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Podcast: Fight at the tube platform
By Ana | Podcast Inglês Online
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Hello! Hoje, no podcast, eu falo sobre o pânico causado por uma briga no metrô em Londres. Não deixe de ouvir :-)
Hello! You’re listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Thank you for telling everyone you know about this podcast and… enjoy!
So, everyone… I’d like to tell you guys today about an incident in London, and the general reaction to it. So what happened in the afternoon of November 24th, at the Oxford Circus tube station platform?
I’ll read out a couple of tweets written by an eye witness. Here’s the first one, by someone called Regan Warner:
I was on central line platform at #OxfordCircus at 4:35pm when a man 5ft from me bumped into another man on the overcrowded platform. They exchanged words then a punch to the gut. Then a full out fight. People were trying to break it up. Cont. next tweet.
— Regan Warner (@reganwarner) November 24, 2017
So this is basically what happened: for whatever reason, some guy started a fight by bumping into another guy. They exchanged words – I would assume they were probably insulting each other or, at the very least, not being very kind – and then one of them punched the other in the gut – that means belly. And the whole thing developed into a full-out fight.
Now, the second tweet:
#oxfordcircus story cont. Lots of yelling. People were running away, a woman fainted, children were scared and crying. The emergency button was pressed. The fight was broken up and the parties walked in opposite directions. Announcement to evacuate the station. I jumped on train.
— Regan Warner (@reganwarner) November 24, 2017
As you can see, people were sort of panicking. Someone fainted, kids were crying, people running away… And I immediately thought of fights I’ve witnessed in the past, in Brazil, and how people would sort of just step away a bit and kind of watch the fight unfold, really.
Well, I’m sure that’s what many people would have done at a different time and different context here in the UK as well. However, these is 2017 and this is London. We’ve had horrible terror attacks fairly recently – the biggest ones being on Westminster bridge and in London Bridge (the neighbourhood), both in the city of London, and a horrific one in Manchester during an Ariana Grande concert.
People are obviously on edge, as you would be, and when you’re basically trapped on a tube platform and have to walk for a few minutes before you’re even able to get out… A fight on a crowded platform will likely startle most people and send them into a panic.
Listen how this local TV personality, Olly Murs, recounted what happened on Twitter:
“Everyone get out of @Selfridges now gun shots!! I’m inside”
“I was shopping and then all of sudden the whole place went mad, I mean crazy people running & screaming towards exits.”
“We found a small office to hide to which loads of staff and people were saying there was shots fired”
What is interesting here is that he was inside Selfridges, a big department store on Oxford Street, and he thought he heard gun shots! And he reported the same kind of panic happening inside the store. The police, however, confirmed later that there had been NO gunfire and no casualties, apart from a woman who suffered minor injuries during the evacuation of the station. When we’re in a state of panic, we may hear and even see stuff that actually never happened… Of course, we also see and hear stuff that definitely happened!
Have you ever found yourself in that kind of situation, where something triggered a collective state of panic? Let me know and talk to you next time!
Vocabulary
full-out = complete, total
as you would be = como é de se esperar
watch the fight unfold = ver a briga acontecer (se desenvolver)
people are on edge = as pessoas estão tensas, nervosas
