It’s a good service because we say it is

One of our real bugbears is being informed smugly by London Underground that there is a “good service” on the Tube. Those of us who are forced to use this hellish system have many descriptions for the experience, but the phrase “good service” is not normally one heard from people’s lips.

What London Underground actually means by “good service”, according to their own terminology is “no noticeable impact on your journey”. So it’s still a “good service” if it’s as overcrowded, stifling, smelly, brutish and unreliable as it is on every other day.