Things to do in the tube part 2

Reading books

This has the advantage over TV in that one does not have to worry about the battery running out, unless you read electronic books.  All you need is to remember to take the book with you.  For anyone with a continuous commute of over 20 minutes- e.g. no line changes- it is possible to read and absorb fairly serious topics so this activity is not necessarily limited to the kind of reading that does not require much concentration.  Get my drift?

The daily 90 minutes of commuting has been useful for me to catch up on reading those books that I need to read but have no time other than that which takes me to get from A to B.  When I get to these points there are tasks awaiting and there is no time to indulge the mind with these other topics.  The recent political discussions regarding benefits tax, for example, has heightened my interest on the issue of social equality to such an extent that I feel compelled to read more on the subject to help me answer some of the questions I have.  There is little or no time to do this other than while I am on the tube and yet I need this information for me to judge the merit or demerit of the government's decisions and, thus, inform me of how I can best fulfill my civil obligations.  Perhaps it is a sign of the times we're in that one has to be trapped in a train carriage to be able to do this even though it is obviously important.

What's more when reading a particularly interesting book, any extra time spent on the train because of problems on the track, etc become a blessing.  I sometimes find myself wishing the journey would take a bit longer so I could read a bit more.

Variety is key but reading as a means to further learning can be achieved with this otherwise 'dead' time so why not?

Things to do on the tube Part I

Watching TV

There are numerous ways to keep oneself entertained while on the tube these days.  For one the emergence of smart phones which allows the download of television programmes to be watched at leisure is one good way to pass the time.  

I recently got a smart phone; my old phone having given up on me and died while in service.  I got the same model as my partner to make the getting to know the new phone a less painful experience.  To be fair it wasn't that hard to learn to use in the end as most functions were quite intuitive.  But it was hours of endless fun playing with it after.  There are countless applications that could be fun to have and just choosing goodies to have on the phone was most entertaining.  The iplayer download was excellent as it let me keep up with programmes that I missed from being too busy with one thing or another.  In particular news programmes and discussion panels were now more accessible and I found it much easier to keep up to date with recent occurences.  And there are just countless episodes of documentaries, comedies, and drama series to watch while on the tube.  It took me a while to figure out that I needed a media player to play the downloaded files but there is so much freeware to cover everyday needs I was literally spoilt for choice.

And so it is that on my morning trip to work I can catch up with the ins-and-outs on the box.