A journey without reading matter has always been torture for many English passengers, particularly on the Underground, where there is nothing to see out of the windows and passengers sit in long rows facing each other, which makes accidental eye contact with those opposite you very hard to avoid. In desperation, we resort to reading every word of the advertisements and Underground maps above their heads,68 studying the safety instructions, scrutinising the small print on our tickets, digging out crumpled old chocolate-bar wrappers from our bags and reading the lists of ingredients . . .
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