The Most Pointless Journeys of My Life
Created | Updated Apr 7, 2005
I'm sure everyone has had their fair share of pointless journeys, but at the same time I'm convinced that no-one else in the world has them quite as often as I do. Ironically enough, writing an article about each of these journeys does in fact give them a purpose, albeit a simple and previously unintended one.
Every now and again in your life, you will find yourself relying on a form of transport that is blatantly unreliable. If you live in London, or have lived in London at all in the last couple of centuries, or even just happen to be passing through, then the main offender is the tube.
Arsenal to Bounds Green
If you have any knowledge of the London Underground, or on the outside chance a map, then you will think that Arsenal to Wood Green is a relatively straightforward stroll, heading a little way northward on the Piccadilly line. In reality, it is roughly the same distance as a hike from Camden Town to Kennington1.
My dad, brother and I had just been to an Arsenal match and, as usual, we ran straight off to Arsenal tube station after the final whistle in order to get the tube to Cockfosters. One thing you should know about this particular tube station is that it has one walkway leading out of it and a lot of fans trying to get into it after the match. The result of all this is that the station was just a little cramped, but we managed to get on the train. Ten minutes later, we were still on the train. It hadn't left the station. Of course, there is so little scenery on the tube (regardless of whether it is in motion or not) that we didn't realise that we weren't going anywhere until a voice told us that this was the case. Maybe they shouldn't tell people in the first place, and then no-one would complain about the tube being late.
While for some reason everyone else remained on the train, our take on the expression 'very severe delay' caused us to leave the station post-haste with a view to walking the distance to Cockfosters instead. We headed off towards Finsbury Park to the north and started following the course of the line. To our great irritation, those coming from Finsbury Park station2 had decided to pull up every taxi in sight, and so we were left with the option of catching a bus.
There are only a few prerequisites to catching a bus - one is knowing where the bus stop is. We didn't and so we kept on walking northwards. We came to a forked junction. We didn't know where to go. Did we give up? No. My dad phoned home. 'Do you have the A to Z? Ok, we're on Seven Sister's Road - that's the one that goes to the right. Where does it go?' This conversation continued until my mum found the correct page and told us to turn left.
We walked for what must have been hours (or maybe just ten minutes) until we got to Turnpike Lane. Three stations down, six to go I thought, not being at all prepared for what happened next. Suddenly my dad went rushing off at a such a speed that I was convinced that there must be a pretty hefty yet localised tailwind behind him. For a moment I just stood there, a rabbit in headlights so to speak... and then I went sprinting after him. A couple of seconds later a bus went past us, pulling up at a stop just ahead and clarifying the situation completely. We collapsed onto the bus and waited to be carried off into the sunset.
It was only when the bus failed to do so that I realised something was amiss. I asked my dad if he'd got the tickets when he got on the bus ahead of me.
'But what about the conductor?' he asked.
I held my head in my hands and he got the message. Having convinced the driver that we weren't trying to stow away, he took us to Bounds Green. Here we leapt off the bus and immediately went in search of another one - one that would lead us home. We selected a random northbound bus and piled onto it.
My dad asked the driver whether the bus went to Cockfosters, and immediately a helpful passenger informed us that the tube went there.
'But it's not working - there are delays,' I pointed out. The passenger replied,
'Not for the last hour there haven't been...'
It's moments like that which make me want to cry. Still, we got to have a very exciting experience - getting lost, getting cold, getting lost again... when it comes to adventures, you can't beat north London...
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