Hot time in the old town

I know there are worse hells than riding the Central line to work in the summer. But when you are on the train that air conditioning forgot during a heat spell, it's hard to remember to count your blessings.

It's HOT in London right now. I know this is something to be celebrated, for it is not often that this weather comes our way. Judging by the angry red sunburns I spot around the office, it seems that quite a lot people paid homage to the cloudless, bright blue skies over the weekend

But with the sun comes heat. And with the heat comes miserable Tube rides.

The Tube is the mirror image of the New York Subway (or at least, the sections of the Subway that I have ridden.) Everything is reversed. The Tube has expansive platforms but small, almost doll-house sized trains; the Subway has cramped platforms but people-sized trains. The Tube has terrific directional signs but every available surface is plastered with ads; the Subway has maps that require native assistance to read, but its station walls have a minimum of consumer messages. Most important (at least in summer), the Tube has hot, airless trains; the Subway has air-conditioning. NYC wins hands down.

I can't decide which is worse about the Tube in summer: the stagnant, stale air; the ovenlike heat; or the smell of dozens of people with highly individual standards of what passes for acceptable personal hygiene in public. At rush hour, the bodies press against each other, and the heat rises and turns sticky. Of course, I could be stuck in my former hell, a Sig-Alert on the 101/405 interchange at rush hour - even normal traffic patterns on the 101 and 405 are most people's idea of a traffic nightmare - but at least my car had A/C.

However, I take comfort that my commute to work isn't putting ozone depleting fluorocarbon in the air - and that in London, heat is the exception rather than the rule.