June. My first day back in Britain after eight years in America and I couldn’t be happier. The sun is shining and I have a large cheque in my pocket with which to conclude the purchase of a nice house in Norfolk. Things could not be better. Setting off from Gloucester Road Underground station, I join a throng waiting for a Circle Line train that never comes. Silently we wait and wait — for ten minutes, then 15 — but nothing happens. ‘I remember when trains used to go by here,’ I remark brightly after a time to the man beside me. By chance he is a fellow American, but new to the country, and possibly to humour, and doesn’t realise I’m joking. ‘Are you saying there are no trains here?’ he asks in alarm.
‘Well, no, because then there wouldn’t be people here, would there? I mean, we wouldn’t all be standing here if there were no trains.
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