white house on the corner

Then you could try waving your mask instead.

I will wave it, declaiming: "Once more unto the breach!"

Sorry I missed you. The station names go past too fast for me to read them, and Ealing Broadway must be such a nondescript place that I didn't notice it.

The station may not be of great interest or beauty, but it's a very useful transport hub (it's on the GWR as well as two Underground lines, and has 9 platforms), and will be even more useful when the Elizabeth Line is eventually finished and running. But the Intercity trains pass through it and other intermediate stations at such high speed that if you're on a non-stopping train it's come and gone in a second. It's frustrating for those for whom Ealing Broadway is their destination, and (having just passed through it) have to get on another train at Paddington to get back there, even though it can be quicker to do that than to get on the stopping train at Slough. Pulling the communication cord a mile or so upline would force the fast train to stop here, at the cost of a fine. But if travelling in a group (only one member of which would need to pull the cord and incur the fine) the fine could be shared between them, and be a time-saving and cost-effective way of getting to Ealing Broadway.