civilization

The first thing I noticed as I descended from Terminal 4, the gateway to obscurity at Heathrow, is engineering works. This is what defines London on weekends. Underground public transport shuts down in long stretches to facilitate the replacement of bits of track or signaling that have done their duty faithfully over decades. The tube has just celebrated its 150th anniversary, and some of the hardware hails from that initial period. There's a (potentially apocryphal) story that tube maintenance workers sometimes query the archives of the Science Museum to replace crucial bits of kit that have just failed.

This afternoon, the Piccadilly line existed in three separate segments that disconnected parts of London that don't have much to do with each other but I rather fancied as waymarkers on my final hop home. There was no direct train to London save the Heathrow Express, a ripoff for anyone who doesn't specifically want to go to the Paddington area. The tube from the airport didn't run beyond Northfields. The name already gives it away. This is not the place you want to be stranded.

I got off at Boston Manor where instructions were posted all over in black felt pen: Rail replacement buses were running to Ealing Common for connection with the District line, up and down the length of the Piccadilly line, serving all intermediate stops, and direct to Earl's Court for those with ambitions beyond. From Earl's Court, it's only a short walk home for me, and my backpack wasn't heavy.

Returning to civilization as I know it after four day in an exciting but rather unfamiliar place, the orderliness and regulation of London are striking. What looks like chaos and dysfunction when living through it is an example of sharp structure. All over Boston Manor were tube staff directing confused travelers, many coming in from abroad, some for the first time. Patiently they answered the same questions again and again, repeating for extra assurance what was already written down on big white boards at the tube stop exit. For buses to Earl's Court, cross the street. For buses to Ealing Common turn left. I crossed the street.

An orderly line, this most British of crowds, had already formed. The tourists, still dazed by airport security, joined in most naturally. Presently, a red double-decker arrived, and two manhandlers started triaging passengers by the heft of their luggage. Light goes up, heavy stays down. Two minutes later, the bus took off, running down the A4 without stopping until it got stuck in traffic at Earl's Court, pretty much right in front of the tube station. I brought my Oyster card up to date at the touch terminal and arrived at home ten minutes later.

Had the bus not been heated as if were still the middle of winter and not, as it happened, a most splendid summer day with sun insinuating itself through the clouds on occasion and the temperature reaching a toasty 15C when it did, I wouldn't even have broken a sweat.