Beer and curry

There are at least two national institutions in Great Britain: beer, of which there is a seemingly endless variety and curry, where what is lacking in variety is more than made up for in availability. Indian food is about as close to being the national cuisine as one can get, vying for affection against the traditional Sunday roast. In fact, I think there are now more curry houses in England than pubs. And the Indian joints are certainly open later.

Fortunately, the Brits have found a way around this pub vs. curry dichotemy by ingeniously combining the two. No, they don't serve Vindaloo at the pubs, at least not that I've seen, but rather, it has become something of a national habit to binge drink on Thursday night, and then go for a curry. No matter how many times repeat this Groundhog Day scenario, it never seems like a bad idea at the time. "Hmm. Now let me think. It's 11:00, I've had 6, no, wait, make that 8 pints, my last train is in 45 minutes, and the Indian place is in the opposite direction from the train station. I've got a 9:00 tomorrow, and it's at least an hour to get home. Yeah, what the hell, I'll just have a quick bite."

And the reason this always seems like a good idea is that there is just something about curry that makes it taste really, really good after a couple of beers. Now that I think about it, though, maybe it's really the other way round. Or maybe I just have no willpower. Whatever the reason, if I'm out past 9:30, it's a pretty safe bet that I'll be getting home at 1:30, onion stench oozing from every pore.

Now, this wouldn't be such a bad national addiction - after all, everybody needs a few vices - but for one thing. Curry and beer, especially mingled and taken in large doses, not only make one's clothes reek, but also really do a number on the digestive system. Add to this the facts that public transport in London is crowded and poorly ventilated, and that Londoners are some of the most self-absorbed people on the planet, and you've got an environment whose toxicity would make an Al Queda operative think "nah, that's just TOO harsh."

For those of you whose public transport experiences are limited to the comparitively palatial accommodation afforded by the New York MTA, allow me to enlighten you. The Tube (as the London Underground system is affectionately known) is just that - a tube. Where the interior walls and ceilings of the subway cars that we're used to in the States are square, more or less, the cars here are designed to fit as compactly as possible into those underground tubes, so the interiors are round. As a consequence, they are only about six and a half feet tall in the middle, and the sides slope down to about five and a half feet. Imagine standing inside a seventy foot long commuter jet and you've got the picture.

In addition, as I've mentioned many times, the Tubes are not air conditioned. I'm not sure why this is - air conditioning is not a new invention. I'm constantly reading about are all sorts of schemes to cool the Tube, most of which sound like they're straight out of "I Love Lucy". Pump cold air into the tunnels from the stations? Great for keeping the rats comfy, but without a way to get the air into the cars, not terribly effective. Or my favorite - install freezers under the seats, which will freeze blocks of ice while the train is above ground, then run fans to blow air over the ice and blow the cold air into the cars. Hey, Rube Goldberg, here's a thought, if you're gonna install freezers, why not just INSTALL FRIGGIN' AIR CONDITIONERS?

But until one of these harebrained ideas actually gets funding and works, we're stuck in tiny, crowded, diabolically stuffy cars. This is not such an issue when there's no one else in the car, but I did a quick calculation one day and estimated that there are at least 150 people in each one during rush hour. You literally cannot move, and although you can breathe, you probably don't want to.

Especially on Friday morning. Especially after beer and curry.