The Olympic Games have finished, the tourists have gone home, the London 2012 volunteers have all put their uniforms on Ebay, and those weird one eyed alien mascot statue things have been carted off to the incinerator where they belong.
But probably the biggest sign that the Games have officially waved au revoir wasn’t Sunday night’s Blitz-like show of fireworks which reverberated around the city for about an hour and a half, prompting everyone on Twitter to go “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? FETCH ME MY BATTLE SWORD” (just me?), but our journeys to work on Monday morning.
Because I’m pretty sure I can’t be the only one whose bus – after two months of getting me to work at something close to London light speed (aka, normal time) – now diverts to what is basically Outer Mongolia before ending up 100 yards further down the same road in Moorgate.
Then there’s all the people. Where have all the people come from? After a summer of happily having my pick of seats on the upper deck, this morning two buses went past before I could even get on – and even then I was consigned to standing. Below. Near the doors.
And just when I thought things couldn’t get any more Business As Usual, my old mate Vern popped up in my inbox.
If you’re a Londoner, you’ll know Vern. You know, Vern-a-roo. Vern-o.
Vernon-the-Sermon. El Verno.
Vernarini.
It’s been a while since The Vernador has delivered me anything but excitement, good news, and the odd bit of travel advice that you didn’t need to pay attention to because everything was fine.
But just when I thought it was safe to make plans for a Saturday night out, there it was: an email headed Weekend Line and Station Closures rising, Jaws-like, out of my Gmail inbox.
In short, the Olympic Travel Disruption has ended and normal service is resumed, which means you can’t use the Bakerloo line, Circle line, District line, Jubilee line, Northern line, or London Overground this weekend or ever again.
However, I’m all about looking on the positive side of life.
So…
Instead of…
…going across London to hang out with real life people at the weekend
Why not…
stay in, do a Twitter search for “I miss the Olympics” and make some new friends on your computer.
There.
You see, London? Every cloud.
Exactly this! It even feels like they’ve now turned off the air con that was making some slight difference to the Tube. I want the Olympics to happen all the time because it made my summer (that’s the period of time we designate as ‘summer’ in this country and no comment on the actual weather situation) bearable.
Are there any other massive national events we can pitch for please?