h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I once went to a talk by the Ven. Ato Rinpoche...a Tibetan Buddhist Lama living in Cambridge...who said that we could use 'mind the gap' as a kind of mantra for remembering the space between thoughts and so keeping our minds open.

On a more mundane note...I was once stuck in a station (was it Victoria)...our train stopped with its doors open so the 'mind your gap' tape was running. A train pulled in going the other way and it started the voice going on the opposite platform. It was 'mind the gap', 'mind the gap'...for about ten minutes. It drove me and everyone mad. Did they think we would all leap into the gap if they didn't repeat that phrase? Are we thought to be suicidal like lemmings.

Who knows what takes place in the mind of London Transport???

I am reminded of the lifts in the hospital at which I work. There are four lifts in the main lobby, to carry people up as far as the 13th floor. There is a rather stern female voice built into each car, which announces the floor, and warns of "Doors closing".

In the event of a fire, they automatically return to the ground floor, the doors open, and the stern woman announces something along the lines of: "Please exit the lift, and leave the building by the nearest exit."

As the lifts are usually at different places, they arrive at different times, and the ground floor lobby soon has four lifts, all talking, out of synch, at once - four stern women, all trying to be heard...

I won't liken it to anything, I'll get hit!