Tuesday, September 30, 2003
"favourite" busker and to be able to record the closing ear splitting bars of his tune. I still cannot believe how much money this man gets. He had loads of people making donations this evening and even if they only put in about ten or twenty pence each he would have made at least a couple of quid in two minutes.
attendant chaos on the tube a couple of weeks ago was all a government plot to steer media attention away from the Hutton inquiry I just learnt through Simon Waldman's blog that it was mostly to do with the wrong fuse being fitted, something that even a big girl like me would have problems doing.
Britain's biggest blackout for 25 years, which plunged large parts of London into darkness, was the result of a one amp fuse being fitted in place of a 5,000 amp fuse at a substation. said The Guardian.
D'OH, D'OH, D'OH
Monday, September 29, 2003
I was amazed that even the ones at busy stations like Piccadilly Circus only earned about �10 an hour. I'm not really sure how much I thought they'd earn, but I thought it would be more than that.
The guy that did really well was playing a didgeridoo and he got about �50 in a two hour session and had "crowds" of people round him.
As I walked past the spot at Piccadilly Circus this morning (as I do everyday) I was struggling to remember when I had seen more that two or three people actually standing still and watching the buskers themselves.
Most interested to learn that the company that organises the auditions Automatic is owned by comedian, writer and wife of Billy Connolly, Pamela Stephenson. So that's what she gets up to in her spare time.
I actually felt sorry for poor old Carling too. They sponsor the whole busking thing and even though the programme was on ITV they were referred to as a "drinks company" and any shot with their name on it had the logo blurred out.
For more on buskers check out goingunderground.net's busking page.
Friday, September 26, 2003
Sue Townsend's Number Ten and describes a fictional incident of the Prime Minister being on the tube.
Sorry about the quality of the picture but the most relevant bits are the opening and closing lines:
"Jack and the Prime Minister were in darkness standing on a stationary Northern Line train. The Prime Minister hated the dark.......
"Now he was hanging on a handle that was suspended from the ceiling of the train, sweat running between the push me up and squeeze me together cups of his wife's brassiere. A madman began to shout about Sir Cliff Richard - accusing him of forcing Hank Marvin to become a Jehovah's Witness"
As the poster implored us to "read more" I'm certainly tempted to.
For more of the real PM on the tube see goingunderground.net's report.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Monday, September 22, 2003
June 3rd and August 14th). I noticed that he seemed to have lost a few teeth since the last time I saw him and the mind boggles as to how he lost them. I'm amazed the guy still gets money and with that amazing co-incidence that you can only get when commuting, the people who gave him money on the 14th August gave him more money today! He really shouldn't be encouraged as the last final chords he plays on that song really set my teeth on edge.
Actually I've had a bit of a busking couple of days myself having discovered the excellent Eurobuskers website at the weekend and finding out that on the 25th September there's going to be programme on ITV1 imaginatively called Busking Undergroundwhich follows Carling's and the London Underground's "pilot" scheme to legalise buskers at certain tube stations. It's produced by Mosaic Films who made a good TV series on the London Underground earlier in the year. For more on all of this check out my page on tube music.
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Tube Refund have come up with a great way of making your claims to the London Underground under the Customer Charter easy. The Customer Charter seems to be little known on the tube.
"The London Underground Customer Charter offers a very straightforward refund system for an individual journey delayed more than 15 minutes (except in circumstances outside LU control such as freak weather or security alerts). Claim forms are available at any London Underground station. The refund amount is the standard single fare for the Underground journey you were undertaking."
The problem is that it's quite a hassle to remember to pick up a form, fill it in, post it back, so now, thanks to Tube Refund with a simple text or email, you get a form created and completed in minutes and you send it off the to London Underground by freepost. Up until the 1st November 2003 the service is free, so make the most of it. After that point it's a fiver for 25 forms and considering you could get from �25 to �92.50 for those claims it's still a bargain.
According to The Times the London Underground only receives 1 refund claim for every 1,600 passengers, so hopefully this service will redress the balance.
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
www.goingunderground.net.
Monday, September 15, 2003
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Monday, September 08, 2003
July! And now in September in usual timely fashion, the tube have decided to resurrect interest in the idea by splashing it across the front page of their site (and it's loads less topical as the heatwave's over - good timing Tube PR guys).
So if you fancy your chances of getting your hands on 100 grand from Sheriff Ken - get your thinking caps on quickly as you only have until the 12th September to apply. For the official rules (strangely under "promotions & offers") see here.
Thursday, September 04, 2003
WebUser magazine where it's featured in BlogOn! pg 14. Massive thanks to Toby Earle for giving the blog and GoingUnderground.net such a top write up: "Annie's transformed the Tube into the commuters' version of Alice in Wonderland....everyone should stop at Going Underground".
Enough, praise and bragging...... if you're looking for specific stuff there's a little search of this blog powered by Google in the right hand links and also on the right you'll be able to navigate the vastness that is Going Underground. You'll soon gather that I'm not a website designer but believe in telling a good story. So if you're looking for probably the biggest collection of funny train - tube driver's announcements you've come to the right place. If you just want to see how I get on with my daily commute (not as boring as it might sound) read on......
Diamond Geezer's Tube Quiz
Damn you, diamond geezer, I thought I had created the most fiendishly difficult london underground quiz but your one on "guess the Central Line tube station name from the picture" has got me stumped.
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
Check out www.goingunderground.net for more on this seat "rule".
BBC6 discover Goingunderground.net
Nice little mention on BBC Radio 6 today check out their Website Wasteland section - thanks to DJ Gideon Coe.
Tuesday, September 02, 2003
The London News Review will be launched sometime this month and has some cracking contributors.
Of particular interest to this blog is Richard Herring (part of the comedy double act Herring & Lee) - he's going to be doing his own tube diary which I'll be shadowing with interest - looks like I'll have strong competition.
Also it's from the stable of some of the UK's most successful email magazines including The Friday Thing, which was apparently the first general interest email magazine in Europe to become profitable through paid subscriptions; and, what got me interested in them, the great London city guide London By London - has me in fits every Monday morning.
So if you want to subscribe to the mag and get an invite to the star studded party you know where to go!
Monday, September 01, 2003
Metro itself, London Underground's Natalie Sutton, who visited the set, said: 'Their copies are looking a bit dog-eared now - but Metro is so much part of London's life, they want it in shot.'
Too right Natalie - EastEnders has certainly got it right though with the amount of drunks and undesireables found loitering around the tube. If they could have a few of the actors coming out and moaning about delays or being stuck in tunnels they'd be spot on.
For more on this famous station check out tube celebs on goingunderground.net.
apologised for the power failure - although I heard on the radio that they had warned there was a 20% chance of something like this happening if there was not more investment into the system.
For once though the tube drivers deserve to be called "heroes" the fact that more people did not panic when they were stuck in tunnels was down to the drivers keeping people calm and telling them what was going on. The tube staff appeared to be exemplary when leading people out of stuck tubes and down darkened tunnels. People are talking about the spirit of the blitz and London stocism which actually in this case seems to be true.
The Evening Standard headline screamed that "250,000 commuters were stuck on the London Underground" - meaning 250,000 commuters (inlcuding me) were inconvenienced by it. We weren't all stuck on the tube - Thank God. "Terror as evacuation order given" - no one appeared to be terrified, but people calmly got on with trying to get home, or spent hours in a pub to while away the time.
Again was this all a "spin" to divert attention away from our Prime Minister?
I also wonder if the "mock evacution" will take place on the 7th September, now that we've had a real one?
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