Saturday night and while Tottenham burned the rest of London was busy drowning in alcohol. My first taste of the night was even before I’d got on the train, a rather drunken gentleman asked me if the train went to Wimbledon. When I informed him it didn’t he enquired if I was the train driver and then asked me if I could take the train to Wimbledon. For a few seconds I considered telling him that for an extra £20 I’d run him home after we got to EAB but restrained my whimsical urge for fear that he might actually take it as a serious offer.

At LIS one “over refreshed” passenger failed to take heed of SONIA’s advice to “mind the gap” and ended up spread-eagled on the platform. Fortunately he was not alone and his companions hauled him off towards the escalators. When I reached EAB the cars were a mess of empty cans and bottles though surprisingly no one required waking up, just one poor soul sat on the platform searching through his rucksack for either his wallet or his Oyster card.

There was one annoying incident but nothing to do with passengers. Every night the last EAB train arrives at WHC, waits for the last WER to arrive on the adjacent platform, the WER then leaves and the EAB follows. There are three lines through WHC and while I was waiting an EB train arrived on the middle platform, going out of service and heading into the sidings under the Westfield.

After a while Wood Lane called me to say that the WER was being delayed because to the TOp of the train bound for the sidings had gone “walkabout” No, Wood Lane, the delay was due to you putting a train on the only platform the last WER could go WB from while the EB platform was empty. But why check the timetable when you can just blame the train driver, everybody else does.