Diary – 6 March 2004
From our UK edition
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.