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Week 2: Mind the Ghost

January 12th by may

Hey Adri,

Living in this city has taught me a few practical things. Bring an umbrella wherever you go. Buy beer in eights for a better deal. Don’t freak out when you hear strange noises at night.

Not owning a car means that I get around a lot on public transportation. London has a great network of buses and trains, so even if I leave a party at four in the morning, I can still hop on the 205 to get home. But living — and sometimes traveling — alone brings out the charming little paranoid in me. A weird shadow here, a bit of howling there… good stuff for B-grade horror, bad for the nerves.

I get particularly antsy when I’m at a Tube station alone when it’s dark, catching the last train at midnight as I so often do. If you’ve watched enough bad movies, you know the creepy bits always happen on trains and subways. Something about dimly lit tunnels that must breed horror. It doesn’t help that I’ve heard so many stories about the famous ghosts that haunt this city and its underground stations.

The legends of the haunted Tube stations are so popular that even the TFL (Transport for London) website has an item in its FAQ section listing the allegedly haunted sites. Rumour has it that several old stations (such as Aldwych) closed down because too many station workers demanded transfers after encounters with these ghosts.

What’s fascinating to me is that Londoners – typically a jaded, skeptical lot – are still subject to the occasional bout of mortal fear. It’s a comforting reminder that even in big, impersonal cities such as this one, people are still… human.

London

Music
Duke Ellington – Choo Choo

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  • Love this piece! Just found your site and am totally loving it
  • may
    Stine: been wanting to pick that up!

    Dax: thanks :)
  • Dax
    Happy Birthday, May!
  • @SH: done :)
  • @SH: May got lazy about the alternate link. I'm uploading it now, it should be there in a bit.

    Also, from this week on there will be a section under the video that lets you view the videos in other formats: youtube, blip, download, etc, more easily.Sorry about that!
  • SH
    Hey May! Is there an alternative link for the video like in the previous posts? Sorry, vimeo really seems to hate me.
  • David
    Ghosts, you say? If you believe in ghosts, then I guess the stories about them are more than entertaining. Urban legends, that's all.
  • Superman Number 1
    Heh I've read Neverwhere. It's actually one of the crappier Neil Gaiman books, but it has a lovely ending. His other books rock more, but do stay away from The Graveyard Book... lol
  • stine
    Now you should read Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere
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