Very strange

Stood outside Oxford Street tube last night while it was closed due to overcrowding me and the rest of the impotent mass of post-work workers wishing we were elsewhere were subjected to this bizarre message from the Tannoy (okay, Alan, public address system) several times.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, you are being held outside due to overcrowding. Please do not stray from the pavement into the road."

Are we dogs? Have people been found wandering aimlessly in the road before when held outside? Does life lose all meaning for these people when they find the gates shut? Do the hordes of eager tube-travellers back up the steps, and in the confusion, spill out into the road, resulting in mass casualities?

Apparently so.