Suddenly, everyone's a curator

I love this. Not so much the quote, as the context. Scurrying along in a rush, as usual, I happened across it in Archway tube station, scribbled on a whiteboard which I'm accustomed to looking at for news of the latest disruption to services. What a wonderful surprise! Thespianism writ large in London, an insight into the staff culture at grubby old Archway station. It's amazing how something like that
can ground me - we are human, after all, and given to sharing our thoughts on the world in all sorts of creative ways. But for some reason this really touched me.

Maybe it was the conversation I'd had with a member of staff some weeks back in which she told me that the more I come to the window to buy my ticket, the better it is for them, since 'management' is looking to make staff redundant off the back of those personable Oyster machines. Had she penned this ray of inspiration I wondered?

Or maybe it was the sentiment of the quote itself - the acknowledgement that reading newspapers can be counter-productive, with every story a tiresome product of some vested interest or other.

Thesedays, I read newspapers for light entertainment, not to find out what's going on. What we read in the news is unreliable, growing more so by the day. I like the idea that reading no newspaper opens one up to a richer experience - in the time we may have taken to clutter our heads with trivia, we might have been contemplating - God, the universe, anything outside the prescribed mental diet.

I also liked its relative timelessness, its attribution to Thomas Jefferson a reminder that nothing much is new under the sun (or indeed, under the ground). Even Murdoch is a product of a predictable trend in human endeavour - to sprouk pointless crap for the soporific masses is not, after all, a new idea.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that Archway station has taken on a new lustre for me. Much like that first essential coffee, I now look forward to seeing what the latest installation in this highly unlikely, rolling gallery will be. It really is true that suddenly, everyone's become a curator. If it will help the staff keep their jobs, I say bring it on. You won't find too many Oyster machines coming up with quotes like that.