Todays Metro Momentos

Metro is brill today

Love on the Tube

I hardly know where to start with today's Metro. Firstly we have the follow up of their "star crossed lovers" The Tunnel of Love photo story (first seen on the 8th December), about people who see each other each day on the tube, finally plucking up the courage to speak and get together.

The particuarly weird thing about the photos though is that they're supposed to be on the tube on New Year's Eve, strangely the rest of the carriage is empty. No cans of lager, no people holding cans of lager, no people saying "Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh", no people saying "Cheer up luv it's New Year's Eve", no people bellowing "Happy New Year" when you're trying to sleep off an upcoming hangover. Most peculiar.

Five page Transport Special

In a particularly inspired move Metro also have a walking guide for hungover Londoners and how to get to many of London's "beauty spots" by tube. "Every step will ease the effects of that Fifth tequila"

I am loving the urban wilderness section where they look at stops on the end of tube lines.

Mill Hill East - "on arrival you'll think that's a generous allotment" Areas of local interest "The new Waitrose" Think "An urban Gibralter".

Walthamstow - "we were expecting concrete & crime. Instead we found a 17th century village idyll, marshes and the home of Marigold gloves." Areas of local interest "the railway came and they turned their talents to Marigolds and condom-making". Think - "An urban Ibiza. All you hear about is the debauched crime-ridden, ker-a-zey side. But venture out of the centre and you'll find history, beauty and serene wildlife." - Err right.

The urban safari section is also brilliant with places such as Richmond Park, Isleworth Ait and Gunnersbury Triangle all a mere hop, skip and jump from where I live. "Why go to a zoo when you can plunge deep into the bush? And that doesn't mean Shepherd's Bush. The nature reserves of London are ideal for an urban safari".

Forget nature reserves, what about the tube itself - with its commuter pigeons - go to the Hammersmith & City Line side of Hammersmith station and wait about five minutes and you'll see loads of the little bleeders hopping on and off the carriages.



Then there's the tube mice at Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus and Waterloo usually on the Bakerloo line, you'll see them scuttling around the tracks and suicide pits.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, December 31, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Buskers continue into 2004

Official Busking "trial" will carry on

Delighted to hear that the busking santa 1 and 2, top busking chick, Dimitri, the Pop Idol buskers and various other official buskers will be continuing into 2004. Sadly this won't make a jot of difference to unofficial buskers like the Losing My Religion busker who will carry on playing in their "merry" way.

A spokesman for Carling, the drinks company behind making London Underground buskers official in May, said:

"At least one person is in what look to be the final stages of negotiations with a major record label after she was spotted on the Tube, and we're expecting other people to be successful too. " I wonder if it was top busking chick?

Also busking has meant some buskers can actually earn a fair bit of money (unlike Badly Drawn Boy). One busker at Green Park tube station earned 160 quid in four hours.

Update

Geoff Marshall kindly sent me this picture of a cone busker that he saw today at Oxford Circus



Geoff says "He was pissed and playing "We wish you merry christmas" by just blowing farty noises through the traffic cone. And I actually saw people giving him money!

Now don't try telling me that he's sponsored by Carling � :-) "

Cheers Geoff. I'm sure he wasn't!

See the Evening Standard for more on the official buskers.

See my main site for more on the London Underground buskers in general.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, December 31, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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New Year's Eve - Tubes will run throughout the night

No sign of a strike and tubes will run all night

Well I think the New Year's Eve bit of the squash strike is also off as I can't see any mention of it in the news. And "for one night only" the tube will be running all night for New Year "revellers" and transport is free from 11.44pm and 4.30am. So no just missing the last train and no hideously slow night buses - just wish they could do it every weekend.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, December 31, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Signs of the New Year on the London Underground

You know you're approaching New Year on the tube.....

When there's loads of kids on the tube who've not gone back to school yet and tired looking parents

When stations are even more filled with people with oversized rucksacks and luggage on wheels

When there's a eye hurting display of red and blue Nicotinell "giving up smoking product" ads on the escalators

When the exit and entrance to Piccadilly Circus tube station has a little cage around it - to stop people falling down the stairs while "revelling" around Eros

When there's loads of out of towners (not just overseas tourists) standing on the left on escalators - CAN'T YOU READ? There are signs saying stand on the right EVERYWHERE.

Happy New Year's Eve Eve

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, December 30, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Public Private Partnership of the London Underground is.....

PPP - One year on and what do you think?

Obviously a leading question.

"Travellers on the London Underground have endured a dramatic collapse in the network's reliability since its part privatisation a year ago, with private contractors being forced to pay heavy fines (�32.2 million in fact) for failing to deliver on their commitments.

"Internal London Underground documents seen by The Guardian reveal that the government's public private partnership (PPP) has had a disastrous start, with soaring breakdowns, track problems and points failures."

It gets worse:

"According to LU's internal figures, the number of train failures every month has jumped by 23% this year. Track problems have risen by 20% to 76 a month and points failures are up by 38% to 46 incidents a month."

Tube Lines, which runs the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, is the worst . Since the beginning of 2003, it has been fined �16.8m for missing targets. Terry "Tezzer" Morgan, the head honcho of Tube Lines, said: "I have to say we've been challenged by the condition of some of the assets we're working with. Things have historically been done on a 'make do and mend' basis."

And some excellent hefty spinning by John Weight the head of Metronet. He says reliability was within the bounds of what he expected but "probably at the lower end". "As far as we're concerned, it's been a year of good progress. We continue to learn and understand some of the shortcomings of the network."

More on PPP, if you can face it, in Google News.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, December 30, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Shepherd's Bush and Arsenal Boxer Shorts - don't exist

No racy tube boxer shorts, but some very nice T Shirts

So Ian, you bad, bad man - those boxer shorts you told me that the London Transport Museum shop were selling with Shepherd's Bush in the front and Arsenal on the back, don't exist. I knew it was too good to be true. However I discovered some brilliant T Shirts in the shop today which would be more at home in a little concession shop in G-A-Y at The Astoria on Tottenham Court Road than in the transport museum's shop.

Firstly, nestled next to the Angel T shirts were some Cruising ones. Now Cruising I suppose does have something to do with London Transport. I thought of buses cruising. Do buses cruise or do they idle? Possibly. We'll give them that.



However, with the next T shirts along, the links to London Transport were even more tenuous:



Hello Sailor? Ah come on. They are seriously having a laugh here. At a push you could say they were connected with London Transport's river boats, but I really think this is more than a large nod to the gay market.

Good on them, though, they were loads nicer than the self referential dull Trainspotter ones.

Ere luv - I've got some very nice Mind the Gap T shirts round the back if you want them. Mind the Gap, luv, very trendy, loads of people bought them this year. Kate Moss is very partial to them. I can do you a deal for a T shirt and a pair of boxers and a thong - perfick for the New Year.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, December 29, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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It's snowing!

Let it snow, let it rain, let it snow!

After coming to work through a monsoon and then walking through a lake when I got to Piccadilly Circus, now having finished chatting to all in the office about Xmas, it's snowing. But it's that shitty central London snow which is more like rain really, but colder and because it's been so wet isn't going to settle and will turn to horrible dirty brown slush.

Today's Metro Momento

A very thin issue of Metro this morning (obviously advertisers don't think saddos like myself and colleagues at work who are back between Xmas and New Year are worth selling to. They're right, we're all too busy feeling sorry for ourselves and talking about Christmas and deleting 300 odd emails about loans, mortgages and the V word).

But a letter in Metro was worthy of note:

"My train was cancelled the other day due to a bridge strike. What on earth are they complaining about? All they do is stand around all day looking archful. What's come over them (apart from a few trains, a lorry and two pigeons)? Next thing it'll be the traffic lights coming out in sympathy. Chaos will ensue. Mark my words: it's the thin end of a very fat wedge." Brian Donnelly.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, December 29, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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I so need to learn Czech

I think they're insulting me

Another interesting referral as a result of my blog almost winning the Guardian British Blog Awards.

"Sm�lu jsem m�l i p�i n�v�t�v� London Underground Tube Diary (Best specialist - Highly commended). Str�nka se asi dv� minuty na��tala - a nena�etla. Pot�ilo m� alespo� ocen�n� blogu Stuarta Hughese, toliko nositele m�ho superpresti�n�ho Blogu t�dne."

Says Kyber�mok.

Now roughly and very, very roughly translated the above means:

"Worse luck jsem m�l as well as with attendance The great wen Underground Tube Diary Best speciality Highly commended ). Aspect to aromatically two minutes tap plus nena�etla. Solace myself at least assessing blogu Stuarta Hughese , merely wear m�ho superpresti�n�ho Blogu weeks."

WTF? If anyone has a better translation which doesn't involve lots more Czech I would love to know it.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, December 29, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Worse than trainspotters

Yes there is something worse than trainspotting

Just popped over to Diamond Geezer's blog which reminded me of a man I sat next to on the tube just before Xmas.

He had a little WHSmith notepad which he was scribbling into. Nosy bleeder that I am, I looked to see what he was writing. The notepad had the names of lots of people on each page with a town at the top. I thought it was an address book, so went back to staring at the ads.

But something wasn't quite right. There were just names and no addresses or phone numbers and some of the names sounded familiar. And why was he shuffling through glossy brochures on his lap at the same time? What were the little ticks against the names for?

Suddenly the penny dropped when some of the more familiar names were just a bit too familiar:

Steve McFadden
Lesley Joseph
Lucy Benjamin
Julian Clary
Bonnie Langford

OH MI GAWD - he was a pantomime celeb spotter. The pad was full of celebrities who were starring in pantomimes and the glossy leaflets on his lap were flyers advertising the pantos.

It was possibly the saddest thing in the world.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Sunday, December 28, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Where's Busking Santa? - Part Two

Santa has a new musical instrument

Just as I was heading for home, it appears that Santa has given up on the guitar and picked up a trumpet instead and gave us a jaunty version of O Come all ye Faithful at Piccadilly Circus. I gave him 50p which should buy a few pounds of carrots for Rudolph.



Merry Christmas and see you on the 29th December (groan, back to work after just four days).

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, December 24, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Where's Pissed Santa - Part Seven

Santa spotted having a slash on Christmas Eve

Well I suppose we won't be seeing our inebriated friend for much longer. He's been spotting relieving himself all over the London Underground now and this morning there he was again on my carriage on the Bakerloo line as I headed into Piccadilly Circus.



Check out his previous spots in a carriage on the District Line and his first spot at Earls Court, then Embankment, Waterloo, Angel and Ravenscourt Park. I'll miss him in the New Year.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, December 24, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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More signs of Christmas on the Tube

Red Bull, Emptiness and Wet footsteps

The tube carriages are getting emptier and emptier as the Christmas clearout begins. On the District Line yesterday morning there was a real commuter "after party" feel about the train. Distinctive blue and silver cans of Red Bull for helping people keep awake and lots of discarded copies of Metro (hopefully, also to keep them awake)



Although it was much busier when I changed at Glamoursmith (Hammersmith) to get onto the Piccadilly Line.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, December 24, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground Strike Called Off

or Strike for Sacked Sickie Squash Player Suspended & Squashed

Just learnt that the planned strike for Xmas Eve has been called off following arbitration and talks by the conciliation group Acas.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow, clearly wearing his Santa outfit, said: "RMT is pleased that Acas has now offered its help in resolving the dispute, and we are approaching that process with goodwill."

Read more from Google News here.

Hoorah, although the one planned for New Year's Eve could still go ahead.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, December 24, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Guardian British Blog Awards - more referrals & driver's announcements

I will get bored of talking about the awards one day

I will, I promise, but for the moment please humor me. Getting highly commended in the Guardian Blog Awards has been a great end to a year where I had a particularly shitty summer, so it's fab to have a lot of extra visitors and very nice comments and emails.

It's quite nice having a "delicious blog" - well according to Google's translation of baquia.com's review. Anyone who can speak Spanish may find it really means something else altogether - see the original page

I particularly like Blogcritics.org calling this blog "howlingly funny" and I have visions of people sitting at their desks turning into the American Werewolf in London - who incidentally used to attack people on the London Underground and parts of the film were shot at the disused Aldwych tube station and the very much used station at Tottenham Court Road.

Also just received a good email from a guy in Boston, part of which gives a great train driver's announcement - as it's not from the tube I won't add it to the main site, but thought it deserved to be seen:

"The other day, one of my friends was telling me how she thinks it's possible to get a good sense of a city's culture by riding the public transport. I tend to agree with her - so I'm glad I found your site as a way to keep tabs on one of my favorite cities.

I do have an unusual train announcement for you. It's from Boston's 'T', not the tube, so maybe it doesn't count. I thought it was pretty funny, though:

Train: Bing-bong! (doors start to close) (doors spring open again)

Driver: (irritated) Ladies and gentlemen, please do not hold the doors. If you hold the doors, the motor will burn out. If the motor burns out, the train will be taken out of service. If the train is taken out of service, you will all be late for work. Your boss will yell at you. You will yell at your spouse. Your spouse will yell at the kids. The kids will kick the dog. The dog will bite the mailman. So for goodness sake, do NOT hold the doors!."

Definitely on a par with some London ones I've heard, but can't beat the sheer beauty of: �Mind the doors. Yes you, the woman in the long brown coat, love. I suggest you should shave your legs in future, it'll stop the hairs getting caught in the doors. Look at her everyone! Mingin! �

Keep those tube driver's announcements coming.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, December 24, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Sleeping on the tube

Festivities catching up on commuters

I was half asleep yesterday and to be honest I almost fell asleep in the office (thank Christ my CEO isn't a regular reader of my blog). But it wasn't just me. Most of the depleted numbers of people on my carriage coming into work, were asleep or nodding off - too many parties, too much shopping or general end of year hibernation instinct.

It can be hazardous sleeping on the tube at night and there's far too many instances of me doing this to find them all. Use the Google search on the right and put in "asleep" if you want to find some of them. Although Jan 15th was my first one since blogging, rapidly followed by another on Jan 22nd.

I do have a built in sixth sense that luckily wakes me up at the right stop and I've only had to go back more than one stop once, when I was completely trollied after a Xmas party about four years ago and woke up at Heathrow Airport - I then actually went too far coming back into town and had to go out again (NOT clever).

My colleague who sits next to me and gets British Rail, recently left a party deliberately early to get home to Bedford, fell asleep and woke up somewhere ridiculously north of that - Wellingborough in Northamptonshire. He then had to pay forty quid to get a cab home and got back at two o'clock in the morning (NOT clever).

Apparently a good tip that someone told me about is to set the alarm on your mobile phone to go off for how long it normally takes you to get home. This is fine if you get off at a stop that's not in a tunnel, and if the tubes are running normally. Also if you can actually remember to do this you're probably sober enough to wake up of your own accord anyway.

So kind of appropriate I saw this Pro Plus ad yesterday:

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, December 23, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Strike Driver apologises for disruption

Sickie Squash playing driver is sorry

Ahhh bless! What started out as something where you felt sorry for the driver is now turning into a bit of a shambles. You may have read all the stuff about the London Underground driver who got sacked for playing squash when he was supposed to be off sick with an ankle injury. He had been told by his doc that playing squash would improve his ankle. But the LU bosses thought otherwise, sacked him and this led to a strike in November by the RMT to try to reinstate him.



The next strike over this dispute is planned for Xmas Eve and also on New Year's Eve, and the driver has spoken out to The Evening Standard today in an attempt to get public opinion on his side.

"I'm really sorry if by having a strike I'm going to ruin people's Christmas - but my whole life has been ruined," he says.

"I don't want revenge, I just want my job back. That's why I have to piss off the people of London ... it's the one course of action available to me. I have to look after my family."

Well the strike didn't work before and it's unlikely to now. Even Mayor Ken Livingstone is against this strike who pointed out that Chris Barrett had taken 218 days off sick in five years.

Fortunately it will just be limited to the Hammersmith & City Line, so will not "ruin people's Christmas", but inconvenience many thousands who'll be swearing at this man, then swearing at the Unions and calling the whole thing a farce.

Just in case you travel on that line it will be effected from 0430 GMT on 24 December and 0429 GMT on 25 December, and between noon on 31 December and 1159 GMT on 1 January, 2004.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, December 22, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Where's Pissed Santa?

Why drunken Father Christmas is red and white

Today a friend emailed me the following picture to explain why London Underground's Pissed Santa is dressed in red and white:



A plausible enough explanation considering how much he's drunk over this period.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, December 22, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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What language is this in?

I'm still having fun seeing who's been reporting on this blog since being commended in The Guardian Blog Awards, but this one is really puzzling me as I can't work out what language it's in. Looking at the country reference in my referral stats I have a feeling it's a Serbian news site.

It references some Guardian winners and commended in the 22nd December feature. I'd love a translation if anyone can speak Serbian. Cheers.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, December 22, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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You heard it here first

Where this blog leads, the papers follow!

After that incredibly arrogant statement, I had a good laugh to see that in yesterday's The Knowledge, (a supplement in London editions of The Times on Saturday), their shopping section covered London Underground gifts. Ooer and what do we see - the top moquette, tube seat upholstery, dog coat - first mentioned here on November 7th, then again on December 15th and also the tube tiles, mentioned here on December 17th. The heading of the feature was even called Going Underground!



Hmm, I wonder if they've been reading this blog?

Which reminds me, I must check out those London Underground boxer shorts which Ian, a visitor to the blog, (after responding to a post on London Underground clothing) says have "Shepherds Bush" on the front and "Arsenal" on the back - sounds too good to be true.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Sunday, December 21, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Where's Busking Santa?

Santa gets new career as a busker

Forget about Where's Pissed Santa? (that's a lie, I won't, he's been entertaining me too much to stop spotting him), but last night, coming home from another Xmas party, at the foot of the escalators at Leicester Square was Busking Santa. He was doing very lively renditions of carols on his guitar near a poster of this year's big Christmas film Elf. He rox.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Saturday, December 20, 2003 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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