Blood on the Tracks

Sitting on the underground. I hear the announcement; "Due to a person under a Central line train this train will not be stopping at Holborn" It seems strange, I'm sure it never used to be this way. When an incident like this happened passengers used to be told that the delays were caused by someone taking ill or the mysterious "passenger action". That way we were spared the true horror of knowing that somebody lay unrecognizable in the dirty trackbed.

I suppose times have changed. In the first Gulf war the British press and TV shied away from showing us all the gory details. It was all huge explosions and burnt tanks. In the recent conflict it was suddenly acceptable to show the dead and screaming wounded. In some ways we need to see the suffering and brutalisation that war causes. Just showing explosions and rubble is not the same as eviscerated corpses and de-limbed children. This could temper British the publics usual glorification of the whole shoddy business.

Sorry back to the tube. I heard the announcement twice in the last week. I'm sitting on the tube feeling depressed because I'm on the way to work, but some poor bastards' had enough and decided to meet their maker closer to the underworld than most. I realise that my depression is short lived and won't take me to that place. Someone's dead and I end up feeling more positive? It's a sick world. Maybe I should hang around crematoria, I'd be ecstatic.

Spring is here, I will enjoy it and do some serious running.