The sign says, “For information, press here”

This is a pretty clear instruction. It was on a big white Help point on platform 6 at Vauxhall station in London, and as all of the monitors that usually tell you which train is next were blank, I thought I would use it to check which platform I should be stood on for my train home.

“BEEEEP”. People from other platforms glance my way to check that I hadn’t in fact released a fog-horn. It is several hundred decibels louder than I’d been expecting. Perhaps there is no ‘beep’ at the other end, and the helper is supposed to react to this beep from a few thousand miles away?

Silence from the white box.

“BEEEEP”. Again I press it, and again the distant commuters look at me, but this time they give me a querying glance as the assumption must be I’m a know-nothing tourist. I feel like shouting across the tracks, “The screens are down and I just want to check the correct platform number!” in some vain attempt at justifying the noise I’m making. But that would probably make me a weirdo, so I resist.

I am deafened by more silence from the Help Point.

I check the instructions. It says that this Help Point is staffed 24 hours. I check my watch, and though it only shows a twelve hour period, I’m confident that I am, at this exact moment, also within a 24 hour period. So I give them another chance. (more…)

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