait. Are you actually going to listen to your phone without headphones? Are there genuinely people in our city who are this selfish? The levels of rude you need to be able to carry this off are mind-boggling. But yes, there are millions of people who do this. Completely unacceptable.
Are you wearing headphones but the whole carriage can still hear your German techno music at full volume at 7.30am on the Metropolitan line, could you be more anti-social? Also, feel free to talk about your sex life, or have a massive row with your partner, or roast a work colleague on the phone on the Tube — that’s entertaining for everyone. But do not under any circumstances make a long, tortuous call to BT or HMRC or your boiler company on the Tube. Don’t make your fellow Londoners sit through that, you sociopath.
Don’t lean your whole body on the central pole, it’s there for everyone to hang on to. If you are by the doors on an extremely busy Tube carriage, the polite thing to do is step off the train to let people off and then calmly step back on again.
Commuting with care
If you’re entering a very busy carriage in rush hour and there are loads of stressed commuters behind you trying to get on too, it is your job as the person up front to force enough room for them to hop on the train too. Don’t just get on and blockade the door, that’s ridiculously selfish, mean-spirited behaviour.
See someone leaving litter in the carriage? Totally fine to pick it up and give it to them with a breezy, “I think you dropped this.” Everyone will appreciate you for it.
Have your card ready when you’re at the barriers. Do not start fumbling around your pockets when you are at the front of the queue
Have your bankcard, phone, Oyster or whatever in your hand absolutely ready to go by the time you hit those barriers. Do not start fumbling around your pockets when you are at the front of the queue. Please do not do this.
Has someone old or pregnant or frail joined your carriage? Jump up immediately and offer them your seat. There is a special place reserved in hell for people who sit there bovine-eyed, pretending not to notice when someone needs a seat more than them. Really, really poor behaviour to do that.
Carry cash on the Tube to give to homeless people. Don’t allow someone begging to be ignored by the entire carriage — be kind, be a human being.
And if someone is making someone else uncomfortable, catch their eye and show them you have noticed and are an ally. Take the time to read the poems on the London Underground, they’re actually really good and might just positively enhance your day.
Read a paper. The London Standard ideally. Do you realise how attractive people reading a print product are? You are the elite, you’re royalty. Staring at your phone marks you out as just another brainless, captured zombie. Unless you are reading the Standard online. In which case, thank you.
Anna van Praagh is a columnist and chief content officer at The London Standard
