I first began to conceive of this column three and a half hours before typing these words, as I stood with my wife and children in an impossibly long queue for the Eurostar, snaking across Gare du Nord in 35C heat. The problem was not the delay, but the discomfort, the anxiety and the uncertainty. It was impossible to read or even think because the queue moved and bunched; it was dammed and redirected at unpredictable points for unknown reasons. There was nearly a nasty accident as an escalator pumped people into a space that was already crowded.
在打下這些文字的三個半小時前，我第一次開始構(gòu)思這個專欄，當(dāng)時我和妻子、孩子們站在歐洲之星(Eurostar)的長龍中，在35℃的高溫下蜿蜒穿過北站。問題不在于延誤，而在于不適、焦慮和不確定性。我們無法閱讀，甚至無法思考，因為排隊的隊伍在移動和擁擠；隊伍在不可預(yù)測的地方被阻擋和改道，原因不明。當(dāng)一個自動扶梯將人們推入一個已經(jīng)很擁擠的空間時，幾乎發(fā)生了一場可怕的事故。