Liturgy for the Birthday of the London Underground

Archdruid: Move well down inside the Moot House, please. Stand clear of the doors.

The Moot House Doors Close

Marston Moreraine: Ow! You trapped me in the doors!

Archdruid: Well, it's not really a tube train, is it? It's a Moot House.

Burton Dasset: Actually, if we're celebrating the birthday of the Metropolitan Line, which technically we are, it's not a tube at all. The Met was constructed on the cut-and-cover principle....

Archdruid: MIND THE GAP!

Burton: Which gap?

Archdruid: The one between everybody else's reality and yours.

Hymn: Going Underground

Archdruid: Actually, that's not about the Tube at all, is it?

A Prayer for Tube Commuters

Teach us, O Lord, so to number our stations,
So that we may not wake up in Barking or Amersham.
Forgive us the elbows that we shove into other people's ribs
As we fail to forgive those who shove their elbows in ours.
Keep us from showing any facial expression
Protect us in the morning with the Metro
And in the evening with the Standard
And deliver us from amateurs who want to strike up a conversation.
Preserve us from those who want to stand rather too close when they don't need to
And remember those so short that they always end up with their noses in someone's armpit.
Guard our goings in and our goings out
That we may not be crow-barred into carriages like the Black Hole of Calcutta
Nor be shot out onto the platform at Kings Cross like corks.
For thine is the Kenton,
Tower Gateway and the Archway
Forever and ever.
Amen.