Tube Sick

I was interviewed by Londonist over the weekend as part of their new series featuring London bloggers. The final question they asked me was whether I'd ever been sick on the Tube. I thought, that's a cool, yet yucky question for me (although later found out it's one of their signature questions). Thankfully, I've never been sick in a London Underground carriage. Although you can see my full answer in the interview here.

Fortunately I've never seen anyone throw up inside a Tube carriage, which is surprising as I travel around quite late & in trains where there's been much drunkeness. Even on the final Circle Line party before the ban on public transport booze, I didn't see anyone puking there.


However, I remembered that Marie F aka Tiger's Hungry, drew a little cartoon to illustrate what happened after she saw a woman throwing up on the Piccadilly Line one night.

"After an initial few moments of gawping most of the carriage quickly herded down the other end covering their mouths and offering the occasional insightful 'oh that's gross' - but I was happy to see other sympathetic travellers fumbling in their bags to offer her tissues (to her testament I think it was genuine 'not wellness' to blame rather than booze). She quickly departed at the next stop leaving a gaggle of tourists scrabbling to relocate their sick laden luggage.

"Yes the smell was bad for me, but at least it wasn't as bad as enduring what happened to the poor guy who got on at Holborn. Hastily boarding the carriage he lost his footing and after a few moments scrabbling about in the mess ended up on bended knee in the epicentre of events. To quote the experience in his words 'Oh f**ing lovely'. Yet he still valiantly took a hit for the team and stayed on the little end of carriage perch to warn fellow boarding travellers of the perils that lay within - and thankfully there was only a few future slippy near misses.

"Some nice guy offered him tissues to clean his trousers up, I had no tissues- so I just evilly laughed. It didn't really feel appropriate to take photos of the misfortune - but there is an artist's impression of events." (above)

Marie also pointed out that Armando Iannucci's Tube Tales 'Mouth' segment came to mind quite vividly. For those of you who aren't eating, you can see the short film below, which is a pretty colourful view of a late night Tube trip.


Err, welcome to blog Londonistas!