Dongle Blog

I have recently recovered from a fairly unpleasant ‘winter virus’ which I’m fairly sure I contracted as a result of my travels on the Northern City Line.

For anyone lucky enough not to be familiar with the perils of commuting into London on a regular basis, allow me to set the scene. Each morning, having driven to Stevenage, I catch a ‘fast’ train, which I leave at Finsbury Park. From Finsbury Park I take the so-called ‘Northern City Line’, a main line service which happens to run underground, via various places to Moorgate which is in the City. The problem with this is the ratio of people wanting to travel to avaliable seats is, I would guess, approximately 4:1. Thus there is frequently not even standing room on the trains, never mind a seat. When I finally board everyone is packed onto the train in an arrangement known to chemists, I believe, as ‘body centre cubic’. The conditions for disease transfer are, in short, rife.

What I therefore propose is a system similar to that used on aircraft traveling to the UK from tropical areas. Once the plane is sealed and ready to take off the hostesses spray a thick mist of raid or something similar to kill off any insects (and no doubt the odd passenger). Whilst this may be a little extreme for trains I’m sure something like TCP (the stuff you gargle, not the connection-oriented network protocol) could be introduced via the ventilation system to kill off any bacteria / viruses being coughed / sneezed up by passengers who should be in the quarantine of their home. Of course some would object to the smell but frankly I think this is a small price to pay.