Minding the Cultural Gap Between London, Metro Subways

I went Underground over the weekend with a quick jaunt to England that included a day spent riding London's subway system. As usual, I was looking for differences and similarities between our two countries.

I'd dragged my suitcases into the Victoria Tube station Sunday afternoon only to find that the Victoria Line was closed. The entire line, from Brixton to Walthamstow Central, was shut down for "improvements." (The English, understandably, are even better at Orwellian language than we are.)

If this had happened in Washington -- the whole Blue Line closed, say -- I'd have been sunk. But England's capital is crisscrossed with subway lines like capillaries in a bloodshot eyeball. It was easy enough for me to recalibrate and be on my way on a different line.

Of course, you'd expect that in a city of 7 million people. The cities are of vastly different scales. Washington has 86 stations on five subway lines. London has 268 stations on 11 lines.

As I rode, I decided that a subway system doesn't have to be comfortable to be functional but that being comfortable definitely improves the journey. The carriages on the Tube are nowhere near as plush as ours. There's no prohibition against eating, and many people do. On every train I rode, at least one person -- usually a young man in a suit, his necktie loosened -- pulled out a sandwich and started chowing down. It was as if they used the subway car as a staff canteen.

You may be allowed to eat but you can't smoke, a message reinforced by an announcement that sounds as if it were recorded by the matron of a women's prison. In a voice that reeks of starched uniforms and cold scrubs with carbolic soap she barks, "Smoking is not permitted anywhere on the Underground."

Contrast this with Metro's half-hearted suggestions. The announcement that bugs me the most is the one from the guy who says in a folksy chuckle: "You may have noticed most people stand on the right while riding the escalator."

Yeah, well most people pick their noses at traffic lights, too. Why not just order people not to stand on the left?

The stations on London's Underground have simpler names than our needlessly elaborate monikers. Some of them sound vaguely obscene (Goodge Street, Hackney Wick, Cockfosters), but at least none have our alphabetical sprawl. (Metro's penchant for long names prompted reader Tom Hoffman of Pearisburg, Va., to complain to me about the Tenleytown-American University name. "Trust me, AU is nowhere near the Tenleytown station," Tom wrote. "I would like to suggest that Vienna be changed to 'Vienna-University of Virginia.' After all, it is the closest one, even if UVA is another 100 miles.")

London has funny station names because England is a nation of funny place names. It's hard to invent something that's as humorous as reality. Can you guess which one of these British town names I made up: Little Snoring, Chipping Sodbury, Middle Wallop, Scratchy Bottom?

The answer is: none. They're all real.

It isn't just the place names that are amusing. I had a conversation in a pub over the weekend with a fellow named Gareth Furby. I was too polite to say, "You mean like the robotic stuffed animal?"