Winners of Nom Nom Nom announced

Wow, at last, the moment of reckoning arrived yesterday we announced the winners of the Food 2.0 Nom Nom Nom event. First of all it was a really great project to work with Mecca & Walid on. I simply couldn't believe how dedicated everyone involved was.



The judges rocked by giving us their time, expertise, and good humor. We couldn't have wished for better participants, who were so great from start to finish.

We had a really challenging time determining who had won, as the event covered three areas. So we looked at the points the judges attributed to the taste of the food, the votes for the best photography and video, and most importantly with the lion's share of the votes, those made by you - so thanks if you voted online.

So without further ado... the winners are....

* In First Place: Team 7 - Cream Team by Jonathan Waddingham and Kai Chan Vong

* In Second Place: Team 3 - England Meets Italy... Nom Nom Nom! by Julia Parsons and Sara Maternini

* In Third Place (best photography / video): Team 6 - Go Team Six by James Whatley and Antony Ribot

Their prizes are:

- 1st Prize (for the pair): 1 Magimix mixer, 1 Kitchen Aid mixer, 2 Courvoisier premium bottles, £100 to give to the charity of your choice via JustGiving, and 2 Packs of MOO Postcards - so you can turn your favourite recipe into recipe cards

- 2nd Prize (for the pair): 2 £150 travel vouchers, 2 Courvoisier premium bottles, and 2 Packs of MOO Postcards

- 3rd Prize Best Photography / Video Prize (for the pair): 2 Packs of MOO Postcards plus 2 Flickr Pro Accounts OR 2 TrustedPlaces Cards

Thanks to SpinVox for sponsoring the event, but extra special super duper thanks to Ros and all the staff at the amazing Cookery School (we could not have done this without you). Thanks to all the other sponsors for their support, and once again thanks to everyone who took event.

Re one of the pictures above I ran a little competition on Nom Nom Nom to see if people could guess which of three pictures had had the most views - you're welcome to try it out. You can leave answers in the comments on here if you like.

Finally, the charity prize draw is open until the 16th June and there are still some prizes with no bids on them - so get over and see what you could win & help Action Against Hunger at the same time.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, June 11, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Wizard of Oz on the Tube

Dorothy is All Grown Up Now

Dorothy is All Grown Up Now, originally uploaded by Ms. Jen.

I love this picture that Ms Jen took at Old Street London Underground station, when she was over from the US as one of the expert judges to help judge the blogger's version of MasterChef Nom Nom Nom

You may have seen the posters for The Wizard of Oz which opens next month at the Southbank Centre. Jen's picture would make a great urban London alternative.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Interesting Tube Roundel spot

Many thanks to Mark Baldwin who spotted a nod to the London Underground roundel on Marilyn M Lowery's book Mad Pursuit


He said: "It's about London according to the blurb so I think it's supposed to look like a roundel (later edition has changed perhaps the lawyers thought it was too similar).

Patrick Macnee liked it - wondered what happened to him?"

Mark actually went to the trouble to get a better picture, than the one on Marilyn's site, for me when I said I was interested in blogging it, so he popped along to the British Library Barbican Library to get the book. Mark that rocks! (make sure you don't get a fine)

I'm guessing that the cover change is more to do with trying to make the book appeal to a particular target audience rather than worrying about its similarity to the roundel. If TfL's lawyers got their knickers into a twist about this "roundel" infringement, I think they would have way too much time on their hands.

For other spots of the London Underground roundel not in its normal home check out the Flickr set. Thanks if you've sent me something for the set recently, I have a bit of a back log on them and will get round to uploading more soon.

BTW it's worth holding onto first editions or limited edition copies of books. I was at The Antiquarian Book Fair on Saturday and was amazed at how much books by authors, still well and truly alive, were selling for.


Take Neil Gaiman and Ruth Rendell, both are favourite authors of mine and have some written some brill Tube books in Neverwhere and King Solomon's Carpet, respectively. I'm sure I've got a pretty pristine copy of the first UK edition of God of Small Things knocking around which seems to already be worth $275 signed.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, June 09, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Kew Gardens Treetop Walkway, Picnics & Nom Nom Nom

Looks like the weather today is going to be as hot, if not hotter, than yesterday. On Sunday I was once again in Kew Gardens having a picnic, but my Samsung digital camera finally died on me after about three years hard labour (I'm getting a Canon Ixus in the next few days). It was nice to laze around with papers & a couple of mates - but annoying to only have a camera phone. People often ask me if my Tube pictures are taken using a camera phone - they're certainly not. Maybe it's my phone or my photography, but I find the quality of photos from mobile phone cameras to be pretty pants.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was in Kew Gardens with my proper camera did the Kew Gardens Treetop Walkway walk with a group of people including, bloggers Rachel and Francine. The picture below shows how scary and amazing it was:


This picture made it onto Kew Garden's People's Arboretum site which I'm really pleased about. Thanks Kew!

I love Rachel's picture of all the Yummy Mummy buggies parked outside the walkway entrance:


Yesterday's picnic used up even more leftovers from Nom Nom Nom:


Francine had written a funny blog post about Crips and how they would find it hard to get sold in the US:

"the first thing the brand name conjures up in my mind is gang warfare. It's also a derogatory term for disabled people. I did think the baked wheat-potato crisps were a nice, light alternative to potato chips, but I just can't imagine any store in the U.S. carrying these snacks from Derbyshire."

Finally, today is the last day of voting for the participants of Nom Nom Nom - although you still have another week to get entries into the charity prize draw and possibly win lunch in the Tube carriage offices in the sky.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, June 09, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube closures due to WW2 Unexploded Bomb Disposal

The World War Two unexploded bomb was finally made safe on Friday night and BBC London have exclusive video footage of it being detonated. They used an un-manned camera just 10 metres away.

See the video footage here

The work to make the suspected World World Two unexploded bomb safe, over ran for days and caused public transport delays in the Bromley By Bow area.

The Hammersmith & City Line was suspended between Whitechapel & Barking and the District Line between Whitechapel and Plaistow. The bomb was found in a river at Sugar House Lane, near Bromley-by-Bow London Underground station, at about 1151 BST on Monday 2nd June. The immediate area was evacuated following the discovery of the bomb.


A Police spokesperson said initially that cordons would be in place for three days and there are restrictions along the River Lee navigation from Bow Locks to Old Ford Locks.

For more on when the bomb was originally found see Londonist

As they say "All of which prompted us to wonder, out of idle interest, just how many UXBs remain buried in London to this day and stumbled across this list of known locations from 1996 although it should be noted that some of these 'may by now have been dug-up and neutralised'."

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Sunday, June 08, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Signs of Summer on the Tube - Big Brother

Like it or hate it if you're in the UK you are going to hear about Big Brother at some point this summer


I watched the opening episode last night on Channel 4 as it's usually interesting to see who enters the house. I ended up doing a bit of a running commentary to BB9 on twitter as surprised at the reaction to Big Brother on Twitter. Comments welcome.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, June 06, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Boris Johnson defends the Tube Party

In his first Press Conference as Mayor of London Boris Johnson has surprised quite a number of people by defending the last ever Circle Line Party.

He said "It has been anthropologically misunderstood. I think what we had there was a kind of exuberant Celtic style wake." See the second feature in The Daily Telegraph.

Mmm. That's certainly an interesting reaction. So rather than go along with the majority of the media who turned the event into a rampant orgy of destruction, Johnson's view is designed to curry favour with a lot of younger people who were actually at the party and having a great time. He saw that whatever anyone says, there were thousands of people clearly chanting anti Boris songs and doing interesting things with his image.


His PR advisers must have been advising him to do some fast damage limitation here and to do it in his typical style of swallowing a Latin dictionary.

TimeOut magazine was there along with our favourite London Underground photographer Yusef Ozkzil aka Chutney Bannister.

See a selection of Chutney's other Tube Booze photos

"Whatever their motivation for being here, the one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that Boris's ban on tube drinking is little more than a crude attempt set out his stall as a public-school Giuliani. 'In the past, his politics have been libertarian,' accuses Alice. 'To immediately go in with illiberal zero-tolerance policies is quite hypocritical.' "

Peter Watts in TimeOut's new blog rightly says that Annie Mole has much to say on the subject. He concludes:

"Now the dust has settled, I can't really see what all the fuss is about. There's no denying that this is a pointlessly populist gesture from Boris – and given that his campaign was full of such measures, we shouldn't be surprised. As any fule kno, the problem isn't drinking on the tubes, it's drunks, and banning the former will make very little difference to the latter, as it's quite difficult to get pie-eyed during a short hop on the Jubilee.

But, equally, is not being able to drink on your 20-minute Tube journey really such a big deal? If it is, perhaps a Tube ban is the least of your problems."

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, June 06, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Charity Collecting on the Tube

You don't have to travel too far on the London Underground without getting some sort of request to give money to charity.

It might be in the form of fancy dressed or large hatted volunteers at station exits and entrances


Or it might be with a Tube car carriage ad campaign like the award winning one for Prostate Cancer with Bob Monkhouse that is still being discussed now


Humour works well with me not because the causes that they are collecting for are funny but that because they've given me some fun and I'm almost giving money to them entertaining me.

You can probably see where this is going, as I'm about to do my own personal bit of tin rattling now. As many of you know, I was involved with the Food 2.0 Project: Nom Nom Nom a bloggers' version of MasterChef involving 24 bloggers, foodies, reviewers & senior members of UK internet companies. They all had a great time as you can see from the video below:


But you've now got the chance to share in the food goodness and win some great food, drink and travel prizes. All you need to do is make a donation of at least £4 to Action Against Hunger, choose the prize or prizes you'd most like to win and Bob's your uncle (ooops every pun intended in light of Bob Monkhouse).

You can see a full list of prizes on the donation page and here's a little tip to increase your chance of winning something - request something no one else has or few other people have. A time of writing that's quite a few including lots of food books and DVDs and a single trip travel insurance policy anywhere in the world from Essential Travel, a picnic ground sheet and combined cape from Kew Gardens and some Berocca Goodie bags.

Or you're still welcome to take the luck of the draw if you want to win the lunch for two in the Tube Carriage Offices or a hands on workshop at Cookery School itself.

Thanks for donating if you do and good luck in the prize draw.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, June 06, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Transport Museum's Flickr Scavenger Hunt

Few commuters ever get a moment to look around and take in the sights as they rush from A to B each day, but if they did they'd see that London's transport network is home to hundreds of cool and sometimes bizarre architectural features.


As part of the London Festival of Architecture 2008, the London Transport Museum (supported by Qype) is hosting a photographic scavenger hunt to try and capture some of these overlooked design highlights. In a race against time, teams of photographers will have to unlock a series of cryptic clues in order to snap roundels, station murals and much more. Prizes will then go to the first team home on the day (with the most correct answers), and bonus goodies (provided by Qype) will be awarded for the best pictures uploaded to Flickr.


It's all happening on 6th July 2008 in Covent Garden and places are limited, so if you want to take part sign up on the discussion thread for Flickr Scavenger Hunt at www.flickr.com/groups/ltmuseum/.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, June 04, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Rain on the Tube - Blooming June

Yesterday saw almost continuous rain in London and the London Underground when it's raining isn't a very pleasant place.


Once you're inside you're battling with wet umbrellas, wet raincoats, slippery floors and that nasty dank smell of wet clothes in a confined hot space.

At least the woman below had a reasonably summery look with her chirpy Cath Kidston bag and regulation wellingtons.


There were a lot of wellington boots in sight yesterday as though Glastonbury had come early and transferred itself to Hyde Park.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, June 04, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Terminal 5 luggage tag?

Spotted this flight tag on a Piccadilly Line train yesterday, crowded with tired looking travellers from Heathrow airport.


LHR to DOH. DOH to LHR. Homer Simpson would have been proud.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, June 04, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground, Ikea and The Shock Doctrine

When I see people like this on the Tube, I know why I live in London and why people still believe it's one of the coolest cities in the world.


I've been in this position many times on the Tube where I've had my blue Ikea bag of bits and pieces, struggling back from Neasden London Underground Station, in the days when there was only one Ikea in London - not like the many Ikea stores we have now and they even sponsor the Tube map.

I've also carried back ridiculously large potted plants.

But I've certainly never done both of these and read a copy of The Shock Doctrine at the same time. 10 out of 10 for looking chilled and trendy on the Tube. Klein's book is definitely in my amazon basket now, particularly in light of things I've been blogging about more recently.


Seeing her and other Londoners on the Tube reading stuff like the Four Hour Work Week and stuff about Buddhism made me realise I need to catch up on a lot of books. Particularly non fiction.


Regular readers know that I used to belong to a Book Group and that I prefer fiction. I stopped going for a number of reasons but mainly because I had no time to read the books. But perhaps if I read something like The Four Hour Work Week, I'd be able to find more time.

I tend to bluff my way through a lot of non fiction by going to talks by people who've written interesting books. Or I'll read blog posts about their work or even their own blogs. Or talk to people who've done the any of those. I think that's what the above book is about. If anyone knows can they let me know.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, June 03, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Fashionable Bags on the Tube - Designer or Green or both?

Sad news that Yves Saint Laurant died late Sunday. He was a true fashion revolutionary and will missed. As many people know, I regularly comment on "London Underground Fashion Victims" which always got a mixed response - people either love or hate the Tube Fashion Victims (well as far as comments are concerned - they're still my most viewed Flickr set of photos) but I've certainly seen lots of YSL copies and original handbags on the Tube, even if I may not have snapped them.

Last week I saw couple of handbags that were interesting side by side:


There's the "fashion" bag which really smacks as though it's come from a cheap and cheerful market. Then right next to it is the bag made from recycled plastic bottles from Sainsbury's. We discussed green "designer" bags a Tube fashion victim post a couple of months ago.

Wonder which cost more to make and which cost more in the shops?

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, June 02, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Lite promote Tube Circle Line Party

Nice to see the London Lite giving today's Final Circle Line Party so much coverage.


I thought they'd give it a bit of coverage but not really front page news. I looked a little closer and noticed that picture they had used to illustrate the "drinkers" looked a bit familiar.

There was also something familiar about the colouring, but I couldn't immediately put my finger on it.

I turned to page three and carried on reading:


There was an "online flyer" inviting the public to "party on the tube". At this point the colouring and my words hit home. It wasn't an online flyer but my blog post about the Circle Line Party.

The image of the "wine on the line" drinkers was of a YouTube video about the Jubilee Line Dinner Party which happened on November 27th 2006. As you can see from the video it was a very quiet sedate and funny party involving about six people and the commuters felt it was all very funny and joined in.


It's a bit strange that the London Lite chose a very sedate party to illustrate the "huge party in defiance of the Tube booze ban".

Obviously I handed this story to them on a plate, as Associated Newspapers wanted to use the opportunity to show that they had reached out to me for my opinion on their coverage. Note they've decided not to photo shop out my comment that says: "Don't forget to let The Evening Standard know what you think of their coverage of the Tube Booze Ban & Circle Line Parties as their letters guy contacted me for help."

I spose I expected a little more of them in terms of pictures that they could have used to cover this story. But hey ho. I think Bolli sums up my opinion of them way better than I could:


"Will this be mai looz payper 2 morrow?"

Sneak peek of my first and Final Circle Line Party photos here, full blog post on Sunday. Sorry, my broadband with Virgin Media was hardly usable yesterday from about 9am so I couldn't write a post or comment. The pictures are there for you to see and lots of comments have been made below, which is great that such an interesting discussion took place.

Update - 3rd June 2008 - now that I actually have internet back I've been pleasantly surprised by some of the media's reporting of the event even though London Lite continues its "sensational" front page stories as seen above. If you've seen last night's London Lite you will know what I mean.

Both Metro and the londonpaper actually tried to tell the story from the viewpoint of people who were actually at the party and weren't just commenting on what they had seen on TV.

Those of you in the comments below who went to the party as partygoers didn't see the scenes that the TV show, as like myself you probably stayed till about 11ish and then left. Sure I saw people getting arrested. I saw people very, very drunk who had no idea what they were there for which is sad. But to blame this on the main Circle Line party organiser is simply unfair. As Metro said about the British Transport Police "officers refused to blame the organisers for the trouble, instead accusing 'a very small minority' of spoiling the party."


Metro writer James Ellis openly "flouted the ban for an hour yesterday - and was not challenged. A TfL worker saw us at Waterloo but gave a wry grin and moved on".

The londonpaper open their piece on pages 8-9 with a very telling sentence: "The Last Round on the Underground was one of those events that thousands attended, but thousands more will claim they were at".


You can see the full article here but here are a few more quotes: "From the chants of "Hey Boris, leave our booze alone" to the army of Johnson wigs spilling out of the Barbican, the message was clear: London had decided to stick two fingers up to London's new mayor. His "silly new rule" was said to be unenforceable"... "Despite an idiotic few fronting up to police at King's Cross there were few genuine hell-raisers in evidence".... "Non partying commuters looked on in amusement."

And to those of you who say that the organiser was naive in not expecting that trouble would flare up, I would like to wholeheartedly agree with Neil Evans - one of the commenters below who says:

"I'm amazed BTP and TfL didn't see this event becoming what it turned out to be, personally i'd have shut the zone one lines totally for 'engineering'."

UPDATE 4th June - How the US viewed this:

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Saturday, May 31, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Food 2.0 Nom Nom Nom - Win Lunch in Tube Carriage Office

As many of you know I've been working with TrustedPlaces, Cookery School and SpinVox and many other kind supporters on an interactive version of MasterChef or bloggers' cook-off, which took place on Sunday 18th May. You can hear how it all went from the BBC Radio 5 Pods & Blogs podcast.

So it's now over to you - you've got the lion's share of the vote in deciding which participant has given you the best online experience.

Please visit all of the cooks' pages and decide. You could also get a chance of winning lunch at "possibly the coolest office in London".

My friend James Grieve runs Nabokov, an innovative theatre company who have their offices in these old Jubilee Line Carriages - the Tube offices in the sky on Great Eastern Street, London.

A lot of you also wanted me to try to arrange a visit to go up to their offices. Well I had a chat to James and he's very kindly offered to take two of you (and possibly me) to pick up lunch at the brill BLT (Big Loaded & Tasty) sandwich shop & then have the lunch back in his Tube offices.

So please, please, please consider making a donation to Action Against Hunger with just £4, that's the price of two sarnies in most places in the UK, you can not only help the charity, but also get a chance of winning that lunch and visit to the Tube Carriage Offices.

There's also twenty one sets of brill prizes, ranging from a meal for two with booze at Konstam, a hands on workshop at Cookery School, lunch in the Tube Carriage Office in the sky and a single trip travel insurance policy anywhere in the world to DVD's like Nacho Libre and Sideways, books - Cooking with Booze & Gillian McKeith's Shopping Guide, subscriptions to Delicious and Food & Travel magazine, handmade chocolate brownies, food fridge magnets and more. Bobby Bargain!

Please note the prize draw is only open to UK residents - but anyone can vote.

What are you still reading this for get voting & donating now! Many Thanks

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, May 30, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Massive Meltdown on the Tube - Massive Attack that is

If you've been using the London Underground in the last month you may have seen these ads for the Massive Attack Meltdown which is taking place next month:


I love Massive Attack - their dark dismal Bristollian songs really fit my mood a lot of the time on the Tube. Trouble was by the time I got around to booking a ticket to see them, the ones on the Southbank Centre's site had sold out and you can currently only get them online at about £98 a ticket. I like them, but don't like them THAT much!

However lots of people they have written songs with or have performed with, will also be at Meltdown and I managed to snag some reasonably priced tickets to see Terry Callier. He's a real soul legend and was mates with Curtis Mayfield. He's collaborated with Massive Attack and Beth Orton (who also sings fairly miserable Tube sound tracks & collaborates with the Chemical Brothers & William Orbit) and his voice makes me feel like crying (in a really good way).



So me and two girly mates - Brian Pigeon's PR agent, Lisa and Lyz from Life with an Accent are going to see him on the 20th June. We have one spare ticket, so if you want to sit next to three geeky bloggy chicks you're welcome to get in touch with us. We're looking for around £22 for the ticket.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, May 29, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Knife Arch Scanner spotted on the Tube

What looks like an anti crime knife arch was spotted being installed at Turnham Green Tube by the eagle eyed Michael. Operation Blunt 2 has come into much wider force in an aim to curb knife attacks. The police operation uses knife arches, which scan for concealed weapons and we ought to get used to seeing these more frequently at London underground stations and another public transport centres - eg bus stations.


It's weird and surprising when you first see these as Michael's email to me shows while sending the photo to me from his iPhone:

"Looks like some sort of portable scanner, complete with 3 policemen and a setter-upper man, just in time for Friday rush hour!

Don't know if this is common at other stations or something to do with Boris, but thought you may be interested.

Personally, I think there may be more dangerous places to target than leafy Chiswick!"

There is growing public anxiety about fatal stabbings, shootings and teenage gangs, particularly in large cities like London and the scanners seem to be working.

My response was initially that I thought the police needed "quiet" areas to test this first. But I'm not so sure now. Violence can happen anywhere, even in suburban leafy Chiswick. I've not been through Turnham Green since this has been installed and I wonder how many people actually notice it. But again isn't that the whole point of them?

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, May 28, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Narnia on the Tube - revisited

Calling all film buffs and London Underground Station architecture experts. Can you help John Keith with the following:

"I found your blog and was hoping you would have some information that might be interesting to me and your other readers.


As you know, from your previous post, the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, Prince Caspian, has a wonderful scene where the children enter into the Strand tube station, go underground, and are then whisked away to Narnia. At the end, of course, they are deposited back at the station.


I have never been into the Strand station. I am from the United States. I happen to be here this week, and now I'm obsessed with trying to figure out which station the filmmakers were trying to imitate.

You can watch the "teaser trailer" here in the "videos" section from the menu

Your blog fills in the blanks, but I'm still confused.

The Strand in the movie must be the Charing Cross Strand, if they are being historically accurate, since the Aldwych station had been closed between 1940-1946 for use as a air raid shelter on one platform and as storage on the other.

The exterior shots were filmed outside of England, though, so was the street design accurate, at all? Your blog says the "exterior shots appear to be recreating the Strand at Charing Cross". I am confused as to where this is, at the current Charing Cross station - that station is a big huge six-story building and doesn't seem to look anything like the exterior shot in the film.

Have you thought to write a new entry on your (excellent) blog with more information? I would love to know exact details of what is accurate and totally made up - one commenter, for example, says the real station did not have tiles on both sides.

Thanks for any help you may provide!".

Well I hope that someone else can help John as I've sort of exhausted all knowledge I have on the subject.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, May 28, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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GeeKyoto 2008 - Can travelling by Tube save the world?

On the 17th May 2008 I went a brill event about discussing the future. GeeKyoto 2008 was based on the premise that world is fooked (sorry) broken and we have two choices, we either say "There's absolutely nothing I can do about it, and I'll be dead before it's really broken" or "I can't really do a lot but even little things I can do might make a difference to the future".


Even though I'm not a card carrrying eco warrior I'm definitely of the latter opinion and the event brought together some very interesting "geeks" who were trying to show how technology could be used to help fix what's broken.

At the event we were all given little "story cubes" see mine above to jot down ideas and stuff. The thing that really struck me throughout a lot of the presentations was there was a rash of companies being set up to measure your carbon footprint - but without actually doing much beyond that.

So you could tell how big your carbon footprint was and how it grew if you flew somewhere, got a bigger car, used more electricity, used more gas, etc etc. You could even see how large your friends and neighbours carbon footprint was. So far, so worthy. But what does that actually mean to the average person in the street?

I have a very small car. I only drive it at weekends. That's not because I want to be green (if I wanted to be really green I'd just dump it), it's because I don't like driving and it would cost me a fortune to drive to work.

But is my London Underground travel helping to save the planet then? Yeah I suppose it is. It's one less car on the road. Although perhaps it would be better if I cycled. It's a long way from Kew to the City and I'd be really sweaty by the time I arrived, so I'd have to have another shower. Which means more energy and water used there.


Unless I used the little egg-timer from the "Planet Repair" pack that Ken Livingstone put out while he was still Mayor. Apparently if I cut down my normal shower down to 4 minutes I'll be saving the planet. A four minute shower for me is more or less like just stepping in and out and simply isn't going to happen.

To me, the thing is that we're not going to really change our daily habits unless we can see some real tangible benefit or reward or have fun doing it. Perhaps we'd be more tempted to use the bus if we could have a swing while we were waiting there:


Brill presentation on playfulness by some students at Central Saint Martin's College. James Smith from dothegreenthing also had some sound ideas about trying not to follow the "worthy", "preachy", negative images slightly evidenced by the stickers in the Planet Repair pack "Turn off this", "Switch off that", "Unplug that".


If being green is rewarded with playfulness, fun, empowerment and some kind of status for doing it and if we see simple little things that we can all do, I think green initiatives will have a much greater chance of success.

You'll see from my cube that I wondered if anyone was talking to the rail companies and TfL about all this. How could people who didn't use the Tube be encouraged to use it when we all know what a hot smelly rubbish and overcrowded form of transport it is? Could my Oystercard usage give me discounts off my residents permit parking or car tax / MOT?

I'm typing this as the rain is coming down with a vengeance outside which makes the idea of a Sunshine Garden and gardening for drought seem somewhat farcial right now.


But maybe this is all part of the bigger problem. We had thick snow in mid April, interspersed with boiling hot days. We've had tons of rain this year and now even though it's virtually the end of May, it's really cold. The climate is certainly screwed and unless we start doing something, perhaps we might see a "broken world" in our own lifetimes or much sooner than expected.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, May 26, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Mobile Coverage quietly "shelved"?

Not heard about this officially yet but the Inquirer report that "The plan to enable mobile phones to work on London's underground railway network (aka The Tube) has been quietly shelved according to Martin Cassidy, president of Innovawireless."


Around two years ago TfL said "It is our intention to commence a trial at a small number of Tube stations in late 2007 with the aim of introducing mobile phone and new technology provision at stations from summer 2008." This never happened.

Then in March 2007 we heard that the technology was trickier to install and it was delayed even further "The earliest the trial will begin is in April next year and if it is successful, will be extended across the Tube network. LU said the earliest date mobile phone coverage could be extended across the Tube network is mid-2009."

The Inquirer continue "Cassidy pitched his previous company's - Zinwave's - wares to Transport for London but found that the body expected suppliers to bear the brunt of financing the project.

As Cassidy's colleague, Daniel Lewing, pointed out, it is extremely difficult to work on the underground network. He reckons that you've only got two hours max overnight to get things done."

The piece concludes to say that Cassidy is now working for a new company with "hubs that utilise just one sort of antenna to pump a variety of mobile signals around a building. The list includes everything from Wi-fi (802.11 a/b/g) to cellular (GSM, CDMA, TDMA) and 3G (W-CDMA).

Now that London's got a new mayor, in Boris Bimbo Johnson, maybe the project will be revived. Sadly, the INQ never read his manifesto to know his views on mobile phones."

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, May 23, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Sir Ian McKellen Gandalf on the Tube

No this isn't more London Underground Celebrity spotting although what a spot that would be. It's about how I saw Gandalf on the Tube just by slowing down a little.


With helping to organise Food 2.0 : Nom, Nom, Nom and having a particularly busy time in my day job as well, plus all the Boris & Mayor bollocks, I've been working stupidly long hours, not getting enough sleep and basically heading for mind & body meltdown.

Last night I was supposed to have been out yet again, but due to some more rubbish timing on my part, I missed the people I was supposed to meet and headed home earlier than I was expecting. So rather than catch up with even more web stuff, I decided to watch TV, something which I actually haven't done for weeks.

I've been listening to HeartFM a lot at night and one of the soundtracks to my life this month has been "Falling Out Of Reach" by the Guillemots. I really love this record but had never seen the video for it and didn't even know what the Guillemots looked like.

So I put on the "Music on Demand" channel on my TV and found the video. It was an amazing video about an old man being really run down and almost being on a treadmill in his office. He suddenly leaves the office, but still stuck to his office chair he moves around London with the rest of the world rushing past him.

Lots of music videos about London feature the Tube as a "locator" to say "this is London" and so it wasn't surprising to see the old man stuck in his chair meet the chaos of the London Underground.

It took me about two views to think, "Hold on, isn't that old guy Ian McKellen or Gandalf".


I took the photos above and obviously needed the internet to confirm my suspicions.

Wikipedia haven't even got an entry for Falling Out of Reach yet and had no idea. But Sky News were on the ball and reported Ian McKellen making the recording for the band in March.

It turns out that Sir Ian's nephew is a fan of the band and took him to a concert. He later heard that they were making a video for Falling Out Of Reach which was released in May.

Sir Ian said: "I'm not up with all the latest music and I don't have an iPod and I don't know how they work. But I do like the people who make music and particularly kids who are just coming up and utterly devoted to it and are real musicians and it's a privilege to be with them really."

The Guillemots lead singer Fyfe Dangerfield is amazed that Gandalf was on the set and said "It's one of the country's greatest actors appearing in our video. It's mental".



Mental it is. Rock it does. You can see Falling Out Of Reach on YouTube. Enjoy.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, May 22, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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