Going underground

Nature recollection tells me I once mentioned in this column that I couldn’t understand why citizens in England’s Big Smoke are always complaining about the London Underground. As I recall, I mentioned that while it was expensive, dirty and constantly weltering in a mephitic fug, any transport system that gets you exactly where you want to go a few minutes either side of the time you need to be there can’t be all bad.

I take it all back. In fact not only do I take it all back, but I’d go so far as to pull a complete u-turn and state here for the record that London Tubes are filthy, smelly, sardine-packed, urine-soaked, Romanian-children-playing-the-button-accordion-badly-infested, £2-to-go-two-stops, trundling death traps on wheels-that-are-liable-to-come-off –at-any-second. Yes, it’s fair to say that I am now wholeheartedly against Tubes.

The reason for my abrupt volte face can be attributed almost entirely to the fact that I recently experienced the hell that is a rush-hour Tube ride first thing in the morning.

After the first leg of my journey, which involved queuing outside the station in the rain for 10 minutes, I finally made it to the queue for the ticket machine, from where I was able to observe the glacier-like speed with which the queue for the broken escalator down to the platform was moving. Imagine being stuck in that bottleneck on the way from Dublin into Kinnegad, but with the fetid stench of humanity surrounding you instead of a car, and with only the death-rattle coughing of the damned instead of Newstalk 106’s Ger Gilroy for entertainment and you’ll have a vague idea of the sheer will-sapping misery of it all.

Twenty minutes later, having negotiated the assorted obstacles barring my path, I managed to wedge myself on board and finally arrive at my destination, albeit more sweat-soaked and weary than any young man should be that early in the morning, unless he’s in the company of a good woman. Or alone with his thoughts.

London’s new congestion charge means all this nonsense is going to get worse before it gets better. At the insistence of mayor Ken Livingstone, commuters are now being forced to pay £5-per-day to drive their cars into the centre of London between the hours of 6am and later-on o’clock. The reasoning behind this devious scheme is sound enough: get people off the roads and on to public transport, thus alleviating congestion on the roads. However, what Mr Livingstone doesn’t seem to realise is that there isn’t an ounce of bloody room for all these poor eejits who would rather forego the relative comfort of their car for the sake of the 40-odd pence difference between the congestion charge and a return ticket. Mark my word, it’ll end in tears.

But enough of this frivolous guff about London. Ennis was the place to be two weekends ago, when the mighty warriors that are the hurlers of Birr swept Athenry aside to advance to the All Ireland Club final, which will be played in Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day. Arguably the best club team of all time, Birr contain several members of the Offaly team that was fabled affectionately in media circles throughout the 1990s as an awful shower of wasters who contrived to win all around them without ever appearing to train.

And while reports of their nocturnal habits were (slightly) exaggerated, there was no end of pre-game chuckling in the saloons of Athenry when it was reported in the Irish Times that two of Birr’s finest servants were doubtful starters ahead of the eagerly awaited encounter. Brian Whelahan had done his back in putting turf on the fire in his pub, it was said, while feckless midfield maestro Johnny Pilkington had aggravated a groin injury while lifting a crate of beer. Only in Offaly, the paper mused, you couldn’t make it up.

Even more implausible was the sight of both Johnny and the man they call Sid running themselves ragged the following Sunday and hurling their respective markers up a stick. Poetry in motion. You couldn’t make it up.