Eye contact epidemic threatens Tube travellers

Londoners are on alert today after the Met Police issued a new stark warning for tube travellers.

The Capital’s police force has told commuters to brace themselves for a wave of newcomers and tourists engaging them in eye contact and conversation on their daily commute.

The news comes when residents’ fears of strangers engaging in interactions on public transport are at an all time high due to growing visitor numbers and immigrants pouring into swinging London.

One London commuter, John Snatch, said: “I was in a train 20 minutes behind a colleague who was trapped in a blast of stranger chat – an Italian tourist asked him which train to take to Madame Tussauds. He’s been in therapy ever since. I had a narrow escape.”

Another, Margaret Cringe, said: “I’m never going on the tube again. It’s just not safe anymore. The unwritten rules of the Tube are no eye contact and no talking to strangers. Now those rules have been violated, I’ll never feel fully safe again. So I’ve bought a bike, and am going to cycle from now on.”

Eye contact and random conversation are perhaps the least understood of all threats to public sanity on London public transport. But new research by a source close to the PCP brings home the full horror of how an outbreak of such interactions, if increased in scale, might affect London.

It would wreak panic in the Underground, see large numbers of bus routes shut down, roads closed off and result in long-term illnesses such as politeness, sociability and human warmth.

One frightening possibility is that there’s an epidemic caused by tourists and those new to the town engaging in conversations with ordinary commuters. This could result in a mass hysteria that would shut the city down.

The London Mayor’s office has issued a stark warning to all Londoner’s to be on their guard, report any suspicious conversation-starters, and invest in anti-interaction solutions like headphones and dark glasses.