The station entrances are all open, but there's nobody in sight. Outside on Oxford Street, only silence.
The ticket office is open and brightly lit, but there's nobody behind the counter. Ticket machines stand ready but idle as the barriers stand a lonely guard.
Down the running but deserted escalators we fly, past advertisements that nobody sees. The normally crowded spaces underneath echo eerily as their bright fluorescent illumination seems dazzlingly bright in the absence of the usual crowds.
A Bakerloo Line train stands in the southbound platform with its doors wide open. Bags and newspapers lie scattered around the cars and platform, the passengers who own them nowhere in sight. A discarded coffee cup rolls across the platform and drops onto the line.
Originally written 12th September 2001
The staircase down into the station on the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street is narrow. The thirty-something male (there are a lot of thirty-something males shopping on Tottenham Court Road) who just bought a widescreen television hasn't planned his shopping trip terribly well, and after half-carrying, half-bouncing the enormous box down the stairs he staggers across to the barriers, pushes it through the luggage slot, and drags it to the down escalator.
He's just got to the platform when he has a sudden heart-sinking revelation that he's going to have to do all this again at the other end as well as changing at Notting Hill Gate.
Maybe he should have taken a cab after all.
Good morning, London! The time is exactly ten minutes to eight and you're listening to the Breakfast Show on fabulous London FM, the pulse of the greatest city on Earth. It's a beautiful day out there, the sun's shining, the sky's clear, and we're looking at highs today of over twenty degrees Celsius, that's about seventy Fahrenheit. So get up, get moving, and get started - it's shaping up to be a great day to be a Londoner. We've got the new Oasis single coming up in a couple of minutes along with your chance to win ten thousand pounds on the Disco Dilemma, but before that on this perfect morning, here's an update on the travel from Sally.
Thanks, Ken. Starting with the good news, traffic inbound on the Westway's flowing fairly smoothly this morning. Not too many tailbacks, although things are of course slow around Hanger Lane and coming off the M40. Apart from that there's congestion, some of it severe, on all major routes into the City with particular problems around the east end of the North Circular and the Dartford Crossing. Due to the hot weather tempers are fraying on the roads and the Department of the Environment have issued a smog alert for Central London, so be extra careful out there and allow extra time for your journey. Finally, there are no major problems on the railways although Bank station is closed after an earlier security alert and is likely to remain so for another hour or two. There's also slow running on the Piccadilly Line due to signal problems at Acton. Another update in half an hour.