Tunnel Visions: Journeys of an Underground Philosopher

Description

Christopherr Ross, philosopher and traveller, decided to cease his journeyings and go underground, quite literally. Seeking an antidote to incurable restlessness he chose to work for a year as a Station Assistant on Platform 6 (northbound Victoria Line) at Oxford Circus Station. After Training School, where he is taught how not to electrocute himself and always to look in the eye a member of the public as they are assaulting you, he faces up to his new duties with a mixture of curiosity and foreboding. What, exactly, will he find deep under the surface of London? "Tunnel Visions" is a mixture of lived experience in the surreal world of London's Underground and the more elevated ideas, thoughts and imaginings that experience provokes. Oxford Circus Station, complete with its weeping wall, its streakers, buskers, onanists and cupboard containing one employee whose ideal working day was to sleep soundly 100 feet below ground, is a Plato's Cave of reflection and human comedy.

Christopher Ross travelled to Japan in 1991 and ended up staying for nearly five years. Here he studied Japanese language and contemporary literature, and took up aikido. He also worked as an English teacher, model and television actor, appearing in numerous commercials and in a popular Japanese historical soap opera. Ross is the author of Tunnel Visions (2002), a bestseller, and Mishima's Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend (2005). Christopher Ross is now a full-time author and lives in Paris.

'This is one of the most original and surprising books that I have read for years: a reflection on city life by an unusual mind that proves just how extraordinary the ordinary can be.' Christopher Matthew, Daily Mail, (Critics Choice) 'Ross has produced a truly brilliant book.' Gary Younge, Guardian 'Very funny . . . a parable of our times.' Iain Sinclair, Daily Telegraph ' . . this unique, utterly original little philosophical tome. This is pop philosophy in its best sense: a kind of subterranean Sophie's World, but more adult, darker-edged, its modest wisdom harder won.' Literary Review