railway announcement

if you have children, be sure that they are well supervised and do not stray near the platform edge. this is a security announcement. make sure your baggage is attended to at all times to ensure there are no delays made to your journey. (i like the suggestion that delays happen because of not attending to your baggage at all times...) it is against the law to smoke ANYWHERE in this station if you see any anti-social behavior or an incident that requires police assistance, please call british transport police on 0800 40 50 40 

(what do smoking and anti-social behaviour have to do with each other?)

these well thought out snipets of propaganda blare out offensively from the crackling speaker overhead and reverberate round the tinny walls. a few people wince or cover their ears. samo' shit, i think. is the wank PA, through which no important information can be made out, part of the eternal traditions of british rail or is it there as the station-master's joke? as a form of revenge for having turned out such a wad of gob? is that the game? that despite the advancements in decades worth of audio-technology, our railway announcements still sound like a geordie shouting down a tin-can-telephone? i try to take my ears off it by trying the eyes and looking around, but it's not much good either. i count 50 adverts before the sockets start to ache like i've got the pain of 1000 wombs stuck between my temples. this is 'Mingham. Moor Street Station, precisely, n it looks like it just had some more money thrown at it. there's a fair bit of chrome around to prove it, plus a set of turnstiles and a new CCTV system installed. no grafitti, no busking, no hustle, no life, not even bins. NO LOITERING hangs a large sign on the waiting room wall, in bold, ironic font. what next? a clock that's stuck at midnight? no - but the automatic doors do tell you - with a sure and propper accent - when they're opening and closing. why? coz this is marketting upon us again; trying to lure us with cheap electronic tricks into believing that the hocus pocus of capitalism is leading the world into the modern and cutting edge and that these are things worth caring about, whereas actually people just want the train to run on time and are quite happy when they have enough leg room. i dont need doors that tell me what theyre doing. i know what theyre doing. physics man, physics! they're opening coz i said "open sessame", ennit? this has nothing to do with physics!