Mind the Zip

London Underground becoming like Tokyo's subway

Sometimes we'd quite like the Tube to be more like the super efficient subway in Tokyo, but not if it means the pervy behaviour that some guys exhibit when they're squashed up against women. The Sun reports today with the understated "Perv yanked down zips" that "A pevert who unzipped women's trousers on Tube trains was banned from the underground yesterday - and told he faces jail.

Bernard Da Conceicao, 35, was released on bail by a judge who told him not to go to any station or travel on trains after assaulting seven victims. The court heard how he used his satchel to hide his hand during attacks on the Victoria and Piccadilly lines in London.

The horrified women only realised what he was doing when they felt a "light pressure" on their groin.."


One of the women he groped said: "I felt something on the zip of the front part of my trousers. The train was very congested and I thought my bags had squashed against that area. There was lots of movement and when I looked down I saw his hand."

I can't believe they'll be able to enforce his ban and the judge says that its likely he will receive a jail sentence when he goes back to court in May.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, March 21, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Laszlo Moholy-Nagy on the Tube

No it's not another anagram map

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy isn't just an anagram for Lazy Goon Holy Slam but the name of a Hungarian designer who Frank Pick commissioned to create a poster for the London Underground in 1937. Liz went to a show currently on at the Tate Modern (Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World) and bought me back a postcard of the poster pictured below:


As well as the pneumatic doors Moholy-Nagy also created a poster promoting escalators on the Tube. London Transport must have been particularly proud of their new pneumatatic doors though and the poster explained how they worked "The doors which are edged with rubber are kept closed by air-engine arms one for each door. The arms engage in slots in the doors which open when the arms swing round. The doors are held open by the arms. The signal to start cannot be given while the doors are open".

I assume they still work the same way today, given the amount of grief some of you gave me for saying that I sometimes barge into the doors as they are about to close and hold them open so I can squeeze myself in.

Anyway if you're into Bauhaus, the exhibition is on until the 4th June and if you show a valid Oystercard you can get 30% off the adult ticket price and pay £4.90 rather than the standard price of £7.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, March 21, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Puntastic London Underground Ads

It's a gas on the Tube

I haven't noticed many Tube related advertisements on the London Underground recently, (not including ones that are actually publicising Tube things like the Bakerloo Line Centenary) so I was pleased to spot this ad for British Gas last week:


They've certainly packed in as many London station name puns in as possible, when referring to the boiler breakdown cover you can buy from them. As you don't want to get a Wapping bill you need their highly trained engineers who are so good you'll want to Clapham.

My friend works for British Gas in the Marketing Department for services like boiler breakdown cover, so I'd Bank on her being responsbible for these puns. When I next say Harrow to her, I'll see if see knows how Poplar they have been.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, March 20, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Date the Tube Map quiz plus Metro Competition

The answers are.......

There are only two correct answers in the "Date the Tube Map" quiz



Many of you were in the right ball park with early 1930's making it one of the last pre-Beck maps, but the correct answer was 1932. Take a look at Clive's site which has most of the variants of London Undeground maps dating back to 1889.

In terms of the current names of the lines in the Edwardian Tube map here - between all of you, you guessed most of them:

Central London Railway is today's Central Line
City and South London is part of today's the Northern Line via Bank
Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton is the Piccadilly Line
Great Northern and City is the WAGN line or Northern City (which isn't part of the London Underground any more)
Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead is the Northern Line via Charing Cross
Baker Street and Waterloo is the Bakerloo Line
and of course the Waterloo & City is now the Waterloo & City Line which was too easy to guess.

Anyway, the two people who guessed 1932 are Jamesthegill and Rich, Neil did his paperclip selection, or tossed a coin, and the winner is Rich. As promised, Rich will receive a copy of Train and Transport - A Collector's Guide, kindly donated by Graham O'Mara.

BTW speaking of the Tube map, the London Underground Map came second to Concorde in the Great British Design Quest to find the best British Design Icon. According to Transport for London over 200,000 votes were cast.

BTW 2 - Metro have a fiendishly difficult competition today where you can win a copy of Mr Beck's Underground Map by Ken Garland and Underground Maps after Beck by Max Roberts (who's been commenting on this blog of late). To win you need to answer "How many copies of the London Underground map are distributed each year?" and email your answer with your name and telephone number to metrocompetitions@tfl.gov.uk by 5pm tonight. The answer is on a link somewhere in this post. The winner will be picked at random from all of the correct entries. Good luck!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, March 20, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground Fashion Victims

Fashion Victims on the Tube

Here's this Friday's weekly look at commuters spotted on the London Underground who are to quote Louis Walsh of X Factor "taking a style and making it their own", or are slaves to a current trend regardless or whether or not it looks good on them.

St Patrick's Day Shenanigans

Speaking of Louis Walsh, last Sunday was the official London celebrations of St Patrick's Day - even though it is actually St Patrick's Day today. There seemed to be a trend of wearing large hats. Some with shamrocks:





Some with a Guinness Theme with a shamrock shape just to rub it in


However my favourite was this girl with very low slung jeans with an Irish flag wrapped round her


Bird Flu Hat

One from South West Trains, but this woman clearly had something against our feathered friends or perhaps it was some strange way of trying to ward off bird flu


Twiggy Trousers and Fishnets

I'm not really sure if these were Twiggy Trousers or Twiggy Shorts (the cropped trouser worn by Twiggy in the M&S campaign which revived the ailing store's sales), either way regular readers know my opinions on fishnet tights and when worn with Twiggy Trousers, or Shorts, I personally don't think it's a great look


21st Century Girl

It's the metallic bags AGAIN, but she had a nice 21st century twist with them here as she was scribbling away on her palm pilot electronic notebook thingy


I quite like the way the bag strap round her wrist looks like a handcuff!

Platform UGGs

The week wouldn't be complete without seeing someone in some UGG boots or pretend UGG boots. These ones were particularly err....attractive with a platform!



That's it for this week. The previous entry for London Underground fashion victims is here and all of them together can be seen on the following Flickr set.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, March 17, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Stephen Halliday London Underground Lecture

Fraud, Bankruptcy, Suicide and Transportation - The History of the London Underground

I managed to get to yesterday's lunchtime lecture by Stephen Halliday at Gresham College. Even though there were some signs around saying that both lecture rooms were full, I've never really taken too much notice of signs like that, and me and another girl decided to ignore them and stroll casually into a downstairs room. We hung around by the door of a pretty full room with no sign of a lecturer even though we could see the London Underground map being projected onto a screen and hear a scholarly sounding voice. It seemed to be the overflow room for the main lecture taking place upstairs, so we slid in and listened with everyone else.

I've not been to a lunchtime lecture for ages and should definitely go to more of them. This one was full of fairly elderly people who had made a special trip to hear Dr Halliday. He was a very knowledgeable and entertaining speaker.

As I predicted Charles Tyson Yerkes was one of the characters featured when bankruptcy was mentioned. However, he wasn't the only Tube "jail bird" (to quote Halliday) - Marc Brunel who built the Thames Tunnel served a jail sentence as did Whitaker Wright the financier behind the Baker Street and Waterloo Line. However, before he went to jail he managed to pop a cynide tablet into his mouth to top himself. Not only that but he had a loaded firearm in his pocket throughout his trial.

Stephen said that Ken Livingstone had many dealings with the High Court but as far as he knew had never bought a gun into court. "Ken Livingstone is a pussy cat compared to some of these characters" he said.

At some stage today the lecture will appear on Gresham College's website so if you have RealPlay you'd be able to see it for yourself - it's a good hour's worth of Tube history.

After the lecture finished I went into the main room and got Stephen to sign a copy of his book - Underground to Everywhere. Most people were buying the paperback version, but I had a well worn copy of the earlier hardback edition which he was happy to sign. I got a bit star struck and muttered what a fantastic lecture it was then hurried back to the Tube clutching my new prized possession.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, March 17, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Name the Bar Quiz

Name Ian's bar and Win a Mind the Gap Beer Mat

When I was at the London Transport Museum Depot in Acton I picked up a couple of Beer Mats, or those pub spillage mats that mop up beer from overflowing glasses, and I thought they would make a good prize. But I couldn't think of something beer or pub related to go with them. I did a post last August about the pubs that used to exist on Tube Station platforms - one was called The Hole in the Wall. Ian is looking for a name for a bar he is building.........sooooooooooo


Instead of naming Ian's baby's bear, you can name Ian's bar. Leave your suggestions here or on Ian's blog, but to enter the competition leave either your email address or your website/blog.

Competition is open until Sunday closing time 10.30pm (well if the pub doesn't have an extended license) on the 26th March. Have Fun!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, March 17, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Variant on the Way Out Tube Map

A request for help - which carriage door is best for the exit?

Paul Luna recently signed my message board with the following request: "I recall that back in the late 1960s London Transport Magazine (the Underground staff newspaper) carried a piece about a booklet called Tube Buster (or maybe it was Subway Buster). An American and his son had travelled on the Tube and explained exactly which door in which car was the most convenient for alighting at particular stations, especially interchange ones. Does anyone have any more info about this book? I'd like to track down a copy.

Hope someone remembers!"

Well it's the first I had heard of a booklet being published, although I know that Neil and Geoff were thinking of doing something like this themselves, and Neil always seems to know which door is the right one. I use the Way Out Tube map a lot to work out which is the best carriage for the exit I need, but I certainly haven't got it fine tuned down to the best door yet.

UPDATE - It appears that The Clever Tube Hopper is the closest to what Paul is looking for.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, March 16, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Get them before they're banned as well

Anagram Tube Map T Shirts on cafe press

If you want one get them quickly. It will only be a matter of time before TfL get onto Cafe Press and force them to take these down too.

The person who put these up said of the T shirt "Just don't wear it around any of your friends who happen to be TFL lawyers."

There were similar issues with the Tube Relief logo but someone at TfL had actually sanctioned the slight variation of the logo use and the resulting T shirts - probably because we were doing the challenge for the bombing victims.

Thanks to Simon for alerting us to Anagram items in the comments!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, March 16, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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V for Vendetta

Not C for Conspiracy Theory

Last week I happened to be walking through Leicester Square when it was all being decked out for the premiere of V for Vendetta, with a giant screen playing the trailer. Fimb's husband had told me and Neil to watch out for the film as there is a scene in it where a London Underground train is blown up. In fact there appeared to be a bit of controversy about it as the producers refused "to re-edit the scenes which closely mimic murderous events in the city"


In Vendetta, a futuristic London is the target of a terrorist attacks and sees the Tube lines destroyed by bombings." One of the producers David Lloyd said, "In terms of what happened in London it's important to try and understand what leads people to terrorism", and director James McTiegue went on to say, "Terrorism is one of those themes that never really goes away." From imdb.com

At least there were no conspiracy theories this time about the film makers predicting the bombings or with "chilling echoes of the London bombings" as we had with the making of the latest Bond film Casino Royale.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, March 16, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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More Map Malarky

Tube Maps in the News again

You can't seem to blink right now without seeing a Tube Map story in some shape or form on the Net or in the press. Geoff's saga continues as now the ISP who host his site have forced him to take down the pages which simply link to the mirrors of the spoof Tube maps. Transport for London's lawyers are obviously on a mission here. Not only that for some reason that I've not been able to work out yet have pulled all of the pages about his Tube Challenge attempts.


Some previously undiscovered plans that Harry Beck had for the Parisian Metro Map in 1951 have been errr,.... discovered and are going to be archived in the London Transport Museum. The French rejected many verisons of Beck's maps preferring their own, but Beck being a persistant bloke kept trying. I'm off to Paris next week myself, so I'll try to grab some pictures of the Metro while I'm there.

And don't forget tomorrow sees the great unveiling of the winner of the Great British Design Quest to find the best British Design icon and the London Underground map is in the final three. The results will be broadcast on The Culture Show on BBC Two at 7pm tomorrow night.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, March 15, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Relief Reunion

Tami and Tube Relief Challengers

Last night a group of us met up with Tami Brisset who was over from New Orleans. Police Chief, Tami flew over to take part the Tube Relief Charity Challenge last August in aid of the London bombing victims and their families (we raised around £12,000), only to find herself "stranded" in London when Hurricane Katrina hit her city a few days afterwards.

She's a remarkably strong woman and gave an interview to GMTV on the morning she was due to fly back home, at the time not knowing whether her sister and some of her other family members were alive or not. Fortunately they all were and she faced the tough challenge of helping to get her city back together in the wake of the chaos, looting, death and floods which followed the hurricane.


She was in great spirits last night and bought us all an enormous amount of Mardi Gras beads. The Mardi Gras was a sign that things are gradually beginning to get back to some semblance of order and normality in New Orleans, and a number of other people in The Garrick Arms pub where we all met, also joined in the celebrations and draped themselves in beads too.

Here's Jenni and Jon slightly weighed down by the beads:


Anthony Dust Masker Smith looked fairly blinged up to the max


Chris Searle wearing the most beads of the night and Chris Presswell on the right discussing more Tube Challenge plans


Neil and Fimb deep in conversation


Neil and Pete Lupton with a bit more bling:





And finally, a blurry picture of Steve, Chris and Sam

It was great to see Tami again and to meet her husband, niece and her husband who also came over.

Thanks to Ann - Pixeldiva, Neil, Jonny Lyon and his dad, Pete Lupton, Jenni, Jon, Stephen Knight, Chris Presswell, Fimb, the Dust Masker Anthony, Mex, Chris Searle, Sam Cawley and Steve for making it a fun night! There's a few more pictures on the Flickr set here. Plus Jon also has his thoughts of the night and some more pictures here.

On a more serious note Tami had made some CD's showing movie footage of the aftermath of Katrina and gave us all a copy. If anyone wants to see it - Jon kindly downloaded a copy on YouTube.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, March 15, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Name the baby, Name the bear results

The Bear Neccessities

Me and Ian managed to come to an agreement on naming the bear from your great suggestions


It's Brunel which was suggested by Ewan. As Ewan said it "sounds kind of like Bruin which is a fairly traditional bear's name, but with added Tube engineering connections." I also went to Brunel University so I'm slightly biased and obviously Brunel's Thames Tunnel Tour is one of the most entertaining things on the Tube too!

Now with naming his baby, I think Ian's choice is bizarre, he said "My vote goes to Virginia's "Kessler". It sounds vaguely scientific." However, he also said "Bonus points, too, for Fimb, as I did have Isambard on my shortlist were it to be a boy, before being rejected by someone with more sense."

I haven't got enough bears to give three away, so a bear will go to Ewan as at least I agree with Ian on that one, and a surprise gift will go to Fimb and Virginia Gal. Also as promised Ian will get a bear for his first born so she doesn't feel left out with all the attention going to the new arrival ..... er Kessler Isambard!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, March 14, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Geoff gets Map Crackdown interview on BBC Radio Five

Tube Map Mashing on the Radio

Chris Vallance interviewed Geoff on BBC Radio Five in the small hours of the morning about the London Underground pulling his maps page and the many other maps that are mixed on the web. Listen to it here.

Chris read out a statement from Transport for London who said amongst other things: "We cannot allow alternative versions to be produced unhindered without some regulation".

It's a good interview so if you have a spare five minutes have a listen.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, March 14, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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100 Years on the Bakerloo Line

Centenary Celebrations

Looks like the people at Oxford Circus made more of an effort than the people who designed the poster for the Bakerloo centenary celebrations last week

John Pannell took the picture of some Edwardian looking people getting on the Tube at last Friday's celebrations

There was also a bit of a "The Prisoner" feel about the station as large white balloons were floating around. Many thanks to John for letting me use his pictures!


Yesterday I saw the poster that was made for the celebrations and it's a shame it had a bit of a "clip art" feel about it, particularly with the photos which looked like they came from a rather cheap photo library.


Ah well, at least London Underground aren't wasting our money sourcing some better pictures or a better agency to produce this.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, March 14, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Oystercard used to catch crooks

Speaking of The Prisoner.....

Both Dmitri and Ian sent me a link to a a feature from the BBC's site on how the police are increasingly using Oystercards to follow people's movements: "In January, police requested journey information 61 times, compared with just seven times in the whole of 2004. The Metropolitan Police said it was a 'straightforward investigative tool' used on a case-by-case basis."

Last month I blogged how Oystercards could be used to track down partners who were being unfaithful and claiming they were somewhere where they weren't, but this use of Oystercard is either a good way of finding criminals or an infringement of people's privacy depending on what side of the fence you sit:

Charles Monheim, from Transport for London, told the BBC London reporter: "Big Brother is not watching you. We collect journey data so we can provide customer service and answer customer queries. A by-product of that is that the data is on record if the police seek records in individual cases, but we only provide that data in response to a written request from the police that is then reviewed on a case by case basis".

Whereas Heather Brooke, from Privacy International, said: "I think it's outrageous. Londoners are already the most watched people on earth.

"If the police can't conduct effective investigations with a CCTV camera on every corner, then that's really indicative of a more serious problem with police investigations."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, March 14, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground Lawyers have too much time on their hands

Spoof Tube Map Clamp Down

Some of you probably knew that the anagram Tube map was pulled from its original home by London Underground's lawyers - The Times got onto this story too. Apparently Transport for London said it was "Completely without humour - complete waste of time. We see ourselves as having a duty to protect Harry Beck's legacy." (Funny they didn't mind rejecting most of Harry Beck's maps later on or using one of their PR guys - Harold Hutchison - to produce an unpopular follow up)

Now the Tube's lawyers been in touch with Geoff who has a collection of spoof maps on his site and he has to take most of them down by some time tomorrow, as he says on his blog download them while you can.

A regular visitor to this blog and Geoff's made the following image, which sums up what most of us think of their clamp down:


Admittedly, they're perfectly within their rights to do this, but I wonder why they don't go after all of the knock off T-Shirts and other stuff being sold for a profit, rather than spend time & money picking on easy targets like websites which aren't trying to make any money out of the spoofs.

Perhaps when it's in the name of art it's OK though, or maybe Simon Patterson paid them the couple of hundred quid licence fee before he then went on to win twenty thousand quid by selling The Great Bear at auction and earn loads of royalties selling reproductions of the "spoof" since then.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Sunday, March 12, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground Fashion Victims

Fashion Victims on the Tube

Here's Friday's regular look at commuters spotted on the London Underground who are taking a look and making it their own, or are slaves to a current trend.

UGG Boots

Hoorah, I finally managed to snap a picture of someone wearing real UGG boots and not the hundreds of imitations that are knocking around at the moment. However, just cos they are the real things doesn't make them look any less ugly!



Too much Pink

Not really a fashion victim as such here, but I think she's tried a little to hard to co-ordinate her umbrella with her bag



Leopardskin Lady

I have a feeling that the blue haired lady below is a busker, so she may feel that she has artistic licence to go around looking like a younger, blue haired, skinnier, punkier version of Pat Butcher off EastEnders



It's quite hard to see as I caught her getting on the train just as train was about to leave, but she's resplendant in leopardskin bag, skirt, and well, err, .... leggings.

That's it for this week. The previous entry for London Underground fashion victims is here and all of them together can be seen on the following Flickr set.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, March 10, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Map Competition

Date the Tube Map

Well, it had to be done, with all the discussions we've been having over the Tube map this week and last week and its merits (or not) and worthiness (or not) to be up in the finals for the Great British Design Quest, this week's competition is focussed on the map. There are two parts, firstly can you date the Tube Map below - and by date, I don't mean wine and dine it or buy it flowers, I mean can you identify the year that this version was issued?



The map is from the cover of a book called Train & Transport - A Collector's Guide, which is a collection of "tickets, notices, leaflets, labels, folders, billboards and other throwaways ....an epitome of Mankind's love affair with the way from A - B".

In the book, there's a picture of an Edwardian Tube Map sponsored by the Evening News paper and shows the lines that existed at the time. With the exception of the Waterloo & City Line (as that's way too easy), can you give the current names for the lines shown in the map? Please only give one line each (no prizes for being able to name all of them) and you get a bonus point if you don't make the same guess as the person immediately before you.



There's a larger version here which may help you read the names of the lines a bit better.

Tube map experts Max Roberts and Mark Ovenden (who've been contributing lately) are not allowed to enter, as they'll easily be able to get the first part!

Everyone else you have until Sunday 19th March 23.59 GMT to give your answer and as usual - one attempt only please and please make your guesses to both parts at the same time. Leave your answers in the comments below and remember to leave either your email addrress and/or your website or blog. Thanks.

Ah, the prize, it's a copy of the book the pictures came from! - Train and Transport - A Collector's Guide. It was kindly donated by Graham O'Mara as a prize. Cheers again Graham for donating another book!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, March 10, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Another Wapping Weekend

Wapping Thames Tunnel Tours

This weekend at 2pm and 4pm, there's another opportunity for you to take part in "Carry on Shafting" or rather the innuendo ridden but informative journey by Tube train through the famous Thames Tunnel!

Over to Robert Hulse the excellent tour guide and curator of the Brunel Engine House Museum. "This is Brunel's first project and the oldest tunnel in the London Underground. This is the birthplace of the Tube system. Descend the original sinking shaft, and view Brunel's original map of the Tunnel's geology.

In 2006, Brunel's Bicentenary Year, the Museum is proud to launch an exciting new children's book : 'Isambard Kingdom Brunel The Iron Man' by Amanda Mitchison.

Copies of the Brunel book cost £4.99 and are offered as the latest edition to the Shorts Books prize-winning series. The "WHO WAS...." series is aimed at 9 to 12 year olds: well-written, thought-provoking and refreshingly different from the established historical series for children.

As part of Science Week, families are invited to take a journey back in history! It is 1843, the Thames is the busiest river in the world, and Brunel's Tunnel is just completed. Your guide will fill in the details."



Robert continues as in Science week kids can make their own peepshow (not that sort of peepshow) of the tunnel (see image above) "It took Brunel 18 years, but with a pair of scissors and some crayons you can do it in half an hour...."

Check out http://www.brunelenginehouse.org.uk for full details of the weekend tours plus further tours throughout March.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, March 10, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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