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Last week, I offered my seat to a woman who was clearly pregnant. As well as saying thank you, she also loudly said "Isn't it funny how it's always women who offer up their seats". I imagine it was to shame the many other seated men who hadn't offered their seats & I muttered a rather embarrassed "Spose so".
A few stops further down the line the seat behind me became free. I was about to move myself into it, when a man, who seemed to fall into the "drunks less able to stand" category, plopped himself into the seat.
In London Underground seat chasing selfishness, this took the biscuit. Both me & pregnant lady gave him hard Paddington stares. His seated mate (who had ignored the pregnant woman earlier), said "Oi give that seat up, there's ladies standing". Thinking I was about to get a seat back, another woman behind me leapt at the opportunity & grabbed the seat when he got up.
Leaning against the pole in the middle of the carriage, I then had drunk man, closely behind me, reading The Standard, over my shoulder. I was in the middle of a crossword puzzle and have never been more tempted to write the words "IDIOT", "BUFFOON" and much ruder words on my paper for him to see.
I really felt like I'd been the victim of bad Tube Seat Etiquette. Ignoring the fact that I'd given up my seat in the first place - isn't there an unspoken rule that people who're on the train before you get first dibs at empty seats? Should the woman behind me, have said "No you first"? Shouldn't drunken seated mate have also got up and offered us both seats - rather than chastising his mate for sitting? Am I being super sensitive over this?
"Travelling underground, or spending any length of time there, is not a natural human inclination. Martin wanted to find out to what extent people travelling on the Tube use self imposed psychological tricks on themselves as a distraction from the reality of being under the ground. It seems that one thing people do is to mentally transport themselves elsewhere, into the realms of fantasy." said Art on the Underground.
Freud would probably have a field day with what goes on in people's minds when underground, so it's fitting that Martin has taken objects from his desk - whilst visiting the Freud museum - and combined them with the day dream responses to make posters. These will be on display across the Tube network from mid-August onwards.
"Daria Martin's daydream survey is an attempt to present these fleeting images 'en masse' as a way of revealing surprising, or critical, aspects of the way we live our city based lives and how we deal with everyday situations."
Some of the daydreams reported by travellers on the Jubilee line are represented here. You're invited to add yours to the collection or just see what's behind those "blank looks" on the Tube.
"It's the Grand Central complex in Stockport, Greater Manchester. It's a grotty, whiffy sort of low-intensity leisure & business area, and is supposed to be due for demolition so they can replace it with something even worse, but we love the roundel. The top semicircle has a representation of the railway viaduct over the River Mersey, and underneath is a bowling ball and wavy lines for the bowling alley and HIDEOUS swimming pool."
Then on their travels further afield:
Richard writes "This one's in Mallorca, about one-third of the way between Palma and Soller, on the railway. I haven't a clue what goes on in there, our train didn't stop there, but it was great to be surprised by a roundel while abroad!"
One much closer to home from Mark: "This one must have been around for a while 'cos I passed it yesterday but being without camera found it on Google StreetView. It says 'Finchley & Totteridge'."
Moving further afield Anno Superstar spotted the roundel in a record shop in Stockholm
Finally, thanks to Rebecca Caroe for spotting this in Dunedin New Zealand
Many thanks to all for being so observant and if you have any pictures of roundels seen in odd places outside of the London Underground, please send them my way and I'll blog the best. Until next time the full collection of Tube roundels outside their home is here.
Little piece of advice too - check your spelling before putting up messages about being wise. Otherwise nice thoughts and I'm sure it will keep those of us with grey hair happy.
"There's a Big Issue seller who has a pitch in the afternoons outside Angel Tube station.
A while ago, he found a stray cat with a badly bust up leg, so being a kindly soul, he took the cat along to an animal shelter to get it sorted out. He wasn't expecting them to tell him when the cat was healed, he was to take the cat back with him - but that's what they said and that's what happened.
The cat became incredibly attatched to its rescuer and would try to follow the man whenever he went out. Realising that cats do what they want, the man gave up trying to get the cat to stay home and allowed it to come with him and these days the cat will be sat outside the station as the man sells copies of the magazine, calmly guarding the takings and posing for photos.
I don't think you could meet a more calm tempered cat if you tried."
He or she is certainly the closest I've seen to a contender for Japan's station master cat, who's also happy to pose for photos & brings in huge revenue for the station.
Great spot by Stuff n Nonsense and thanks to him for finding out & sharing the backstory.
Update - The cat's called Bob and Alexey Kovalev interviewed his owner outside Angel Tube in the video below, where you can see Bob posing happily for pictures and learn what happens when he wants a loo break!
It might look like FanMan is about elbow the woman in the face, but apparently he has cooling equipment in his sleeves.
Apparently the Emmi FanMan, is a six-foot fan-wielding super-hero, using "state of the art technology to blast those around him with a refreshing jet of cool air" . Look out for him on the Tube in the next few days.
Emmi FanMan said "I’m just someone who wanted to make a difference. In a world where heat exhaustion, dehydration and profuse sweating are rife I knew I couldn’t just stand by and watch any longer. Commuting is an exhausting business but coupled with the crippling heat of a packed tube carriage it becomes unbearable. I’m there for people in their time of need."
FanMan’s helpers will also be handing out cold Emmi Caffe Latte at several Tube station entrances.
Let's hope they focus on the Piccadilly, Northern, Central, Bakerloo and Waterloo and City lines, as these lines are marked as high risk on a LU "Passenger heat strain" map. They're the lines that are the highest risk to people should they become stuck on a stalled train.
They said: "Speculation that The Daily Mail's success was down to a top secret formula started in the late eighties, but it was dismissed as Fleet Street legend along with the real parentage of the Hitchens brothers and that thing Una Stubbs is into. Though such explicit mapping of the newspaper’s friends and enemies have set tongues wagging, the main surprise seems to have been the bizarre use of the underground system. Reports that The Daily Star’s secret formula is based on the number 10 bus route remain unconfirmed."
Hat tip to the ever wonderful b3ta for finding this.
The film is part of the Radio 4 London season and featured in The London Nobody Knows programme. It's going to fuel the interest of anyone fascinated by abandoned Tube stations. This is a hot topic at the moment as Ajit Chambers continues in his quest or re-opening disused Tube stations.
Like them, I was amazed at how many people got out their camera phones and actually paid attention to this.
They said "One thing we learned is that almost every human will immediately take out their camera when they see Darth Vader. We've done lots of crazy missions on the subway over the years, but I have never seen so many people taking photographs of our performance. How can you not take a photo of Darth Vader? It's impossible to resist!"
Hat tip to @manima for spotting this. Will someone in London put ImprovEverywhere's thesis to the test? Can we rely on Tube commuters to studiously ignore Darth & Co?
It was a stunt by Friends of the Earth volunteers to highlight the hidden chain linking meat and dairy to wildlife and rainforest destruction in South America. More information can be found at their site. A full set of pictures including the cows with copies of Moo'tro are on Flickr.
Wonder how many people took them up on their offer?
Thanks to Wanyee who apologises for the blurriness of the shot taken on his camera phone. It would have been just as blurry if I'd taken it, as I think I'd have been doing a double take & giggling from having seen it in the first place.
London Reconnections kindly let me use the picture above and said:
"It would be easy to think that West Ashfield station was simply a visual gimic - something to enliven training sessions - but this is not the case. West Ashfield isn't just a decorated corridor, its a micro-station environment with a very clear purpose. It may contain a number of rooms and facilities that your average station doesn't (more on those later), but it also places trainees, when appropriate, in an atmosphere that is as similar as possible to that in which they may find themselves working."
Ianvisits told how they were "let loose on the system and told to basically run the the network, getting trains into platforms, slidings etc without causing traffic jams and the like.
The true purpose of the model train set though is to train staff on dealing with problems, and a simple flick of a switch can simulate any sort of network failure you care to imagine. It was here that we leant why it can sometimes take ages to get trains out of tunnels when things go wrong."
Thanks to both for providing fascinating posts & photos!
Michelle said "The girl on the left seemingly noted how hot it's going to get today. Where's the guy on the right been?!".
Have you noticed any other appropriate or inappropriate hot weather clothing on the London Underground recently? How have you seen people dealing with the heat on the Tube
However, we got on. We stopped looking suspiciously at people with rucksacks, or beards, or men of a particular race. We stopped being anxious every time a train got stuck in a tunnel. We stopped seeing pictures of people in Florida wearing "We're not afraid" T-Shirts. We began to travel on the Tube with the same "freedom" and in the same numbers that we did in the past.
July 7th 2005 changed me in a variety of ways, but fortunately I am still alive to be able to think and talk about those changes. Hopefully, this blog is able to make people think a little more about the Tube journeys they share with 3 million other people every day - the good things & the bad.
Today, many people will remember the 52 people who were killed. The permanent memorial in Hyde Park will probably be the focus. Floral tributes will be placed by relatives and friends of the dead at the five sites of the bombings.
Let's hope that today will mainly be a day without blame, or finger pointing. A day to remember those who lost their lives and also a day to support all those who were seriously injured, both physically & mentally. Ordinary commuters whose everyday Tube or bus journey turned into a nightmare. Please take some time out to think about them and their families.
I would love to hear your memories of Tube travel at the time, or if you have any personal thoughts on July 7th that you'd like to share.
What do people actually call the new East London Line? Officially it's all still London Overground. However, in a very jovial speech last night at City Hall, Boris Johnson addressed community groups in Lambeth, Southwark, Merton and Wandsworth and said that East London Line Phase 2 – will now to be referred to as the ‘New South London line'.
From the mood he was in, it was difficult to tell whether he was just playing to the South London audience or if the new part of the line would be called this.
SE1 recorded his speech and he starts talking about transport & the London Underground about six minutes in.
He acknowledged the lack of Tube services South of the river and said: "We have a vision to remedy the gap in provision on the Underground in South London, so we want to extend the Northern Line to Battersea, in fact, we want two new stations for Battersea". He claims this will be paid for by tax increment financing: "We go to the treasury and you allow us to finance this, against the future increment in the business taxes, in taxes that will come into the government as a result in the boom in the business that will be produced in Battersea."
He also mentioned extending the Bakerloo Line to South East London. He's been promising this for quite some time now and the idea was originally mooted in the 1940s. Many Londoners are sceptical as to whether it will ever happen and in his enthusiasm, Boris made no mention as to how this would be financed.
Tube nerds like me will know the answers to the questions, but it's nice to see some of the more weirder things about the system being promoted.
If you want to know the answers and also see which lines the upholstery came from (I certainly didn't recognise all of the moquettes) visit http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tubeorfalse.
He said "A sign on the top said this is going to be fitted out on the Central Line and then across the entire fleet :("
Seriously?! These would be bad enough on the Central Line alone, but across the whole of the system? I love how each of the lines are distinguished by features like moquette and handrail colours. Is it a cost saving exercise? Wonder if we'll see more design uniformity now that the LU has ownership of all the London Underground Lines?
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