Commuting Colds & Cautionary Tales

Spreading germs on public transport

Fingers crossed I seem to holding off a cold at the moment. Despite the changeable temperatures in London and the whole round of people in the office and on the Tube and trains with their "coughs and sneezes, spreading diseases"


The cartoon above from Metro a few days ago, says it all really. Because you're often in a world of your own on the Tube, you feel as though you can hack and sneeze and sniff away blindly and no one will care! Not so.

As it's half term I had to listen to a mum giving her children a cautionary tale on the Tube about how they shouldn't spend so much time touching things on the Tube, and how they should wash their hands when they got to the Museum (Piccadilly Line, they were getting off at South Kensington).

"Why?" the little darlings said after they finished bouncing around on the seats. Their mum proceeded to then scare me and the rest of the carriage by saying, "Well you know how many people there are on this train. They will have had their hands everywhere. And I bet they don't wash their hands all the time. You've seen how dusty and dirty it is down here. You've seen some of those smelly tramps get on and they don't wash themselves very often, so all of those germs and all of that dirt spreads around. That's why we always have to wash our hands".

Thanks Mum, a little over the top, but it did the trick for the kids who looked like they were going to be sick. We all know how many people believed the urban myth about what's found on London Underground seats, so this was the kids' equivalent of that!

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, February 15, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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