by Glenn Brigaldino

Created on: November 16, 2008   Last Updated: January 06, 2009

Mind the gap. Why? Isn't it possible to engineer subway trains at level height with the platform? Whole generations of Londoners and their many visitors have had to pay attention not to trip and break a foot when getting o0n or off of the "tube". Young mothers struggle daily to safely maneuver their kids in their strollers in and out the uninviting trains, struggling on to move up and sown stairs and escalators in stations that were obliviously designed by single (-minded) men in male dominated architect offices of days long gone. Given the striking absence of noticeable architectural accents, the designers seem more as culprits, uninspired sketchers in office spaces of equally uninspiring large construction firms.

As the still practical yet no longer admirable subway system of London continues to crumble, rot and deteriorate, in spite of some belated ongoing renovations and promised modernizations, the working classes, including those from the cheap-suited segment, continue, five days a week, to squeeze themselves into over-crowned trains. Most passengers are most certainly oblivious to the long-term impact of the so-called, once even glorified, Thatcherite revolution to this very day. It has not only dealt mortal blows to England's public infrastructure and has almost equally strong, solidified an inward-looking way-of-life that seems oddly stuck in time, unaware of progress elsewhere, unwilling, unprepared or even unable to ask why so little social and economic progress has trickled down at home, in good old England.

Thus, it comes as no great surprise, except to some tourist perhaps, how firmly antiquated opinions, views, images and ideas are upheld and perpetually reproduced in mainstream British media, on TV and in the daily papers. Stories of glory days long bygone are reported on as if they just occurred last week. How else can it be explained why a twentyish, morning breakfast show host asks her audience with genuine excitement "Can you imagine what it must have been like to fly a Spitfire fighter plane in the Second World War?" Does she expect an answer, from anyone who is aware of the day and age we are living in, November 2008? Neither question posed here requires a response. Getting "on with it" is one way to respond, if one had to. If living in England, that could raise another, unwelcome question, namely getting on with what, more of the same?

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