Tami in the News and on TV

Tami makes London News and BBC London TV

This almost feels like uncovering all the "cover ups" at Stockwell, but finally we have managed to discover that Tami Brisset our stranded tube cop was in tonight's Evening Standard in the early edition and in later editions too, although the coverage was a bit smaller. They report on how she came over to take part in Tube Relief to raise money for the victims of London's bombings and now is "trapped" here.



and a later edition also reports Tami's story amid pictures of looting taking place:



Then Tami, who is an absolute star, was on BBC London News tonight on TV at 10.25pm with her story and wearing her Tube Relief T shirt to give us some awareness:







Geoff has transferred the recording to some sort of streaming video and so you can watch it here. It's also here but only till about 1.30pm (GMT) 1st September. It's at about 3.48 minutes into the bbc stream.

Earlier, she was also on Virgin Radio today. Thanks to Jens Lindemann who was listening to this in Germany (of all places) and he's sent me through two recordings the first at 6pm and the next at 7pm with different parts of Tami's interview with Virgin.

Many thanks to "our man at the BBC" for telling us it was finally going to be on.

Good going Captain Brisset and have a safe journey back to the US tomorrow.

STOP PRESS - for the early birds amongst you Tami will be on national TV tomorrow morning on GMTV. Broadcast at 6.40am. Thanks to Jon Choo for that as Tami is staying with Jenni (Jon's girlfriend) before she flies off to the States tomorrow.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 31, 2005 Permalink

Entertaining Tami

Keeping up the spirits of our stranded Tube Cop!

Just got back from entertaining Tami Brisset in Shepherd's Bush with Geoff, Neil, Helene, Henri and Nikki. Tami's situation at home in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina sounds pretty grim and it will be months before her life is back to "normal". But she's a very brave woman and hopefully we managed to take her mind off things for a few hours. If what we were talking about this evening comes to fruition tomorrow, a lot of Londoners will be seeing more of her.

I know she sends her thanks to the many, many people who have offered her accommodation, money, company, support, a mobile phone and countless other kind gestures. Right now, she just wants to get back to the States and who can blame her, but she certainly feels she has a "family" from the Tube Relief Challenge in London. Tami, I hope that everything is not a nightmare when you return home and please keep in touch with us all here.

She's just called us "her therapy group" and if eating nice burgers, talking about Pink Floyd and progressive rock, dead lizards, mardi gras, reading blogs as therapy, toast towers, pea barriers, banks opening on bank holidays, how to make "perfect" mashed potatoes, glamour photographers, cakes with dolls cooked into them, hOvercrafts, agrophobia, claustrophobia, and PTT (Post Tubechallenge Trauma) can be described as therapy, let's hope it worked.

Captain Brisset, we salute you.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Tuesday, August 30, 2005 Permalink

London Bombings Relief victims aid doubled

London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund

The London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund for the victims of July's deadly bombings in London said today that it will double aid payments to those worst affected and is working on further relief packages.

John Stoker, chief executive of the fund, said: "We are working on more assistance packages to help with the full needs of victims of the bombings and their families as they emerge over time and we plan to announce those soon.".

The fund will give families of the dead a further £5,000 on top of the £5,000 they received a fortnight after the attacks.

This is great news and we sincerely hope that the £11,000 we have already raised and sent (as of 26th August) through Tube Relief will be helping the total fund. We're condfident that we will make our target of £20,000 and if you would like to contribute to the fund please, please sponsor one of the many people who took part in the challenge last Thursday. Even though I was blogging the whole event, I managed to take part in a little bit myself, so if you feel like making a donation that would be great. Thanks.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Tuesday, August 30, 2005 Permalink

One of Life's Horrible Ironies

Tami in London while New Orleans in chaos with Hurricane Katrina

I'm sitting here at the moment with a head cold coming on and feeling sorry for myself, but at the same time I'm hearing the awful reports about the hurricane in New Orleans. You probably know that Tami Brisset a Police Captain from New Orleans flew over from the United States to take part in Tube Relief (blogged in full detail below). It now looks as though the poor woman will be stuck in the UK for longer than expected due to the horrible events in her home town.

It's kind of ironic that she flew to London, a place that many people from the US are probably avoiding at the moment, specifically to show her support for Londoners and to tell the world that she is not afraid of travelling on the London Underground. And now, although separated from her family and loved ones, she's probably far safer over here than in her home town.

I'm sure you'd like to extend your thanks to Tami for coming over and also give your thoughts to Tami who is obviously worried about all of her family and friends who are being evacuated from New Orleans.

Tami's comments have gone onto the BBC website for people who are affected by the hurricane:

I am here in London having completed a Charity Tube Challenge for the London Bombing Victims on 8-25-05 and unable to get home to New Orleans. I am a police Captain and feel totally helpless as I am unable to help my city and my family. I don't know where my family has gone. I came here to help raise money by completing all 275 tube stations in 20 hours with a group of UK citizens. I hope to have a home to go back to when I do get home. I appreciate all the prayers and support.

Tami Brisset, New Orleans in London now

Tami also posted a similar message on CCN's message board:

"I can only watch CNN and get the info I need and dread. I left my city and will not know when I can return or what it will be like. My new friends, (who now I call family) have given me support over the last day or so. Also, the kindness shown to me when people hear about my fears. I just felt I needed to write."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Sunday, August 28, 2005 Permalink

Tube Relief - 25th August 2005 - Official Blog

Today's the Day - Tube Relief - Mass Tube Challenge for the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund



Well, finally made it, today is the day when over 65 people from across the UK and overseas will be travelling to every station on the London Underground to raise money for the victims of London's attacks and also to show the world that they're happy to travel the Tube - "just for the hell of it". No record attempts today - even though the event is organised by co-bloggers, Geoff n Neil - the current Guinness World Record Holders who in May 2004 visited all 275 stations in 18 hours, 35 minutes and 43 seconds.

Today, this blog will attempt to follow the experienced tube-challengers and novices alike, from their 6am meet up at Amersham London Underground Station and give updates on their progress as they travel around the whole tube system in just one day, finishing in Upminster at about 1.30am on Friday morning! Regular updates - with photos, radio interviews and other coverage will be made, so keep visiting to find out the latest, and do give them a wave or say hello if you see them on your travels today.

Let's get Quizzical

OK, lets see how what sort of a tube challenger you would make? As they're all travelling the London Underground for a good few hours yet and won't be able to answer these questions themselves, you should all be in with a good chance. (Update - well all the challengers are back now, so just to say the quiz is also open to them - with the exception of Geoff and Neil) Just to make it a bit interesting there's a couple of prizes on offer too - you have to get all questions correct, in one attempt and then give a caption to two pictures. The two people with all answers correct and who are then judged to give the best captions will win either a copy of One Stop Short of Barking - Uncovering the London Underground OR Poems NOT on the Underground - A parody by Straphanger.

Answers in the comments please and you need to leave an email address to enter (how else will I know how to contact you about the prizes?) Obviously neither Neil or Geoff can take part.

1. Who is the challenger from Ann's black and white photograph?

2. The challenge started today at Amersham. Who wrote The Amersham Song?

3. The tubechallengers can use any form of public transport to get certain stations rather than go back on themselves. Where might you need to use a tram on the Tube Challenge?

4. Who are the only people to have ever recorded times for the Alphabet Tube Challenge? - ie beginning at a london underground station that starts with 'A' then moving on to one that starts with 'B' etc etc until you reach 'W'

5. Where are Geoff's recommended places to go to toilet during the challenge? (particularly for number twos)

6. Who set up the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund?

7. How much are the challengers hoping to raise for the Fund?

8. The challenge ends at Upminster station at about 1.30 in the morning. Where is the nearest night bus to Upminster?

9. Of all of the tube stations the challengers will be travelling around today - which is the only one does not contain any of the letters from the word "mackerel" in it?

10. The tie breaker question - please give a caption for

a) This picture of Neil

and

b) This picture of Geoff

Remember, answers in the comments please.

Enjoy!!!!! and now back to the regular updates.......

SO MANY MORE PICTURES

It's great to see that now the challengers are back they've joined the Flickr photo sharing group for Tube Relief and added loads more pictures. So please check out those too as well as all the ones in the updates below.

You may also want to see some of Neil's rather good pictures which are not part of the flickr pool. He's kindly let me reproduce some below:







UPDATE - VIDEO FOOTAGE



Lots of people have been emailing us to ask if there is any video footage of the event and there is some by Lukas Hopwood here. Video 4 and Video 5 are particularly good as you see Lukas and Bjorn just missing their trains by seconds and in Video 5 which is a bit longer there's footage of them running past buskers at the top of an escalator. Be warned there's a bit of frustrated "language" in some of them!



Also Norman Driskell is making a video of the whole event from start to finish and ws interviewing most of the challengers at the party on Saturday night (see below). So watch this space for details as to when or how that can be viewed.


UPDATE Saturday 27th August - THERE AIN'T NO PARTY LIKE A TUBE RELIEF PARTY

No Tube Challenge would be a Tube Challenge without a party afterwards for everyone to swap stories, compare routes, and generally eat drink and be merry. This was no exception and we had a brilliant follow up party on Saturday night. We had the whole pub (The George - well chosen venue, Neil) to ourselves from 7pm and it quickly filled up.

More publicity

What we did learn from chatting to people at the party was that there was much more publicity for Tube Relief that we originally thought - particularly on TV in London. People's friends said they saw it on BBC London TV several times. It was also mentioned on Capital Radio FM (one of London's largest radio stations). Someone said they also believed there was a small mention in Metro as we had originally been very surprised they hadn't seemed to have picked it up. If anyone saw or heard Tube Relief on any other London or national media could you let us know please through the comments. Cheers!

Geoff will also be on BBC World Service at some point on Wednesday 31st August. This is absolutely fantastic news and will give the challenge a worldwide audience (and hopefully more sponsors) after the event. Apparently the interviewer was signing him to slow down when speaking, so we're all looking forward to hearing that!!

Challenger Tube Map auction

The giant map was on display of any challengers to sign who had missed the signing on the 25th (so I quickly scribbled Annie Mole at Richmond). The map which had singatures of all participants will be auctioned on e-bay next week, with the funds going to the London Bombings Relief Fund.

We also got a chance to see polaroids of the people who checked in at the Euston pitstop with their time of arrival.



Before food was served Geoff announced there would be fun and game afterwards with the prize giving for various achievements over the challenge and a tube map game. In the meantime we were able to chat, fill our faces and listen to Geoff's train and tube related mix of toons and music.

Prize giving

So onto the prizes. Mecca was on hand to give out copies of her book "One Stop Short of Barking - Uncovering the London Underground" to the winners and as one of the judges, I helped Geoff to announce the winners too.

Best PR & Publicity

It's not who you may be thinking, (our resident media whore Geoff), but we felt that one person had not only managed to get front page story on his local paper but also the resulting mention on his local radio's news the next day was a great achievement. So the prize went to 14 year old Jonny Lyon.

We also have a late entry for best PR from Paul Fraser-Webb and have decided to give an extra prize to Paul for managing to get on his local paper's billboard. Good call Paul



I'll try to get a book across to Geoff so he can let you have it later in the week.

Best T-Shirt

Although a lot of the challengers bought the official T Shirt, some wore others appropriate ones or designed their own. Although it was a case of slightly keeping it in the family we felt that Tina Marshall - aka Geoff's mum, deserved the prize for her great hand painted effort.



Oldest challenger

Coincidentally we had managed to give a prize to the youngest challenger Jonny Lyon earlier, but we also wanted to give a prize to the oldest challenger, just to show that the challenge was great for the young and old. So it went to 63 year old Jeremy.



Jeremy's shown here with a large print tube map, which not only was useful for him on the day, it also proved to be really interesting to challengers afterwards who had been looking for a large free map to chart their own routes on.

Best Injury

A strange category we know, but no tube challenge is complete without sore feet, aching backs, black bogey syndrome and tired muscles. However, we felt that the best injury should go to Chris Searle who got his head stuck in the train door as he was so desperate to take a photo of the Bromley-by-Bow roundel that he neglected to see these big sliding things coming towards his head! Ouch!



Most sponsorship raised to date

Obviously funds are still coming in for Tube Relief, but we wanted to give a prize to the person who had raised the most so far. We could only judge this by looking at the Justgiving webpages and seeing how much people had raised on them (however, we know that some people are using the old paper sponsorship form route). So the prize went to Sam Cawley who has already raised an amazing £1,375 pounds (I think it's actually higher than that now as she hadn't updated her page last night).

Furthest journey in to do the challenge

I don't think anyone actually lived in Amersham where the challenge began at 6am on Thursday morning, so everyone had quite a journey to get there. But no one could beat Police Captain Tami Brisset who travelled in from New Orleans! Excellent effort!



Fastest Time to visit all 274 stations

Tube Relief was mainly about fundraising and showing the world that people weren't afraid to spend a day travelling around the London Underground system "just for the hell of it". Ordinarily the tube challenge is about seeing who can do it in the fastest time, so we felt we ought to acknowledge Tim and Tugs for doing this in 19 hours 10 minutes.

Best stories of the day

There were loads of funny stories and strange drivers announcements throughout the day, but in the end the prizes went to the following:

Team Billy

Alan Pryor is part of Team Billy and actually works for the London Underground at Earl's Court Control room. Towards the close of the evening his team were getting a bit weary and fancied a cup of tea. So Alan got in touch with his colleagues and arranged for five cups of tea to be delivered to the station they were arriving at.

Apprarently it caused a slight delay to the District Line, but the "5 very tired challengers who were waiting for their cups of tea to be bought down by an un-named member of staff." said "And a damned fine cup of tea it was too!"



Chris (Moley) and Phil

Although the challengers were officially allowed to collect funds while travelling on the tube (they had flyers advertising what they were doing so people could donate in their own time), Chris and Phil found money being thrust into their hands from an unlikey source - a beggar.

The beggar on the train had asked them what they were doing and he said "Oh well done guys. I make a lot of money out of the begging on the tube and it was awful what happened at Russell Square, here, have a fiver". Obviously Chris and Phil turned his kind offer down, but we bet that's the first time a beggar has tried to give money to the train's passengers!

David Scard & Ric

David Scard and Ric arrived at Finchley Central on a High Barnet train which then departed.

They spoke to the station assistant (SA) to enquire when the next Mill Hill East train was, which was described as 19 minutes. This would really affect their progress getting back, so they looked very disappointed, as they had told him about the challenge. The SA then went away, (unbeknown to them, spoke to the control room) and came back and told them that the next train to arrive would be re-routed to Mill Hill East in 2 minutes time.

When it arrived, the driver announced the sudden change and massess of people poured off the train to await a High Barnet service and five people got on the train to Mill Hill East!!!!! How amazing is that????

Pete Lupton

We opened up the prizes to the floor in case anyone else had any other stories that we hadn't heard of. I can't remember now for the life of me what we ended up giving him a prize for, but sheer audacity and record number of attempts at saying "what about this?", "what about this?" we gave a prize to Pete - mainly to shut him up!



Pin the station on the tube map

We then played a variant of "pin the tail on the donkey". Geoff had printed up a giant tube map with all the station names removed. The party split into teams of two and had to pick a station name from the hat and they had five seconds to put that station name in the correct place on the map. This proved to be surprisingly difficult considering you would have thought they knew the system like the back of their hands. Even Geoff didn't get his one correct - and it was his game!!!



Fundraising to date

Obviously money is still coming in, but we wanted to give the challengers an idea of how much had come in so far from the Justgiving pages, as this is the only way we have at the moment, at knowing what was raised. As of 27th August we had raised £10,890 - so that's almost eleven thousand pounds not including money that people have on their traditonal paper sponsorship forms, plus money that will be coming in over the weeks to come. We feel sure that we will at least get to our target of twenty thousand pounds - and if you would like to help us reach that, please visit this page to sponsor someone online. Many thanks.

I need to get some more vitamin C inside me now as I'm getting the beginnings of a cold (it's not a hangover, honest guv)!

But I'm sure you'll see many other reports of the party around the net and you can also check out the pictures in the ever-growing flickr group for Tube Relief.


UPDATE Friday 26th August - Post Challenge publicity

In case you didn't know, Geoff has been out and about like the true media floozy he is, getting more interviews after the event which is all great news. Apparently he was on the BBC World Service at some point on Friday and also had interviews with other radio stations. We'll try to collate them all in one place eventually.

But we have another media star in the making with Jonny Lyon - not content with getting front page news in his local paper. Fourteen year old Jonny was also featured in his local radio station news - Mercia FM on Friday with news of him celebrating the challenge - you can listen here. Well done Jonny - and watch out Geoff!


Group Shot at Upminster - the end of a long day



More pictures from Helene of the very final parts of the day

Nikki, Billy Abbott and another team member



Chris and Andy looking tired



Our tubecop Tami Brisset from New Orleans



An amazingly perky looking team! Sam, Steve and Chris.



More signing of the giant tube map



Yet another alert looking team - Norman & Matthew



What did this poor woman do to deserve a child like Geoff?!!!



Peter & Nikki




[1.30am - Update] - The last hours...

Well it's been a very, very, very long day and the challengers are now reaching Upminster the final station and have been I suppose for the last half hour or so. They've then got the journey back home. Blimey.

I suppose it was impossible for me to report on the event without doing at least a bit of it myself, so at 9pm I decided to meet Geoff and Neil's team at Richmond station which is near to where I live. Originally I'd only planned to take a few pictures, take them some rubbish late night food (chocolate, crisps and jelly sweets) and go home, but tube challenging is somewhat infectious and I ended up spending about an hour with them. The results you can see below - (see the notes on the tube map here to see how much/little I did!)

Here they are getting out at Richmond on the far western end of the District Line



From here we had to take in quite a lot of stations at Heathrow and then head back East to the final destination of Upminster. You can get any form of public transport to take you from one tube station to another, so we got onto a South West Train heading for Feltham.

Here's the gang on the SWT platform:



Inside the train Geoff got a call from the Daily Express and went into Express Media Whorage:



I've no idea what was going on here. It as either Munch's The Scream or Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone



At Feltham station, walked briskly (some more briskly than others) down the road to get a bus to Heathrow or Hatton Cross Tube, whichever came first.

This would have been a good picture if Neil had been smiling



But then you can take smiling too far



We no thanks to me, cos I had to buy another ticket, we got onto the Piccadilly Line at Hatton Cross to do the Heathrow stations up to Acton Town (or Action Town as I always call it)

So we had a good few stops to chat about the days events



There was also a need for crisps and chocolate at this point with a lot of blurry hands diving into my Tesco goodie bag:



If you're of a sensitive nature I suggest you don't spend too long looking at the next picture:



This picture is wrong on so many counts that I don't know where to start. Certainly not at 1.30am anyway.

We left at Action Town and zoomed over to the platform for the District Line heading towards Ealing and there bumped into another of the teams who were planning to do the same as us. I quite like the tube challengly huddle under the clock:



At Ealing Broadway, I left them all to rush onto the Central Line train which would take them back into central London and east again. On the way back I experimented with snapping a few pictures of myself in the reflection of the window, but I wasn't really that happy with any of them, but the one below gives you an idea:



[9pm - Update] - The Support Team at Euston move on

We must thank the support team at Euston for an absolutely fantastic job of providing help and sustenance, moral support, uploading digital pictures, stopping us from getting in trouble with the police and a whole heap of other things that I'm sure will only reveal themselves in the next few days.

So here are the support team:



Jim, Helene, Catriona and Jan - you did a stirling job!

[8.58pm - Update] - Sam at Euston



[8.46pm - Update] - Barry Thomas Chris Toni Larry and Paul




[8.20pm - Update] - Another mobile phone picture from Team Billy - taken by Nikki Tysoe

Fortunately they did text an explanation for the rather cryptic picture below:



"The slight delay on the District line was caused by 5 very tired challengers who were waiting for their cups of tea to be bought down by an un-named member of staff. And a damned fine cup of tea it was too!"


[7.40pm - Update] - Stephen Knight's Pictures from the Morning

Stephen Knight (pictured right) didn't do the full challenge and went along mainly to take some photographs and he's just uploaded some good ones which show the challengers in action in the early morning when before they split into smaller teams and were still one large group:

I really love his first picture below:











and to show that it's not all sitting around in carriages and legging it up and down stairs and escalators:





[7.20pm - Update] - a pigeon flies in for the Euston pitstop




[7.16pm - Update] - Tim & Tugs at Euston




[7pm - Update] - Geoff on Virgin Radio News

I was too busy devising the quiz to hear that Geoff was on the 6pm news on Virgin, the same piece will be on at 7pm and likely also to be on at 8pm and 9pm too. Adam Bowie from Virgin kindly sent me an mp3 but if you'd like to listen live, visit the station's website or tune into your radio!



Don't forget Geoff will also be on LBC FM live at 7.08pm


[5.18pm - Update] - Peter Miller arrives at Euston



[4.54pm - Update] - John, Peter & Statto at Euston

Are they really carrying Peter??



Definite pitstop required.



[4.40pm - Update] - Jon & Jenni at Euston



Jenni signs Tami's souvenir tube map which she'll take back to New Orleans.



[4.39pm - Update] - Jeremy's pitstop at Euston



[4.15pm - Update] - James and Jack at Euston



[4.10pm - Update] - An arty break



Taken by Ann.

Plus a moment of "levity":




[3.45pm - Update] - Tony Bell, David Scard and Ric Bracenbury at Euston



[3.30pm - Update] - Chris and Andy arrive at Euston pitstop



[3.30pm - Update] - Geoff interviewed live on LBC Radio AM



Well here's a mobile phone picture of Geoff n Neil's team. And if you missed the listen live recording on LBC AM you can hear a reasonable mp3 download here. If you hear a strange ringing at the end of it, that's my mobile phone going off with Geoff waiting to tell me that they got cut off and asking how the presenter finished it off! Well, he said "At least that proves they are in the Tube". But it sounds as if LBC want to return to our challengers later on so I'll try to keep you posted on this.

[3.10pm - Update] - Team Billy at Goodge Street

Apparently taking pictures at Goodge Street is a tradition amongst tube challengers, but I've no idea why....






[3.00pm - Update] - Interviews on LBC Radio

Just to give you some advance warning LBC AM will be talking to Geoff and the team at 3.15pm and LBC FM will be talking to them at 7.08pm (rather precise). My recording skills are shocking but I will try to record them. If not I think you should be able to listen live at the above times.

Also a reporter from Virgin Radio has been following quite a few teams round and not doubt this will be broadcast at some time later today.

[2.40pm - Update] - Billy Abbott "Cowfish" is updating his blog by mobile phone

Billy "man-of-many-names" Abbott is now updating his livejournal blog with highlight of their journey - so if you want to follow one team step by step - click here - it's very funny. Here's a few samples:

"1252 arse wrong bus...it goes to walthamstow, but not quite as fast as we hoped. looks like we may have to miss out a couple of stations (olympia and maybe mill hill east). we shall see.

why do jubilee line trains scream?

1050 on the hainault loop...time for a sit down and some food. i have packed too dense snacks...must get others to help eat them.

0628 left moor park for Watford
waved at driver, got told to keep quiet by the station guy"

[2.15pm - Update] - Lukas and Bjorn have a rest at Euston



[1.34pm - Update] - Another team hit Euston

Nikki, Alan, James, Peter and Billy at Euston



[1.30pm - Update] - Phil and Chris at Euston



[1.30pm - Update] - Tube Relief in the Londonist

Some great online publicity in Londonist - one of my favourite London websites.

"Amersham tube station probably doesn't normally see that much business at 5 in the morning, so it may have come as a bit of surprise earlier today when 65 people turned up to begin their journey for Tube Relief."

[12.55pm - Update] - The Say Hello Wave Goodbye Man

Dominic Nelder the Say Hello Wave Goodbye man seems to have dropped in at Euston with a special Tube relief sash on his bowler!



[12.30pm - Update] - Local Press Coverage

The challengers themselves will know that the local press have been giving excellent coverage to them over the last week or so. They've been appearing on the front page of local papers, getting interviews on local radio and TV stations and generally spreading the word around the whole country and in the US.

Here's the latest piece of local coverage in the Bucks Free Press reporting on Jon Choo who much much earlier today - about 2.45am left a blog post before setting off for Amersham. It's interesting how this local paper have actually gone with a very "bloggy" angle.

"Mr Choo described himself as one of a "bunch of bloggers" people who publish their personal thoughts and web links on the internet.

The bloggers, who come from all across the globe, met online and decided to take part in the challenge.

He said: "We are a bunch of bloggers who were all horrified by what happened and feel that this is something that we can do to really help the victims."

Jonny Lyon also made the front page of his local paper:



To see more local press coverage check out the publicity area of the tuberelief site (it's towards the bottom of the page).


[12.05pm - Update] - At last we see the T Shirts!



Here's a message from Nikki Tysoe: "This is everyone we found at Woodford! (this is fimb by the way!)"

[12 noon - Update] - Christopher Abbott and team at Aldgate East taken by Nikki Tysoe



[11.58 - Update] - Brandon and Ellen at the Euston pitstop



[11.45am - Update] - More Pictures

Don't speak to me about vodafone grrr (I've had to turn my mobile phone off for an hour while they get it sorted). But anyway, more pictures coming through

Firstly Geoff n Neil's team at Euston - includes Ann, Adrian and Rich



Here's how it looks on a digital camera



Then Ann/pixeldiva can't resist checking mail at Euston



[10.35am - Update] - Geoff n Neil's Team at Euston

Sorry about the lack of pictures at the moment, I've just spent 20 minutes 'aving a word with Vodafone and apparently the settings on my phone needed to be changed to activate receiving the pictures, even though last week they told me I didn't need to do anything - D'OH.

Geoff will be gutted to know that he's just missed a reporter from Virgin Radio by about two minutes as she has popped along to Euston to catch up with them.

[10.00am - Update] - Fourteen year old Jonny Lyon at Euston



[9.45 - Update] - First team through at Euston



Just heard that Tami, Paul, Patrick and Jonny where the first people to make it to the Euston pitstop. There's a group of volunteers at Euston station who have energy bars, first aid kits and general moral support on hand. They'll also be taking a polaroid picture of the challengers when they get to the station and sticking them on a board so that everyone can see their progress. Helene says she's sent me a mobile phone picture too - but haven't received it yet. Note to self - 'av a word with vodafone to see why they're not coming through.


[9.40 - Update] - First Mobile phone picture of the day

As I haven't got a picture phone myself I'm getting mobile pictures sent to me over the net and this may mean they take a while to come in. I'm not sure.



But the first one of the day has come in from Chris and Andy who say:

"Chiswick park. 4 hours gone, half hour behind. And i see no train.. From Andy and Chris."

[9.40 - Update] - "Well that was organised chaos wasn't it?", said a bemused Tube driver at West Harrow when 67 people were piling themselves onto his train at 7.15 this morning. Just had a report from Geoff saying that the station isn't normally used to seeing a gaggle of Tube Challengers getting their tickets through the gates and rushing down to get a train. Specially when one of the challengers' rucksacks split open, with the contents of the bag over the platform. Fortunately the driver waited for them all to get on.

The challengers all stayed in a large group from the start at 6am, but at 8am they split up into smaller teams and went their separate ways.

Apparently all the Tube driver's know that that challenge is taking place today and have been radioing each other about it. So we can expect to hear more ironic/funny/bemused driver's announcements about it throughout the day.

[9am - Update] - Werenotafraid blog Tuberelief

The popular website that I'm sure everyone knows about, blogged Tube Relief - many thanks guys!


[7.20am - Update] - Tube Relief on BBC website

It looks like the BBC were the first to break the news of the date of Tube Relief (obviously with the exception of this blog!!). The date of the challenge had been a closely guarded secret mainly for security reasons.

Also you might see reports of Geoff being 32 (from the official press release) - but I feel I must point out he's actually 33 now having celebrated his birthday a week ago!

[6.15am - Update] - The Early Morning Team Shot outside Amersham Station



Nice shot by Ann of the team getting ready for the off:



[6.10am - Update] - Jon Choo one of the challengers didn't make it to the night before meal (see below) but updated his blog at about 3am this morning with his thoughts for the day ahead:

"In less than three hours time we will be meeting at Amersham tube station to begin our twenty hour journey around the underground in our grave attempt to visit every. single. tube. station.

Around 260 of them on a distance of 400 kilometres.

*Yawn* Shit. I am still so tired. I do not know how I am going to get through this, but getting through this I will."

His girlfriend Jen Hardy is also on the challenge and also gives her reasons for taking part.

"Some people almost forgotten on how useful and sustainable public transport is, those whom especially always had a bad principal of using their private cars just to go to a convenience store that located few metres away from their house (those in America, especially, with their 4X4!). Public transports are there for a reason! It helps in reducing Carbon Emissions (especially now when the world is force to do something to reduce all type of pollutions due to climate change).

In this post, I would like to take the opportunity to say how I envy London public transport for giving a positive example, not only to other cities in England (such as Brighton), but also other countries where public transport wasn't really put into practice yet (such as Indonesia).

Supporting Tube Relief 2005 will help us in putting the broken pieces back and giving people their confidence back in using public transport that will help in minimising the environmental impact! "

You can also see a picture of their rucksacks with water, energy bars, Snickers and energy drinks for the long day ahead.



He said: "As you can see, we will be mostly carrying snacks, drinks, maps and pieces of papers. London's pick-pocketers should be warned that there is nothing of value to be found in the bags. At all."

[12.30am - Update] - Hopefully by now the challengers should all be tucked up in bed ready for the early start but on Wednesday night a whole group met in Amersham for a meal to swap stories and do some last minute planning. Tami Brisset had the furthest to travel coming over from New Orleans to take part in the challenge. She's a Police Captain in New Orleans and brought over some caps, badges and T-Shirts for the team.




Neil had challenged Geoff to a "Beardwatch" to see who could grow the biggest beard before the event. Geoff jumped ship after a few days but Neil continued and the beard ceremoniously disappeared this evening.



More pictures from the meal here (click pictures to enlarge):

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Thursday, August 25, 2005 Permalink

See through Rucksacks - More than meets the eye

Have we seen through the see through rucksacks?

A company has launched some clear rucksacks for Tube users to help us combat our fear of rucksacks containing explosives said the BBC. I'd originally I heard about the "Freedom" see through rucksacks on Heart FM on Monday morning but at the time couldn't find anything on the internet about them and just thought - "Oh well yet another company jumping on the fear bandwagon" (see the hideous commuter survival kits)

I didn't think too much more about it until I received an email from Martin Evans, who's done some research which certainly questions the altruistic ("It plans to donate any profits made to the London Bombings Relief Fund." says the BBC) aims of the bags.

Here's the website selling the bags and apart from the rough and ready design, it doesn't look too bad - although worryingly the Legal Information and Privacy Policy link doesn't go anywhere. We also learn that: "For every bag sold by The Assist Safety Project 10% will go to the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund" - so already it's not the generous "any profits" we thought at the start.

Now over to Martin though on the people behind the project:

"I went on a little search about the people - the Assist Safety Project -promoting these "Freedom bags" (what a vomit-inducing name!) and found, unsurprisingly, that the company behind it is not quite the "private, non-profit organisation" quoted on the BBC." and quite a few other sources

"You'll find their site at www.assist.ltd.uk, where they advertise their two main products; the Assist Safety Project and their computer repair division focussing on the home computer user (but strangely, nothing about the bags being "sold on the Internet"). (Mmmm maybe they haven't had the chance to update it yet)

"It goes on to say that the free advice service it runs for schools helps parents with safety and education issues, such as "unsolicited e-mails, viruses and worms, Chat rooms and Instant messaging as well as controlling what websites their children are able to view".

"Now, call me an old cynic, but aren't these free advice sessions likely to be just a sales pitch to flog software for worried parents?

"Well, funnily enough, that's exactly what it is all about, as evidenced by the following bit on www.assist.ltd.uk/recruitment.html.

"Our Opportunity: Meeting people in the local community, through schools, local groups etc., we are able to discuss and meet the needs of parents with school age children, who have home PCs. As you will agree, Parents believe the safety of their
children is paramount.... our job is to let the parents know what we have to offer!

"As well as enjoying the flexibility of self employed part time work, it gives us the opportunity to meet new people and offer a worthwhile service."

"The link to their Terms & Conditions doesn't work - pretty indicative of their company, I'd say."

For what they are, I personally think the bags are quite pricey and like the Commuter Survival pack I personally don't like things that so obviously play on people's fear. Hopefully, if the guys behind the bags are reading this they'll get their terms and conditions, privacy policy and legal information links sorted out, as it just makes them look a bit dodgy. However, I'll leave you to make your own conclusions and, as usual, comments welcomed.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 24, 2005 Permalink

London Underground Blog mentioned on CNN News

A number of people now have emailed me to say that they heard about this blog through CNN news - but Rob from Londonist actually sent me a link to the transcript of the broadcast and what the presenter Abbi Tatton said (scroll down to the bottom of the transcript if you want to see it in situ):

There's some discussion about whether the CCTV cameras at Stockwell were working or not, then:

"ABBI TATTON, CNN INTERNET REPORTER: So, the blogs are outraged about the story, but they're also talking about security on the tube after the bombings and after the shooting that Jackie was talking about that took place last month.

And also the security cameras; the security happening in the tube. This is the London Underground -- Going Underground's blog, run by a blogger called Annie Mole. It's dedicated to travelling on the Tube in London. A Great source of information: Lots of photos, lots of information there. So, this closed-circuit security camera she's talking about, but also, the new ad campaign that's going on in the tube, right now.

Posters are all over the place: "Help us to keep your Tube safe." It's talking about bags, if you see bags, report it to authorities. Now, because of this fear about the bags and the story -- obviously the bombs were in the bags when that happened last month."

Then she carries on talking about the Freedom Bags which I blogged earlier today, but it's interesting that she says:

"There's this new, new charity today that's launched a campaign, FreedomBags.com. These are clear backpacks -- a range of clear backpacks and bags suitable for travel on London transport. Now whether this is going to take off or not, it remains to be seen.

That's from a charity called Assist Safety Project. The reviews are coming in from London Blogger right now. It doesn't look too good. The Londonist at the moment, saying, a new range of security concerns perhaps by having a clear backpack. What if you travel with your iPod and your camera? Seems pretty dangerous to me."

However, we all know from Martin's investigations in the post above it's not a charity.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 24, 2005 Permalink

Will we get more rowdy drunks on the London Underground?

Late licensing hours worry British Transport Police

Well it looks like our earlier questions about bringing back London Underground platform pubs will be falling on deaf ears, as the latest news is that British Transport Police are very much against the extension of Britain's licensing hours which will happen in November.

The BBC report: "Violent crime on the UK's rail network rose by nearly 12% last year, much of it fuelled by alcohol, police say.

"There were 9,748 cases of violent crime on the UK's railways in the year to March - up from 8,727 - while violence rose 14% on the London Underground.

The figure prompted British Transport Police's chief constable Ian Johnston to voice "serious concerns" about the extension of pub licensing hours."

The BBC's report concludes with: "The Rail Maritime and Transport union renewed its call for the return of guards to all trains and for more uniformed staff on stations.

General secretary Bob Crow said: "It is deeply disturbing that violence on the railways is still on the increase.

"We need adequate staff on every station all the time they are open and a guard on every train, including on the Tube."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 24, 2005 Permalink

London Underground Blog on BBC Radio Five

My err dulcet tones

Well, did the interview on BBC Radio Five Live on the shooting Jean Charles de Menezes and people's reaction to arming police on the Tube and you can listen to it later. My thoughts on how it went.....? Well, it's tricky when you have no idea what people are going to ask you, so no matter how much preparation you can do for a live interview, you still end up saying "errr" and "well, er" quite a bit.

You'll note that I say "In my opinion" and "I think" and "I would say" quite a lot, mainly because my mind kept going blank and I could hardly remember your many comments on the subject. The one comment I could remember, I sort of ballsed up (sorry).

In the main I think it went OK, although when listening back to it, the main presenter Rhod Sharpe (lovely guy who was smiling and nodding encouragingly at me while I was speaking), didn't do too well giving out the web address of the blog. But hey ho, I think Google and Yahoo do a good enough job indexing the blog, so if people put in "london hyphen underground blog" in some shape or form they'll find it (in fact a fair few people did find it that way at around the time of the broadcast - people listening at 2.15am onwards - Ah, bless them).

When you listen to the recording there's a bit of a gap at the end and Rhod returns momentarily to talking about his upcoming Jury service, then the recording returns to Chris Vallance (who arranged the interview with me) talking about the blog and how many comments/posts it gets etc etc.

Anyway to listen you have two choices - one is straightforward and takes you straight to the interview and download a fairly ropey quality mp3 recording (9.3KB) or for much better quality you can go to BBCFiveLive's site, visit the Listen Again section - select Tuesday and use the "forward" buttons - forward till you get to 1 hour and 6 minutes into the bulletin (see image) and then you'll hear me around there after the jury service bit. (Phew) Enjoy and comments more than welcome!

Is the Stockwell Shooting story overlooking the victims of the attack?

Something which Rhod mentioned when introducing me and that we've already touched upon in the comments here, is whether all of the news about Jean Charles de Menezes is overshadowing or taking away from the tragedy of the 52 victims killed in the July 7th attacks. But it's interesting that the media are now picking up on this.

The Daily Express are saying it's disrespectful to the families of the 52 victims. Dania Gorodi the sister of Michelle Otto who dies in the the Russell Square bombing said: "Fifty two people who died in the bombing have been totally forgotten and everybody is just totally hysterical about finding someone to pay for that poor young man who died". The Daily Telegraph also cover this story online. You can see my opinion in the original comment I've linked to, and this highlights my observations of how people's comments, thoughts and opinions are changing every day as more facts are coming out.

I didn't get a chance to plug Tuberelief on the interview (sorry Geoff). Although I'm not personally taking part I've been involved in the promotion of this challenge from the start and the aim is to raise 20,000 pounds for the victims and the families of the victims of the attack. I think Geoff will agree that the charitable aspect of this has been very much at the forefront of my involvement. So personally I would be delighted if the emphasis of the current news swung back to the victims. Please consider making a donation to any of the people doing the challenge later this week or a donation to this blog's fundraiser for the victims.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Tuesday, August 23, 2005 Permalink

Tube station that's most mispronounced

So how would you pronounce this tube station?

It's the one between Tottenham Court Road and Chancery Lane on the Central Line

It's not a trick question, apparently it's the most commonly mispronounced word in the UK according to Ginsters!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Tuesday, August 23, 2005 Permalink

Featured in BBC round up of Blogs on de Menezes shooting

Blog in haste, repent at leisure

The BBC have just done a round up of some of the blogs talking about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and this blog is featured twice - fortunately quite favourably.

The article begins:

"Soon after his death, Jean Charles de Menezes was described by Richard Littlejohn in The Sun as "suicidally reckless". More recently, the columnist has acknowledged that initial reports were inaccurate and turned his derision on the policemen. Mr Menezes was shot a day after the failed London bombings.

On the blogs, we're seeing a more thoughtful response to the same problem. There's a temptation to comment on an event straight away, but it sometimes takes a while for all the facts to emerge."

Quoting one of the commenters from this blog the writer Alan O'Connor says:

"policing practice is of course coming in for a great deal of scrutiny. The overall tone is one of sympathy for individual officers, but concern over procedure. Commenting at The London Underground Blog, Ian of Who Knows Where The Thoughts Come From? writes:

"It's a strange contrast between the treatment of the leaker (suspended from work) to the treatment of the assassin (distinctly not suspended; given an expenses paid holiday though). It would make you think that exposing the truth is a worse crime than killing an innocent man."

and later:

"Trust in short supply

And it's not just the police: Annie Mole is one among many highlighting the unreliability of eyewitness statements, which were relied on by the media, including the BBC."

Thanks to everyone who has been making comments on the blog about this whole issue - you never know when those comments will be making the news themselves!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Monday, August 22, 2005 Permalink

London Underground Upholstery

Moquette we love it

Some of you will look at the cushions below and think, "How cool!", some will think "How sad!", some will simply think "How??"



But the London Underground know that they can make a mint from our love of all things tube, so not content with just upholstering the Tube seats with some eye-boggling designs, the moquette, as London Underground upholstery is called - now adorns a whole variety of consumer goods from the cushions above to dog coats



and lightshades



and Ironing board covers



(Thanks to Will for the best & funniest "definition" of moquette that I've seen. For the London Underground's historical background of these "aesthetically pleasing materials" see here)

We even wax lyrical about when new seat designs come out on the Tube. See James Cridland's comments on the new Piccadilly Line seat designs in his flickr post - "Presumably, they're darker so they don't show the poo stains as quickly.."



However my personal "favourites" are the ones seen on the Circle and Hammersmith and City Line, which I think are deliberately designed so hideously so that pigeon droppings and general vomit from drunks doesn't show up on them.





And that's not a photo-shopped picture, the pigeon was really on the seat!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Monday, August 22, 2005 Permalink

Brazilian Judges arrive to quiz Police over Stockwell Tube Shooting

And Downing Street Vigil for Jean Charles de Menezes

It's been a month since the police killed de Menezes in a London Underground tube carriage at Stockwell. From the BBC: "Two senior Brazilian officials are due to arrive in Britain to question the commission investigating the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.......

"Meanwhile, supporters of his family plan a protest vigil at Downing Street." That will be tonight at around 6pm.

CCTV on the Underground working or not?

Also today there are more arguments over whether the CCTV at Stockwell tube was working or not. The Daily Mirror and other press sources report:

"Tapes from CCTV cameras which should have filmed the last moments of Jean Charles de Menezes were completely blank, police have told Tube security staff.

But the transport workers, who fear they could be blamed for the lack of footage showing how the 27-year-old died, insist that their surveillance equipment was working at the time......

"although there are pictures of Mr de Menezes entering Stockwell station and going through ticket barriers, there has so far been a lack of film from the scene where the shooting took place......

"A senior transport union official said yesterday: "There is a lot of confusion and my members are concerned that a misleading impression has been given."

If you missed my post about "Who's to blame?" for this tragedy over the weekend you might want to check it out.

BBC interview me

Yep you didn't read that incorrectly, I'm going to be on BBC Radio Five Live at some ungodly hour, 2.10am when only insomniacs, taxi drivers and internet geeks will be awake, discussing aspects of the shooting and mainly the blog's and commenters' reaction to the idea of police being armed on the London Underground. Fortunately it's pre-recorded, so I'll be at the studio much, much earlier than the broadcast time this evening.

I'll try to get a recording of it, and alternatively it is repeated in a podcast for a week, so I'll post up the link of that tomorrow. Wish me luck, I was told with all of the repeats that the audience is likely to be a million. Gulp!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Monday, August 22, 2005 Permalink

The Queen Plans Underground Network

Queenie Going Underground?

Just heard on the radio that the Queen was planning to create an Underground network. What? I thought - she's building her own tube system? But no, apparently, it's the latest trend amongst the mega wealthy to have "their own underground network to extract heat from the earth's natural warmth and cut energy bills". says The Sunday Times. But, if you're so rich and famous, why do you care about the size of your bills? Reading further, it seems that it's an eco friendly issue rather than costs! So looks like we won't be having an Elizabeth Line after all!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Sunday, August 21, 2005 Permalink

Strange Referrals

Don't read this post if you're drinking something

I haven't done this for quite a long time, but most bloggers find it quite interesting to look at their stats and to see what sorts of keyword searches from Google, Yahoo! and the likes, lead people to their blogs. In the main, mine are the ones you would expect - "london underground" "tube london" "london underground boots" - blah, blah.

However, today some person from North Carolina had typed "women drinking cum from a tube" into MSN's search engine and lo and behind there was my blog the penultimate entry on the first page. Nice!

Which sort of reminds me to say hello and thanks to Miss Fuzzy Bunny - I'm sure she's not into practices of the above type, but it's the most "out there" blog that's added this blog to their blog-roll/list of "worthy" blogs. And - whether or not it's Miss Fuzzy Bunny herself - I get a visitor from her blog on an almost daily basis. My blog is just above Love, Lust & Latex. Cheers Fuzzy!

Back to referrals, from Manassas Virginia, someone has been searching AOL looking for two under age girls and older man and found my blog on page one of the results. Perhaps I had better stop saying "ably assisted by Geoff n Neil" in the header!

Also today I had a person from Houston, Texas, trying to find out "Is Alicia Silverstone a smoker" from Google. This person must have been really determined to find out if Silverstone was or not, as he or she went through ten pages of Google searches before coming to this blog on the bottom of page eleven. Sorry mate, I've no idea whether she is or isn't. I know that she's a veggie and likes The Gate restaurant in Hammersmith and claims to travel on the tube, but that's about the extent of my personal knowledge of the lovely actress.

After those diversions, if you have visited the blog looking for London Underground (ie Tube, travel, transport and subway) related stuff, please read on. Thanks.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Sunday, August 21, 2005 Permalink

Stockwell Tube Shooting - Who is to blame?

London Underground Shooting - Dodgy eye-witness reports, police cover-ups, urban myths

More and more of the leaked documents are being published in the press now and it's fairly clear that they are genuine (why else would the whistle blower have been suspended? - although the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) are refusing to comment on this).

However, as the facts are now finally beginning to emerge - it's a shame they had to come from a leaked document - everyone is wringing their hands and newspapers are reporting of calls for Police Commissioner Ian Blair's resignation. I am not in any way excusing the actions of the Met police but it wasn't just the police who were coming up with dodgy stories (The discrepancies in all the stories are summarised well by the BBC here.



Let's look at the eye witness reports on the day of the shooting. I would have been absolutely terrified if I was in that tube carriage at Stockwell. I would have been scared witless at just hearing gun shots. If I had then left the station in that state and had a microphone pointed in my face - what would I have done?

Well Mark Whitby gave the BBC a report which was as we now know not entirely accurate (Incidentally he's now giving a different report of the events).

The problem was that all these initial eye witness reports did at the time, was to perpetuate the myth that Jean Charles de Menezes was wearing a padded jacket with wires coming from it and that he vaulted the barrier - leaving the majority of us to believe at the time that he was a terrorist and deserved what was coming to him.

However, I'm still amazed about all the people, who even when it emerged that de Menezes had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks said - "well he shouldn't have been running", "well he shouldn't have vaulted the barriers" "well he shouldn't have been wearing a padded jacket".

Lots of the comments here from the post I made at the time were certainly along those lines.

I sat on the fence a bit as it was clear even then that the whole affair was a mess but I said: "It's all very easy to say you shouldn't run from the police if you're innocent. He probably felt guilty about something. What that something was, we'll never know now" and later "it would be great if people could stop blaming the victim here. I'd mentioned it before and have also felt inclined to leave messages on a variety of other blogs that are calling the guy stupid for wearing a padded jacket and for vaulting the turnstile."

At the end of the day, I spose the issue is that it isn't our job or the eye witnesses jobs to be accurate about what we say (although it's a different matter if the eyewitness is then summoned to give evidence in court). We're not getting paid to give accurate reports and descriptions about events, whereas the police are.

We ought to have every faith in the police at the moment and they are trying to protect us. But the other very sad thing about all of this, is that these issues and stories are deflecting from the excellent work the police have been doing when they caught the suspected bombers on the 29th July without injury to anyone.

In my opinion, the only good thing to have come out of this is that the Police are now reviewing their shoot to kill policy.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Saturday, August 20, 2005 Permalink

What to wear in London today?

Or four seasons in one tube

Everyone in London knows that the weather is shite today. I was travelling around on the London Underground just after lunch and the whole "Four seasons in one day" weather, that we get most of the time in the UK, was clearly showing in one carriage alone:

Summer

Right, this is how we are supposed to be dressed right now it's the middle of August. In fact yesterday was very hot and this would have been a bit overdressed:



Autumn

This is quite similar to how I was dressed today. Long trousers, boots(!), and a long sleeved top:



Winter

Some old ladies were also in the carriage all in wintery raincoats. I managed to snap the one with the natty Burberry trimmings on the way up the escalator.



Spring

April showers and all that. Virtually everyone carried an umbrella today.



And it's still chucking it down now! Please God, don't let me see any reports about hosepipe bans and droughts!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Friday, August 19, 2005 Permalink

London Underground Passenger Numbers returning to normal

Tube passenger numbers showing strong recovery

Transport for London today issued a press release saying that: "Passenger numbers are now down only around five per cent on last year's record numbers.

"In the weeks immediately following 7 July, LU passenger numbers were down around 10-15 per cent on weekdays and 20-25 per cent at the weekends." Blogged here - showing that the attacks seemed to be putting off tourists and out of town weekend travellers.

Mayor (London's Sheriff) Ken Livingstone said "These figures clearly demonstrate how London is returning to a more normal situation following the recent bomb attacks, reflecting the determination of Londoners to continue enjoying the attractions of our city and not to be defeated by the acts of terrorists."

The release concluded: "Last year, London Underground (LU) carried more Tube passengers in a single year - 976 million - than ever before, more than the previous high of 970 million set four years ago.

LU also ran more trains then ever before, clocking up a huge total of nearly 70 million km.

That's the equivalent of 1,735 times round the world, or 90 trips to the moon and back."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Friday, August 19, 2005 Permalink

Listening to music on the Tube - er what?

I SAID LISTENING TO MUSIC ON THE TUBE CAN DAMAGE YOUR HEARING

For a while now, I've been thinking that the London Underground should have little volume icons above the route maps on carriages (the ones above this guy's head), showing you when you might want to turn up the volume on your mp3/iPod/walkman/minidisc or whatever. There are definitely certain parts of the system that are noisier than others and I find myself turning up my mp3 player only to then deafen myself when I leave the noisy area or I increasingly get used to louder and louder music.

The Northern Line is particularly noisy - I suppose because it's the line which has most parts actually underground (see Line Infrastructure section here). Parts of the Jubilee Line are really noisy - specially the Jubilee Line extension bit from Waterloo to the East End. Any other contenders for noisy parts of the system?

However, ramping up volume to compete with the noisy London Underground, appears to be no joke as "experts" in Australia have just reported the following: "Sydney's National Acoustic Laboratories found a quarter of personal music system users in a random sample listened to music at dangerous volumes.", said the BBC and a number of other news sources in the UK.

Also "A recent study by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) found 39% of 18 to 24-year-olds listened to personal music players for at least an hour every day and 42% admitted they thought they had the volume too high.

The RNID regards 80 decibels as the level at which hearing is threatened - 20 less than a pneumatic drill.

Some MP3 players can reach 105 decibels. EU iPods have a sound limiter to comply with noise safety levels, however sometimes users hack through this in order to listen to it louder."

And they're with me on my London Underground noise theory too "RNID has been concerned for some time that many people are turning up the volume on their personal stereos to levels that could create hearing loss in the long term.

"This is precisely the case when attempting to drown out unpleasant noise from traffic and on the Tube."

Anyway the RNID have launched a microsite and campaign called "Don't Lose The Music" to urge us to be aware of the risks so we can continue to enjoy music for longer.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Friday, August 19, 2005 Permalink

London Underground Olympics

Tube Olympics - Part One

After another email exchange with Jon Justice and also after seeing some guys on the DLR yesterday doing some tube gymnastics by doing chest lifts (shoulder presses?? - see the picture on the right) using the strap-hangers, I decided it might be fun to show some Olympic sports that Tube travellers would excel in. I think Metro did something similar way before London won the 2012 Olympic Bid - but hey, I never said it was original.

Today's sporting discipline is Balance. Balance is one of the key techniques that London Underground commuters use on a daily basis particularly when travelling in the rush hour. The lady below will be awarded 9 out of 10 for her balancing skills.



See how she perfectly combines standing in the middle of the carriage with perfect upright balance of her heavy rucksack, whilst holding onto the handrail and reading a copy of the Metro at the same time.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Thursday, August 18, 2005 Permalink

Happy Birthday Geoff - "Super Nerd"

On this day in 1972......Geoff Marshall was born

Continuing with the Olympic theme (well he's got a track suit top on and is sitting on an 2012 Olympic tube seat)



Regular readers know that Geoff has been one of the co-bloggers of this blog for the last year (it was first left in Geoff n Neil's capable hands when I was at the Edinburgh Festival). Due to his shameless self-publicity you'll also know that he and Neil are current Guinness World record holders for travelling around all of London's 275 tube stations in the fastest possible time.

He might not thank me for this, but he's the only person I know to be lampooned by Victor Lewis-Smith's TV page when one of his earlier attempts was televised - well done mate (managed to find the archived Evening Standard article here). "Wherever there are trains, there are nerds, but this programme introduced us to a new and more virulent strain: the Super Nerd".

Geoff's also the brains behind Tube Relief a mass charity tube challenge in aid of the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund.

Anyway, Happy Birthday mate! You may also like to know that Geoff shares his birthday with Ebay who are exactly 10 years old today!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Thursday, August 18, 2005 Permalink

Sleeping on the London Underground

Correct ways to sleep on the tube

I'm notorious for falling asleep anywhere if I'm tired enough. The tube is one of most common public places for me to sleep, and it seems to be pretty common for other commuters too. Hardly a day goes by when you will not see someone in the land of nod. It's good to know that even in the current climate, people can still feel secure enough to doze off.

So, I present the best ways to fall asleep, mainly if you don't look like a complete buffoon and find yourself turning your fellow commuter into a pillow or even worse drooling on them.

Firstly, before going onto my pictures, I thought I'd set the scene with a picture from the Evening Standard in the Getty photo library - showing some old skool tube sleeping experts at work.



As we no longer have quite the same stiff upper lip and rolled umbrellas to hold ourselves upright, the best way is to find a spot so that you can lean against the glass panel or a window to your side, like the woman on the left:



However, when maximum tiredness takes over you cannot totally rely on the glass to fully support you and give you any dignity:



Leaning backwards and onto the ledge behind is quite a good gambit. However, you may well get a sore neck/back when you wake. Note how her arm provides additional support:



And if you are going to go for the most risky position - upright, with no ledge, window or panel next to you - try to sit next to someone holding a scary looking plant. That way you'll be woken by the spiky leaves way before knocking into the person carrying it.



Have a search through the blog if you want to check out the many occasions when I've fallen asleep and luckily the "Tube Fairies" have automatically woken me up at the right stop. Another tip for not missing your stop and waking up at Heathrow (yes I've done this) is to set your mobile phone alarm to wake you up at roughly the time it takes you to get home, alternatively wear a big badge or a sign round your neck saying "Wake me up at XXXX station", although sadists would probably let you sleep on until the end of the line!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 17, 2005 Permalink

Leaked Report on Man Shot at Stockwell Tube Station

Report claims mistakes led to London Underground shooting

If only to underline why I'm totally against the police carrying guns on board trains (see yesterday's post below), right now newspapers everywhere are reporting on the leaked report from ITV News who obtained secret documents and photographs supposedly from an Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report which is investigating why police shot Jean Charles De Menezes dead in a London Underground carriage.

ITV News report "The documents and photographs confirm that Jean Charles was not carrying any bags, and was wearing a denim jacket, not a bulky winter coat, as had previously been claimed.

He was behaving normally, and did not vault the barriers, even stopping to pick up a free newspaper.

He started running when we saw a tube at the platform. Police had agreed they would shoot a suspect if he ran."

"A document describes CCTV footage, which shows Mr de Menezes entered Stockwell station at a "normal walking pace" and descended slowly on an escalator.

The document said: "At some point near the bottom he is seen to run across the concourse and enter the carriage before sitting in an available seat."

Obviously there is going to be a lot of speculation about the authenticity of the documents and particularly how they came to be leaked. Most newspapers and sites now show the picture of a man, one presumes Jean Charles De Menezes, lying sprawled on a bloodied tube carriage floor.

According to the BBC "The IPCC has said it will not comment on its investigation........ In a statement, the IPCC said it does not know where the documents came from and that its priority was to keep Mr de Menezes family informed."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 17, 2005 Permalink

Public wants armed officers aboard trains

Erm, how many passengers exactly?

The Standard had a large feature yesterday saying "Passengers today called for full-time armed police to patrol trains in the ongoing battle against suicide bombers".

I would love to know how many people they asked in their "straw poll of commuters" to come up with this claim, as this is not mentioned at all in the feature.

Personally, I'm not too wild about having armed police in the carriages of tube trains or any trains for that matter. I suppose I've got used to seeing armed police around more now, but I'm far happier seeing them in larger stations out in the open. Can you imagine the damage that could be done on a packed commuter carriage if the train suddenly jerked or came to an abrupt halt (which every commuter knows happens a lot of the time), if an armed police officer was on it?

On the New York subway, you're not supposed to drink out of open containers, for goodness sake, I imagine for the damage you might cause if a hot drink is spilt on someone. I'd rather have a drink accidentally spilt on myself, than a barrel of a gun accidentally pointing at me.

Anyway, enough of me. Doing a bit of searching, I found that according to some research which actually lists how many people were polled, that I'm not exactly in the minority:

YouGov in conjunction with the Daily Mirror & GMTV carried out online interviews with 1,671 British adults from July 22 - 24th and a similar question was asked, with the following results:

Should we have armed police patrolling trains and buses?

Should 49%

Should not 39%

Don't know 13%

(Not quite sure why the figures don't add up to exactly 100% though????? - Statistics never were my strong point)

Contrarily, though, when asked:

Should all police officers in Britain be armed?

Should 33%

Should not 59%

Don't know 8%

The highlights of the research are here.

Fortunately, it seems like the police actually have better ideas than patrolling trains with arms. The Standard article, concluded by pointing out that a police source said "We do want to maintain an increased presence and vigilance around the transport network and sustain the present level for some time to come."

A greater emphasis is being placed on hidden tactics to disrupt "hostile surveillance" by terrorists on the Tube network. More people are being brought in to monitor CCTV cameras at key stations and more covert officers will work with the CCTV watchers on the ground. "We want to try to pick up people planning an attack before they do it," a source said.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Tuesday, August 16, 2005 Permalink

Blogging Depression and Big in Japan

Allow me a couple of diversions

Through various blogs (Diamond Geezer and Geoff's Blog) I came across the excellent and hilarious "What everyone should know about Blog Depression"

All bloggers who've been blogging for longer than I'd say 6 months or a year will be nodding their heads at this. "Most bloggers feel down and find their own blog sickening now and then. It's a natural reaction to the self induced and largely imaginary pressures of blogging. But when these feelings are severe or prolonged - the blogger may lose all sense of proportion, becoming angry and bitter about an undertaking which was totally voluntary and which does not directly contribute to his or her continued survival, on this, our planet earth"

Yeah I went through blogging depression at some stage - as a "community builder" I certainly thought "got plenty of visitors, so why is no one commenting?". Certainly got blog pressure and to a stage of thinking "WTF do I blog about, I haven't updated for days. Argh, what's going to happen? Ah who gives a toss anyway?"

Anyway, read the whole pamphlet yourself you'll find it hysterical or enlightening or hopefully, both.

Big in Japan

Was amused to find this blog amongst the Great British Blogs in a British Council publication (no less) for Japan. I vaguely remember giving them a quote of some description months ago and then forgot all about it, till the publication landed on my doorstep over the weekend. Thanks guys! Also thanks to fellow nominated bloggers Funky Pancake (a regular blog I read) and Hippy Shopper have scanned the whole piece for you to see. Altogether now, singalong with Alphaville - Ah, you're big in Japan, tonite.......

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Tuesday, August 16, 2005 Permalink

Pubs on London Underground Platforms....should they be re-introduced?

I'll have a pint of Pride, a Bicardi Breezer and an Oystercard top-up

This post has arisen out of a totally unrelated comments spat that I had with Jon Justice. We were arguing about me taking pictures of the police, amongst other things - then continued our discussion privately by email - and at the end of the day, we ended up resolving everything and had a much more jovial email exchange.

Part of that exchange was that on Saturday Jon was listening to Radio 4's "Home Truths" where they were discussing moles (the furry underground variety) and Jon said: "then they went on to mention the concept of pubs on the Tube. Apparently there used to be a bar on the platform of Sloane Square station. You could jump from train to pub without touching the platform." Jon thinks their re-introduction would be a good idea as he was trying to get to a pub during the recent attacks - "I was frustrated in my attempts to head pubward by the terrorists. If TfL were to reopen the pubs on platforms, then I could have supped in peace."

Well, I actually knew all about the bar on the platform of Sloane Square as it features very heavily in an excellent novel by Iris Murdoch called - "A Word Child".

Written in 1975, the lead character (who was a bit of a tube fan) seemed to spend half of his life in that pub: "The concept of the tube station platform bar excited me. In fact the whole underground region moved me, I felt as if it were in some sense my natural home. These two bars (Sloane Square and one at Liverpool Street) were not just a cosy after-the-office treat, they were a source of dark excitement, places of profound communication with London......

"The coming and departing rattle of the trains, the drifting movement of the travellers, their arrival, their waiting, their vanishing forever presented a mesmeric and indeed symbolic fresco: so many little moments of decision....The uncertainty of the order of the trains. The dangerousness of the platforms. The resolution of a given moment (but which?) to lay down your glass and mount the next train. But why? There will be another in two minutes)"

Both London Underground platform pubs (and all licensed premises on the Underground) gradually disappeared. The platform pub on Sloane Square was called "The Hole in the Wall" and survived until 1985. It's now a convenience store called "Treats". The one on Liverpool Street, on the eastbound platform of the Metropolitan Line, was known as "Pat-Mac's Drinking Den" and survived until 1978 and is now a cafe.

Apparently, at one time there were over thirty licensed buffets on Underground premises and many were open for out of hours business (All historical information from the indispensable Underground to Everywhere by Stephen Halliday).

The only pub that I know of which is virtually on an Underground platform now is The Railway in Kew Gardens. Formerly called The Flower & Firkin - fancyapint's understated comment on closeness to the tube "you'll see it as soon as you leave the station". Harbottle's pub guide also say "actually a part of Kew Gardens Station".



It used to be my local when I lived in Kew. Regulations of some sort prevent the doors opening onto the platform itself, but you can hear and see trains pulling up from inside the pub. So if you're fast, you can down your last drink and leg it out of the front of the pub to catch a tube (I've done it on more than one occasion).



Perhaps we could do with having pubs on platforms again? I'm not sure what the legalities are, but it'd certainly make life easier for people doing Circle Line pub crawls if nothing else.

Update - guess the booze brand quiz - In one of those freaky weird co-incidences, when I arrived at work my friends were all doing a quiz where you have to guess the brand name of different alcoholic drinks from little pictures of them. We've downloaded the booze quiz here - it will drive you mad, specially as whoever designed it doesn't seem to have a great use of apostrophes.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Monday, August 15, 2005 Permalink

Top Tube mullet and Crash

Mullets and movies, what could be better?

On the way in to see the truly stupendous film Crash (more on that later), I saw a guy with a brilliant mullet haircut. I love mullets as essentially they are for people who can't quite decide what hairstyle they want and think "I know, I'll have two in one - short on the top, long on the back" and the man below sported a classic example normally only seen on country and western singers and seventies throwbacks.



Now onto Crash - I snapped a picture of the poster at Leicester Square on the way home. I never realised until now that the black and white tiles at Leicester Square are perfect for film advertising, as they look rather like the sprockets on film.



Please believe all of the superlatives on the poster above for Crash. It was one of the best films I have seen all year.

It's totally gripping, has you on the edge of your seats, and yet it is surprisingly funny too (and you can't normally say that of a film about racism). Some may find how all the disparate characters inter-link, a bit contrived, but that didn't bother me at all. For me, the weakest character was actually played by one of the biggest stars, Brendan Fraser, but the rest of the cast were amazing, the storyline always surprising, intelligent and thought provoking - and, well - I can't do it justice here, just go and see the film for yourself. There's a trailer on the film's website here and if you want to read more of my thoughts on it - check out my review of Crash here.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Saturday, August 13, 2005 Permalink

Sudoku on the Waterloo & City Line

Yes - it WAS on the Waterloo & City Line



I'm so rubbish at maths I can't imagine a more hideous pastime than sudoku or Su Doku or whatever it's called, but at the moment that seems to put me in a minority of one.

I've seen more people doing sudoku puzzles on the London Underground than I've seen ..... well.... everything lately. More than Harry Potter Readers, more than people doing standard crossword puzzles, not quite more than Metro readers, but it's almost on a par.

Co-blogger, Neil will be pleased to know that he was the very first person that I had ever seen doing a sudoku puzzle (that was only at the beginning of May! - the craze feels like it's been around much longer than that). I didn't understand it then and I still don't now.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Friday, August 12, 2005 Permalink

Subway maps for your iPod

London Underground iPod subway map!

I haven't got an iPod (but a much cooler & smaller mp3 player & radio!) so I'm not exactly sure how this works, but through various linkages I came across a site where you can download a subway map onto your iPod.



It's not just a little screensaver or wallpaper, but it looks like you can scroll round and view the entire map in sections. So far, in the three days the site's been up, its creator, William Bright, has added Hong Kong, New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington and San Franciso and now STOP PRESS he's added London.

On the site William/Little Bill said:

"Next: iPodSubwayMaps goes International!

London, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa?

ps - the London Underground is a nightmare!"

However, following loads of requests he has done London:

"It's done! Finally! This map is the most requested subway map I've encountered yet. I broke the London Underground map into two sections: a map of downtown London, and a full Underground map. This one took two hours to do."

By downtown he sort of means an elongated version of Zone 1 - or in a separate email I received "one that focuses specifically on the craziness that is downtown".

"Go check out the download and enjoy! Spread the word!"

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Friday, August 12, 2005 Permalink

Intricate graffiti

This made me chuckle. Not that I've ever done it to actually know, but thinking about it, it must be a lot harder to 'scratch' some graffiti words that actually write them with a big marker pen, which is why I was genuinely amazed at the effort that someone had gone to on a Central Line train when I saw this yesterday.


No four-letter rude words, or something equally crude, but just a weird comment on the noise that the doors make. It's the most bizarre vandalistic scribbling I think I've ever seen!

London Underground; Tube Posted by geofftech Thursday, August 11, 2005 Permalink

Newspapers on the London Underground

Does leaving papers behind count as litter?

The new round of tube safety posters tell us not to leave litter behind. Station announcements are also constantly made telling us to hold onto our belongings and not leave litter. So what's the deal with newspapers then? Whenever I get onto the Waterloo and City line at Waterloo in the morning the carriage looks as though newspaper vendors were having a bun fight in there. Yesterday morning, the DLR at Bank (pictured below) was the same.

I had always thought that leaving papers behind was actually doing a service to your fellow paper-less commuters. Specially in the case of Metro as it's a freebie. Not quite so sure about this now.



Note how the lovely clean seats bear the imprints of the many thousand backs and bums sitting on them. Nice!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Thursday, August 11, 2005 Permalink

Simon Armitage's Circle Line Poem

How spooky is this?

Through Transport for London's website I discovered that a new Platform for Art Exhibition will be launched in September about The Circle Line. "The locations, history and architecture of the 27 stations of the Circle line have inspired 27 stories; from the roof garden at High Street Kensington to the homeliness of Mansion House; from the cosmopolitan diversity of Bayswater and Edgware Road to the literary icons of Great Portland Street."

Also discovered that on the back of this, a book will be published "From Here to Here - Stories inspired by London's Circle Line" - "The 31 chapters of this book, each by a different writer, explore the territory around the Circle Line's stations and the network that connects them. Through fiction, poetry, memoir and reportage, they bring to life the extraordinary spirit of this complex, demanding, inspiring city." The project has been dedicated to London and the victims of the 7/7 attacks.

Bearing in mind that everything in this book was written before the attacks on the Circle Line. One of poems in the book KX by Simon Armitage is a chilling pre-cursor to the bombings. Here's an extract:

"Northerner, this is your stop. This longhouse
of echoing echoes and sooted glass,
this goth pigeon hangar, this diesel roost
is the end of the line.........

..................................primed
for that point in time when the world goes bust,
when the unattended holdall or case
unloads its cache of fanaticized heat.

Here's you after the fact, found by torchlight,
being-less, heaped, boned of all thought and sense.

.................Here's you on the News,
shirtless, minus a limb, exiting smoke
to a backdrop of red melt, onto streets
paved with gilt, begging a junkie for help."

I spose it's not too spooky really, as I think we've all known in the back of minds that the London Underground was a likely target in a bombing attack. Obviously some people can express these thoughts more eloquently and creatively than most of us.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Thursday, August 11, 2005 Permalink

Where have all the policemen come from?

This morning's Metro Momento

I'm sure loads of people have been discussing the groups of police we are seeing at tube stations now, where they've come from, why they seem to be mainly chatting, what other crimes might be committed while they are watching stations etc, etc. Diamond Geezer's post had a level of discussion like this and we've been alluding to here too. But in today's Metro there was a great letter from Chris Gilbert in Hertfordshire:

"I have noticed a group of four police officers standing around in a group chatting near the Tube station close to where I work. Maybe this is deliberate, to get the commuters chatting to each other as well? Fortunately, at London Bridge at least, there is a fifth member of the police team, who is presumably in charge. He is always very alert and business-like. He's also healthy, judging by his wet nose and shiny coat."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 10, 2005 Permalink

Ronseal Tube Safety Ad Campaign

It does exactly what it says on the tin

After Transport for London were doing much trumpeting in their press release, revealing their "new poster campaign to boost safety and security", I was wondering what to expect. Well, after seeing it in the flesh at Bank station yesterday, it appears that they've completely avoided any possible confusion, possible spoofing, grammatical errors and have just gone for the safe Ronseal approach.



Branding campaign - One London

But when London wants to really "kick ass" and do some brilliant branding and show the world how top London is (Whatever you want to say about London and Londoners, we are, if nothing else, excellent at our own PR. How else could the East End of London, of all places, host the Olympic games?) - so look no further than the One London campaign. You will soon not be able to move without seeing these ads virtually everywhere in London at the moment:



You'll also find helpful advice on Ken Livingstone's website of how to promote the campaign even further yourself.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 10, 2005 Permalink

Tube Novelist's moving tribute to the bombing victims

Why wasn't he at the Trafalgar Square vigil?

Strangely, only yesterday I was commenting about how Novel 253 was appropriate to the horrific attacks on London, and just now Eddie G from Scotland has emailed me a link to a story on the BBC website where Geoff Ryman, the man who wrote Novel 253, nine years ago, has offered his own tribute to the 52 bomb victims.

At first, the cynic in me thought - "Oh God he's jumping on the band wagon" as his novel is about 253 passengers on a tube train each described in 253 words. At the end of reading his tribute I was in tears (believe me, I do not cry often) as his words completely struck a chord (whereas I felt strangely unmoved at the start of the Trafalgar Square vigil).

It's worth reading the whole tribute, but I will just highlight some parts:

"The most important thing about these people is not how they died but how they lived. All of them were hard-working, decent and loving. That seems to be what most of us are. Goodness is ordinary. Which is why it so often goes unreported."

He then goes on to very succinctly describe the victims drawing on their creativity, their religions, their families, their love, their diversity and their careers (This is where his skill from the book comes into play).

He ends: "I don't believe there are evil people or evil countries, but there are undoubtedly evil thoughts and deeds. They come when we are tired, lazy, threatened or angry - rather like the shooting of that innocent Brazilian man. Everybody has a measure of right on their side and a measure of wrong.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt concluded that evil lay in the refusal to think. One of the things evil cannot face contemplating is variety. It prefers monolithic simplicity. Reality outstrips simplicity through a constant flowering of unexpected lives. Evil thoughts and deeds cannot prevail against it."

Take five minutes and read the tribute for yourself.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 10, 2005 Permalink

Sick Tube Game and Sick Football "Fans"

Tasteless Tube Game & Idiotic Football Chants

Just learnt of two disturbing things in the last five minutes. Firstly, Geoff emailed me a link to a story in The Sun, where there is an internet game called "Mind The Bomb" - "where virtual suicide bombers blow themselves up on the London Underground.

"In the twisted game - called Mind The Bombs - terrorists have boarded trains and you have to stop them carrying out their missions by defusing the explosives.

"If you fail, the fanatics - shown travelling around the London on the famous Tube map - blow themselves to smithereens just like on 7/7.

"Smoke pours from the carriages and ambulance sirens can be heard in a chilling reminder of the terror attacks which killed 52 people."

Sun shock horror hysterics aside - it's a really tasteless idea. In the interests of research I tried to visit the site to find out more about it. (I'm not gracing it with a link you can find it yourself reasonably easily). Firstly there's loads of porn pop ups that greet you, so you know it's going to be a site of good taste. Secondly my browser wouldn't load it, when I refreshed it there was a message across the top saying "Do your part in the war against Terrorism email this FREE GAME to all of your friends, family and associates!" How playing a game like that is in any way doing your bit for the war against terrorism is beyond me.

A spokesperson from the London Underground said : "Anybody involved in the making or viewing of this game would do well to stop and think about that."

Technology site - The Register takes a slightly different view: "We're inclined to agree, although the Sun in its apoplectic state has missed a fundamental point - Mind the Bombs is complete and utter crap. In fact, the only interesting thing about the whole exercise is that a tempting "More Games" link on the site leads straight to listings for online casinos. Naughty, naughty, Mr Fieler (the game's creator)- we wouldn't like to think you are trying to squeeze some cash out of this contribution to the war against terrorism."

Football chants - "You're just a town full of bombers"

Just heard on the radio, that on Saturday, Queens Park Rangers (QPR) fans (based in Shepherd's Bush in West London) were subjected to taunts from Hull fans about the London attacks.

"One QPR fan, called Val, who was at the game, told BBC News: "Suddenly the Hull fans started shouting songs about the London bombings.

"It was really upsetting. We came out of the ground in tears. I couldn't believe it."

Hull's police commander Ch Supt Sean White, said: "I fully agree with the sentiments of anger and disgust.

"We're talking about 30 to 40 shameless cowards who made these chants towards the end of the game. We're just not going to tolerate them.

"We did intervene and made a number of arrests on Saturday. It has brought a great deal of shame to Hull City."

The police are now making an investigation. See the full BBC news feature for more on this.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Tuesday, August 09, 2005 Permalink

More Tube Fear reported

Today's Metro Momento

According to today's Metro commuters who've been worried about travelling on public transport since the attacks, "are increasingly seeking professional help".

But apparently our wariness of fellow passengers is "a healthy response, according to psychologist Keith Guy an expert in post traumatic stress disorder. He said it would become a problem only when that fear and anxiety started taking over people's lives"

Mr Guy has even compiled a checklist with "tips to help Londoners manage their fears"....."Avoiding situations that make people feel anxious could worsen their stress in the long term".

Maybe it's the carriages I travel in or the times I travel but I can't say I've seen anyone look frightened or wary on the tube since the attacks, or perhaps they are just good at covering it up. I had a bit of a moment last week Monday when we were stuck at Holborn waiting for the train to move on as there had been a problem with the train in front. Normally, I wouldn't have given it a second thought, apart from being a bit riled that I'd be late - but on that day I did begin to think "What if?". A woman next to me was shaking her leg irritatingly but apart from that everyone else looked non-plussed. After five minutes we trundled off and it was forgotten.

However, I can imagine that people who witnessed the bombings or people leaving the sites would be traumatised and totally sympathise with all those people.

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

Leading on from that Metro have also published a story on 34 year old Dominic Nelder, "Dressed in comedy pinstripe suit, bowler hat and Dr Marten boots", will travel throughout the London Underground from 7am - 8pm "in a bid to ease the tensions that last month's attacks have brought to the Tube".



"He asks that as part of the Say Hello, Wave Goodbye campaign that commuters help Transport for London make travel friendlier by simply returning his greetings. the history teacher, who has had 4,000 goodwill responses so far, said he took inspiration from a woman who wept on her first Tube journey after July 7, only to be comforted by a fellow survivor.

'It's to break the anonymity that helps terrorists and to make people feel less awkward' " the history teacher from North London said. Check out his local paper The Enfield Independent for more on this.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Monday, August 08, 2005 Permalink

Tabloid "Tribute" to Robin Cook

EastEnders overshadows Robin Cook's death

Travelling on the Jubilee Line yesterday I sat opposite a guy reading The News of the Screws (sorry, The News of the World) and was saddened to see how much front page space went to Steve McFadden, star of EastEnders, and his latest sex scandal, in comparison to the recent death of former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.



Robin Cook will always be known as the principled politician who sacrificed his political career by resigning over Britain's invasion of Iraq. Steve McFadden will always be known as the porky pain who sacrificed his soap star career by leaving EastEnders in order to find fame and fortune by screwing around and appearing in pantomimes.

Interestingly, the online version of the tabloid rectifies the emphasis and McFadden doesn't even get a mention.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Monday, August 08, 2005 Permalink

Tube Challenge Podcast

Tube Challenge gathers momentum

Sorry, completely forgot to blog co-blogger Geoff's interview on Pocket Planet Radio waxing lyrical about the charity tube challenge which will be taking place later this month. Have a listen it will give you a good idea about what's going on and why they're all doing it.

I think it's still not too late to join in the charity tube challenge or if you can't take part why not sponsor Neil n Geoff?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Monday, August 08, 2005 Permalink

What's in your wallet?

Oystercard / Travelcard wallet contents exposed

I only wish that this was my idea, but the wonderful Anne Marie Maningas from version-3-point-1 decided to expose her Oystercard wallet on her blog and list the huge amount of contents that were in it. When you see the thickness of it compared to an A-Z you'll know there's a lot in it.





What a brilliant idea, I wonder what's in mine? I thought. Well, the outside is pretty well worn:



The inside is below, some things I've not photographed as they are personal business cards - six business cards to be precise, including one of my own from a very old job.



The worrying thing is how fixated with the latter part of 2004 I seemed to be:

2 British Rail credit card receipts dated Nov and Dec 2004
1 Return ticket to Guildford - dated Dec 2004
1 single London Underground ticket to Tooting Broadway - dated August 2004 - complete with doodles TOOTING BDY looked like TOOTING BOY to me, so I wrote TOOTING GIRL underneath (how sad's that?)
1 Gatwick Express ticket - dated Nov 2004 (when I came back from Goa)
My annual Student Travelcard (How did you get one of those? you ask. Well I was a student for some part of the academic year)
My Student photocard
An Underground map for Zone 1
A business card from someone who works for London Underground with a handy Tube map on the back

You'll be pleased to know I've now thrown all the 2004 tickets away. Any further analysis is welcomed.

Try the exercise yourself, again you'll find it's therapeutic or maddening - if you want to blog the results or photograph & flickr them or simply list them, put them in the comments below and then we can all analyse each other.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Friday, August 05, 2005 Permalink

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

And I have no privacy.....w'oh, oh, oh

With apologies to Rockwell, but that song seems to be our theme tune at the moment on the tube.

I suppose I'm always aware of people watching me on the London Underground itself, as for years I've been looking suspicious trying to take pictures of commuters for the blog without them noticing. Usually the person I'm photographing doesn't notice, but the people sitting next to me often do, and probably think I'm a psycho. But hey it's the Tube, no one says anything (perhaps that will change now).

However, with all the police around at the moment and lots of people checking out the rucksacks of everyone else, now many more of us get that feeling of being watched.

What I have become more aware of is CCTV on the tube, specially as Metro helpfully published an article telling us just how many CCTV cameras there are on the tube. Again, to quote Rockwell "Do the people on TV see me or am I just paranoid?" - certainly people in the control rooms where CCTV is operating see you. There are 6,000 cameras in place on London Underground. "As part of the Public Private Partnerships with Metronet and Tube Lines, this is set to rise to at least 12,000 by 2010. The plans are welcomed by the BTP (British Transport Police), which has 681 officers dedicated to the Tube and around 600 officers patrolling the mainline stations in London.".....

"Acknowledgement of CCTV's importance has come from the top. Andy Trotter, BTP Deputy Chief Constable told last week's meeting of the London Transport Users Committee (LTUC): 'CCTV is essential to our work - we would not have got to where we are today without it.'

Sing a-long now!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Friday, August 05, 2005 Permalink

Circle Line Charity Walk

Overground, Overnight, Overcome Cancer

Thanks to Londonist I discovered that on the 16th September as part of the brill Open House London series, there will be a night-time walk of the Circle Line to raise money for Maggie's Cancer Centre.

The charity is "calling Londoners to team-up with friends, colleagues and family to take a sponsored hike over ground, over night to help others over come cancer. To celebrate the remarkable difference that thoughtful building design makes to the lives of people across London, Open House will offer hikers and other supporters an opportunity to see some of London's incredible architecture by night as part of this hike. The Metro Life Hike is sponsored by Metro Shopping Centres and Evening Standard's Metro Life Magazine and supported by London Underground. This means that all the funds raised will go towards Maggie's new London Cancer Caring Centre."

Channel 4's newsreader and all round good egg - Jon Snow is also taking part. Sounds like a great idea and a great cause and I'll probably be taking part (co-blogger Neil's expressed interest), as even I could walk 17 miles without the need to do any training. It will be a great opportunity to take pictures too and when you see the pictures that Rob Gardiner has been taking for his walk the Circle Line photography project, there's some cracking sights to see.

"If you would like to join the sponsored hike on Friday 16 September and/or preview some of London's hidden building treasures by night to raise the money to build a Maggie's cancer Caring Centre please email admin@londonopenhouse.org requesting:

Metro Life Hike 16 September Registration Pack,
and/or
Metro Life Hike 16 September Supporters Buildings Preview tickets"

It's fifty quid to register a team (25 quid for individual entry) and each person has to raise at least 250 pounds. Usual fundraising goodies for taking part, including a free Metro Hike T-shirt. There's also a free pasta party at the start from 8pm and a free Big Breakfast and massage at the finish from dawn! I'm going to try to group a team together, so if you are interested in taking part leave a message in the comments below or email me.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Friday, August 05, 2005 Permalink

Welcome from The Evening Standard

London bloggers in The Standard

Welcome if you've somehow managed to find this blog from the feature in The Evening Standard. Little did I know that when I blogged about a small feature in the Metro (The Standard's morning freebie) about the popularity of blogging, that my blog and two of my favourite London blogs - The Londonist and Greenfairy.com would be featured in The Standard Lite and The Standard heavy. Confusingly, they actually referred to my main site - www.goingunderground.net though and called it my blog, so if you've got here, the actual blog, well done and read on......

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Thursday, August 04, 2005 Permalink

Police stop and search tube poster

Seen at Waterloo station

Doubtless most people have heard about the stop and search policy on the London Underground and the discussions saying that it's unlikely that "white old ladies" would be stopped and that Asian men were more likely targets.

Yesterday morning I actually saw a poster saying that people might be stopped and searched. I was in a rush, so the picture's a bit blurry (also, not helped by the fact that you can't use flash on the Tube)



It said: "To help keep the Tube safe you may be approached by British Transport Police officers carrying out searches. Your cooperation in this exercise is valued. More information will be supplied by the police at the time of the search".

As yet, I've not seen anyone actually being searched though (I don't count my recent encounter with the police), although there were a number of pictures in Metro a couple of days ago with Asian blokes being searched.

Announcements at Holborn

Also yesterday on my way to a quiz night (we performed dismally, I'm ashamed to say) I got out at Holborn and there were some booming annnouncements, as I was travelling up the escalator, in loads of different languages. Most of the languages I couldn't even identify, let alone translate.

I've rattled on and moaned about the Tube not making announcements in anything other than English in the past, but paradoxically I found this really freaky, mainly because they were sooo loud. Initially, I thought the system had been hijacked by someone. I also wondered if I was supposed to be taking any notice of the announcements. Christ knows if they were saying anything important. Has anyone else come across public announcements on the tube in a language other than English, or is this just a test at Holborn?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Thursday, August 04, 2005 Permalink

Tube Passenger numbers dropped - and Travel Update

Figures on numbers of tube passengers since the London Attacks

A couple of days ago I blogged about the drop in passenger numbers on the tube. At the time it seemed hard to see by what percentage. But the BBC report have just spoken to a senior manager at the tube and say:

"Tube passenger numbers have dropped by 30% at weekends and between 5% and 15% on weekdays, since the 7 July bombings".

And this seems to clarify my earlier thoughts that commuter levels are about the same but tourists and non regular travellers are travelling on the tube less.

Circle Line - Partial Service

Also according to the BBC article, the Circle Line is partially up and running in the rush hour period, with a shuttle service every 20 minutes between 7am and 9am and between 4pm and 6.15pm from today, with the service expected to improve over the next few days. Nothing on the Tube's website as yet to confirm that though.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Thursday, August 04, 2005 Permalink

Travel Update - Full Piccadilly Line in operation from 4th August

Piccadilly Line up and running from tomorrow

Well, it's amazingly quick, and I was very sceptical when I heard about this yesterday. I think most people expected that particular line to be out for months considering the amount of damage that was done, but full credit to Transport for London for getting the Piccadilly Line back up and running from the 4th August - just four weeks after the attacks.

Since 7 July, the Piccadilly line has been suspended from Hyde Park Corner to Arnos Grove, (right through the middle of central London) and between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge (in the north west of London).

As Tim O'Toole, Managing Director of the London Underground, said: "We are now serving all stations and are determined to get on with the job of transforming the Tube.

"I would like to pay tribute to the work of the staff from London Underground, Metronet and Tube Lines who have done an incredible job in the past few weeks."

Click here to read the full release from Transport for London.

I suppose it shows how quickly work can be done when a very public, central and much used part of the network is out of action. It's also a major message to terrorists that we're all determined to get back to normal.

Right you charity tube challengers - even more stations to cover now!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 03, 2005 Permalink

Animated Tube map

Therapeutic or maddening?

Thanks to Jon Allen for reminding me that the brill Diamond Geezer was raving about the joys of Quickmap when trying to find your way around central London.

One of DG's favourite parts was an animated tube map for zone one which he said was "so therapeutic".



I can sort of see what he means, but after a few minutes all of the trains zooming round on the lines dodging each other, it was beginning to do my head in. However, I'm loving that they call it "Tubez and Trainz".

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 03, 2005 Permalink

There's one born every second

Today's Metro Momento

Reading this morning's Metro on the train, I've learnt that by the time it's taken you to read the above post (say a minute) 60 new blogs were created. That's 3,600 new ones in a lunch hour. Blimey! Check out Technorati from where the research comes from. Although, I was having dinner with a friend last night who had never heard of a blog, so perhaps today she'll be able to wax lyrical about the Metro feature.

I love the "scary" end of Metro's article which talks about bloggers getting fired for blogging (bearing in mind I think there's only been one person fired for this in the UK) and it says "Despite the dangers, Technorati's Dave Sifry believes the phenomenon will continue to grow."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Wednesday, August 03, 2005 Permalink

Tube Passenger numbers have fallen since July 7th

Transport for London say London Underground passengers have dropped

So it wasn't just me noticing that it was a lot quieter in the West End last night. I spose because I travel in the morning just outside the rush hour, I've not really noticed fewer people on the tube - well apart from the days immediately after July 7th. Going home at around 6.30 at night the tube to me seemed as crowded as normal. Perhaps it's not really that commuter numbers have dropped, but more of the effect on tourists.

In an article in Media Week - Chris Townsend, Group Marketing Director at Transport for London, says the fall in numbers is also due to "the summer holidays and the fact that the network is not running at full capacity".

Metro also echoed this view today reporting that officials said the drop in passengers is related to fewer trains running.

However, The Economist quite rightly report that we will all learn to live with it and expect passenger levels to increase again. "Andrew Evans, of the transport research unit at Imperial College, says people often declare they will never return to a network that has suffered a calamity. But most soon do so." Apparently, the exception was the King's Cross fire in 1987 but "Even then, passenger numbers fell below expectations by just 6% in the first year and returned to normal within three years."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Tuesday, August 02, 2005 Permalink

Travel Update - Hammersmith & City Line up and running

More lines in full service

From today the Hammersmith and City line will be operating a full service. Also a full service will also operate on the District line between Wimbledon and Edgware Road.

Later this week we'll hear when full services will begin again on the Circle and Piccadilly lines.

See Transport for London's press release for further details.

Good news for commuters and more challenges/stations for the charity Tube Challengers!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Tuesday, August 02, 2005 Permalink

London United/Divided/Deserted?

On the way to dim sum

Went out this evening to have some dimsum with my old friends from my last job and one of the few times I've been out the West End in the evening since the attacks.

On the DLR, I noticed an Asian guy with a rucksack on the seat next to him strangely tagged "Security Checked". It didn't look quite like an official airport security tag, but something much cruder - perhaps from an office. Maybe it was an airport tag. Who knows?



Then changing at Oxford Circus, a tube pulled in, right in front of a cross platform Evening Standard poster......



For the London Bombings Relief Fund, declaring that "London Stands United"



Getting off at Piccadilly Circus, London seemed strangely deserted to me. Admittedly it was a Monday night, but at least it meant we could have our pick of seats at Ping pong dim sum (Give it a try - it's a poor man's/cheaper version of the truly wonderful Yauatcha - Ping pong does huge delicious cocktails for a fiver, food not quite as amazing as Yauatcha's for the price, but certainly pretty good - read more about the restaurant on my new personal blog).

London Underground; Tube Posted by Annie Mole Monday, August 01, 2005 Permalink