Tube Delay Generator

Inspired by the fab marketing speak generator and by yesterday morning's delays on all the lines I was travelling on, I put together a London Underground Tube Delay Excuse Generator


I'm not a programmer, so it's pretty basic. I also couldn't work out how to get it to play within this blog post itself, so when you click the image above, it will open up in a new window.

You might also remember Reggie Perrin's late train excuses that he gave to his secretary, so this owes a nod and a wink to him too. However, I've tried to keep it as 21st century Tube Speak as possible.

If you've a driver, or train operator or customer service platform assistant or whatever - you might be able to send me some more delay excuses, sorry perfectly rational reasons that I can drop in over time.

Enjoy.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, August 24, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Three day Tube Strike planned

We've not had that many threats of strike action this year (possibly because the summer's been so bad, there's no point in extra days off). However we now have the possiblity of some industrial action on the Tube next month.

Members of the Unite and Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) unions will hold 72-hour strikes on 3 and 10 September. A 48-hour strike by the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) will begin on 4 September.


The planned action is over job losses faced by Metronet staff. TfL reckon that they are addressing all the issues.

They said "there is no reason whatsoever why the lives of millions of Londoners should be disrupted by industrial action. Threatening Londoners with two three-day strikes on the tube when no action is being taken to disadvantage any employees is wrong." So we'll have to wait and see.

For more on this check out The Guardian.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, August 24, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground Fashion Victims

Fashion Victims on the Tube

It's a Friday, so the Tube Fashion Victims or TFV's are back. The completely rubbish weather means that our TFV's are really not out in all their summer glory so we have a fairly autumnal view.

Super Furry Uggs

These girls were really going all out for TFV mode. We have the gold strappy gladiator sandals and of course the ubiquitous Uggs making an entrance. Their poor little arms are fairly laden down with some oversized handbags:


As if the Uggs weren't bad enough she also appears to have sat down on a load of bleach.

Male Crocs

The first man I've seen wearing Crocs on the Tube


I suppose we can be thankful they're not orange or pink and that his not wearing giblets, sorry jibbitz in them.

Micro skirts at Glamoursmith

Hammersmith is not called Glamoursmith for nothing. And if you're under twenty you probably don't care about how cold it is at the moment as you still have the opportunity to wear or almost wear skirts.


I love the way the gaggle of girls are in matching sandals and all look as though they've consulted each other on the exact length of their clothes. Shame they didn't go down to the tanning shop to get a St Tropez, as they're all looking a tad pasty.

That's it for now. The previous victims can be found here and the complete picture gallery can be seen on the following Flickr set.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, August 24, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Would you stop a Tube thug?

A case for bringing back Guardian Angels?

I'd like to think that we all haven't been there. Witnessing a nasty scene on the Tube where someone is getting attacked or harrassed and deciding what to do. BBC Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine was interviewed by Radio 4 about how he witnessed a man getting beaten up on the London Underground and he and fellow passengers did nothing:

He said: "I was sitting in a Tube carriage next to an attractive young woman who was reading a magazine. There was a guy sitting opposite me, who was kind of Neanderthal. He had obviously taken an interest in this woman" After all the usual, 'come on darlin' give us a smile' rubbish, he started tapping her on the knee. Eventually he got off the Tube and the carriage collectively gave a sigh of relief. One passenger also gave him a V sign when the doors closed and unluckily for the passenger the doors decided to re-open.

"The thug runs back in. He's six foot three, his muscles are so big they're flexing against the Tube glass, and he just starts beating seven bells out of this fellow.

"And I did nothing. The carriage was pretty full. But none of us did anything. It was terrible...... It wasn't fight or flight, it was fight or sit there and watch. And I chose to sit there and watch. And I've replayed it many many times. I'm very unhappy that I did that, and I now have sort of resolved that if I see a similar kind of situation where I see someone being attacked like that, I will intervene with unmitigated ferocity.

"I was sitting there and I had a biography of Oscar Wilde and it's about 700 pages. I reckoned that this biography would have made a serious dent in his skull and also that it would have been a classy way to bring this guy down to the Tube floor, but of course as I have all these thoughts it's already too late. In fact the moment you think about it, it's too late."

I'm not too surprised that no one did anything. The closest I've been to this situation since blogging, is when I was getting hassled by some drunk on a Tube and most of the people sitting near me chose to get off at the next stop. Fortunately, I sat it out through bloody mindedness and I was lucky that he wasn't violent. I've no idea what I would do if the boot were on the other foot though. I certainly wouldn't have left the carriage as just a physical show of numbers can help.

But in the case of someone getting physically attacked, I'd like to think I'd intervene or at least shout at the person. I'm sure most people hope that someone else will be brave enough to do something (it's almost like giving up seats to people who need them - although they doesn't require bravery). As Vine says by doing nothing we're giving trouble makers permission to continue. He later found out on a bus journey that if one person stands up, others will usually follow suit.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation on the Tube or public transport? Or do you have any advice on what you could do to defuse a situation like this?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, August 21, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Online Tube Map Jigsaw Puzzle

If you feel like driving yourself mad or have very good eyesight try this online London Underground Jigsaw puzzle

By clicking on the "change cut" link, you can go for the traditional approach pictured below (240 piece classic) Be warned averages completion time is over 71 minutes. Or you can make it easy for yourself (like I did) with the 12 piece.


If you want to go international there's a US state version


Or try the rather freaky 91 piece lizard version which apparently has an average completion time of 24 minutes.


I should say thanks to Jon J for bringing this to my attention although it's a maddening time waster. It's worth having a go at it in good time though in case TfL's lawyers find some way of taking it off the interweb. Have errr... fun.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Sunday, August 19, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Photo of the Week

It's not often that you can capture a picture on the Tube which is spontaneous but everything just fits together. Meg Pickard did this on the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow.


I discovered this through b3ta who were writing about a blog with "optical illusions" where people have deliberately set up pictures where real people look as thought they are part of a magazine or book. It a shame they included Meg's as it's not set up, but at the same time, I'm glad they did as I probably wouldn't have discovered it otherwise!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, August 17, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Wired Underground

Thanks to Jon J for giving me the heads up that commuters in Seoul will have fun and games on their subway, at least until the 19th August


The generous folk at Samsung and Korea Telecoms have fitted two cars from Seoul's number 2 line train with some WiBro-enabled Samsung Q45 laptops and Q1 Ultra UMPCs. Apparently they're free to use from 11am till 5pm every day.

There's a fairly errr interesting translation of the story here, or check out Engadget for their take.


That's really 21st century subway entertainment, as we can just about manage a snatched game of backgammon on the Tube though.

Wonder if Ken will set aside some carriages on the Tube for sponsored games? I'm sure he'd get a lot of fans if he did.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, August 14, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Copywriting Tube Ads

You may have seen the series of advertisements for Nintendo DS games on the Tube. Apart from making the worrying statement that on average we spend three years of our lives commuting, they attempt to make some word plays with their games and Tube station names or lines.

They start off reasonably well with getting a "bullseye" on the Circle Line:


Then they use Baker Street for their detective game:


But after that they sadly run out of steam.

Surely they could have come up with "walk your dog at Barking", rather than "walk your dog underground"?


The others were fairly uninspiring and they went down the alliteration route. I've blanked out the lines or station names, so if you think you can do better or suggest what they actually used, feel free.


I wonder if they'd have been allowed to slot in any station on the Northern Line on this last one?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, August 13, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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You never know who you're sitting next to

It still amazes me that people who use mobiles on the Tube seem to think they're in a vacuum and that no one is listening to their conversations. I can't be the only person who listens to mobile calls when there's nothing better to do (or even when there is). Specially when the conversation revolves around a soap.

On the Sadistic Line I was in a fairly empty carriage and the woman next to me was talking about an actress friend who had got back in touch with her after a long absence. I learnt that the actress was called Kate and the major story she was part of meant she was working all hours. "You know what it's like with soaps", the woman said. At this point I gave up reading my paper. The actress had been through the mill, had counselling, gone to The Priory but had now recovered. She had a new bloke and everything was wonderful.

Jeez - if only I knew what soap she was in, I could be the concerned "friend" and sell my story to The Sun. Her motor mouth friend actually revealed the soap in her next breath. I spent ages thinking who it could possibly be and after watching one of my favourites on Monday, I think I've narrowed it down to the right person (that's assuming she's gone back to the soap).

I'm not going to reveal who I think it is as I could be wrong, but if I had been a Sun or News of the World journalist I'd be having a field day right now. I wonder how many "exclusives" or "real life stories" make their debut through someone blabbing on the Tube? Or how many office secrets are revealed by rushed PowerPoint reading on the way into work?

Do you have any goss or juicy stories you've overheard on the Tube?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, August 10, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Crocs stop Escalators

Should Crocs be banned on the Tube?

Well obviously on the grounds of taste Crocs should be banned, but it appears that they play havoc with escalators too.


There have been increasing stories about people travelling on escalators getting their footwear trapped and mangled in escalator teeth. Escalators on Washington's Metro have been put out of action as a result

"Twenty-five objects were stuck in escalators last month, most of them "shoe entrapments," officials said. "We've had an alarming increase of incidents of those types of shoes being stuck in the escalator," said Dave Lacosse, who oversees Metro's 588 escalators"

Sadly the Metro aren't considering a ban, even though a broken escalator can be non functioning for half a day depending on the level of shoe entrapment. However Croc wearers don't seem to care and just want their beloved items back:

"Even when their shoes get mauled, most riders are too attached to them to let go. Some even ask for retrieved ones to be left with station managers so they can get them the next day.

Used to be that the damaged shoes were brought to Lacosse's office, where he kept them as mementos. Alas, these days, "most of the customers want their shoe back," he said."

There have also been reports of children losing their toes as a result of Crocs and Croc pretenders getting stuck in escalator teeth. Of course the manufacturers of Crocs swear that their footwear is safe and imply the problem is with the escalators. A spokeswoman from the company (which manufacture 6 million pairs a month - God help us) said "The popularity of our shoes has helped draw attention to a long-existing issue that we think is very important -- escalator safety,"

Crocs were in discussion with the Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation and apparently agreed to design a tag inside its shoes and set up kiosks in shopping malls to inform people about escalator safety. But it never happened.

DC'ist are all for an out and out ban of Crocs on the subway: "Why can't we prohibit what people wear? We already prohibit behavior on Metro, like eating and drinking, solely for the sake of cleanliness — requiring riders to abandon their Crocs for the sake of saving us from having to look at those ugly-ass shoes safety seems all the more rational. We often shake our fingers at Nannyism on the part of the D.C. Council, but if this isn't a cause worthy of that legislative body's penchant for keeping us safe through telling us how to live our lives, we don't know what is. Ban Crocs Today!"

I'm not sure if the sign above from Jakarta is real or photo-shopped but it's a cracking idea and Boris or Ken would get my vote next year if they could stamp out Croc wearing on the London Underground.

Big thanks to Martin Deutsch for giving me the heads up on this story. There must be some Croc wearers out there who can come to the defence of the Croc (Fimb where are you?!!). Although perhaps after hearing this tale you might think twice about Tube Croc wearing.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, August 08, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Photo of the Week

Subterranean Post It Blues

The eagle eyed Chutney Bannister was celebrating his photographic exhibition at Freud cafe bar gallery last night, when he caught one of the best Tube nutters I've seen.


I take my hat off to Chutney here as I've seen this bloke a number of times at Leicester Square but whenever I've tried to surreptitiously take a picture of him he does the same - takes his hat off. Or a least turns away very sharply so I can't take a picture.

God alone knows why this man thinks Veronica Wadley (editor of the Evening Standard) is the only person who gives you the rights to look like lunatic. I'm sure she's got better things to do with her time than granting "approval" for you to stick notices in your woolly hat. Also I don't think she'd approve of her underwear preferences being broadcast to late night commuters.

I'd love to see our man at Leicester Square's new notices. There's definitely more to come as you can see he's sporting what looks like an enlarged Post-It notepad. Perhaps he's going to restyle himself on Bob Dylan (a la Subterranean Homesick Blues) and we'll see him busking one day, ripping off notes to accompany the lyrics to a song.

If you manage to spot him on your journey and he keeps his hat on for you, please send the photo my way.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, August 07, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Subway Map 2.0

Many thanks to Tami Brisset (our favourite New Orleans cop) for giving me heads up to a map based on Tokyo's subway map which attempts to chart the interconnected-ness and relative popularity of the internet's top 200 websites


It's produced by Information Architects and you can see the map in its full glory on their site together with downloads in various sizes and a clickable online version with links to all the sites.

This is their second version of the map, and if you know the Tokyo subway map there's a number of in-jokes relating to the lines. For example "Google has moved from Shibuya, a humming place for young people, to Shinjuku, a suspicious, messy, Yakuza-controlled, but still a pretty cool place to hang out (Golden Gaya)..... Yahoo is in Ueno, a nice place but nothing going on there......Skype has conquered a place that doesn’t exist."

The six-month weather forecast is based on whether outlook is looking bright or stormy for the companies. Look out for a updated map due in December 2007.

Excellent find and if only someone would do the same based on London's Tube Map - you could have some new movers and shakers such as twitter, moo and joost appearing on the new DLR extension and see if they move to the Central Line next year.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Saturday, August 04, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground Fashion Victims

Fashion Victims on the Tube

Friday and time for another glance at the Tube Fashion Victims, TFV's or commuters spotted on the Underground where Trinny & Susannah would be having a field day.

Paris on the Tube

These girls were really going all out for TFV mode. We have the gold strappy gladiator sandals and of course the ubiquitous Uggs making an entrance. Their poor little arms are fairly laden down with some oversized handbags:


But if you look closely at the girl on the left with the gold sandals, you'll see she's carrying a micro furry friend.


I managed to zoom in on the Paris look-a-like when we got to platform level and then we can see the little pooch in all their glory. He or she is the perfect accessory for Tube Fashion Victim and also helps you to obey the Tube rule on escalators that "Dogs Must be Carried".

Croc Decorations

The Croc (the bastard love child of the wellington and the sandal) is definitely this year's Ugg, but this is the first time I've ever seen decorations for them.


Is someone really making a business out of adornments for Crocs, or did this woman find some plastic flowers & butterflies and think it would be good idea to use up some of the holes in her Crocs?

That's it for now. The previous victims can be found here and the complete picture gallery can be seen on the following Flickr set.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, August 03, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Pub Crawl takes Five Years

and test your Tube Pub skills

On this blog you've read about many Tube challenges where people travel round all 275 London Underground stations as quickly as possible. It may be just stations in zone 1 or stations that follow the alphabet, but now three guys (a professional poker player, a risk analyst & a web designer) have completed their quest to have a drink in the nearest pub to every tube station but it's taken them five years to complete!

They finished their pub crawl at North Ealing just before midnight on last Thursday, slightly bleary eyed as they completed 16 stations in that day alone.

Professional poker player Ian Taylor said: "About five years ago we did the Victoria Line for a laugh, but we enjoyed it so much we decided to try and carry it on.

"We have had some really big days where we have done 18 stations, but the minimum we do is four and all of us have to be there for it to count."

He continued "The furthest we had to walk to a pub was at Cannons Park, it took us 30 minutes and by that time we were almost at Edgware Road."

Ian was joined by Matt Slade and Ringo Greenwich.

Ian said: "I don't know what we're going to do now, it's going to leave a big hole in our lives."

Personally I think they should have made it more of a challenge and done it a bit faster. The circle line pub crawls (a couple are outlined here and here) involve visiting a pub nearest to each of the 27 stations on the line in one day. Technically if you can do 27 stations in one day - it should only take just over 10 days of serious drinking to do all 275. Perhaps something that takes five years, shouldn't really be classified as a "pub crawl" more like a "pub meander".

I'm probably being a bit churlish so in honour of the lads, here's a quick pub quiz based on the tube and drinking houses:

1. Name a Tube station that used to have a pub on its platform?

2. Who wrote a book where the main character regularly had a drink in Tube station pub before going home?

3. Give the name of ONE Tube station that shares its name with a pub? (there are at least five - don't show off and give all five)

4. Which pub is currently closest to a Tube station? (measured by pub entrance to station entrance)

5. One (or maybe even more than one) of the following pubs are NOT in an area covered by the Tube map - The Ferret & Trouserleg, The Queen's Head & Artichoke, The Frog & Nightgown, The Five Bells & Blade Bone or The World Turned Upside Down - which is it (or are they)?

There's a "Mind the Gap" beer spillage mat for the person who gets most answers correct and in the event of a tie - the winner will be randomly selected. Give your answers in the comments below.


You have until Sunday 5th August 11.59pm (UK Time) to make your guesses. Please leave an email address or website/blog so I can contact the winner for their address.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, August 02, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Boris sympathises with zombie commuters

A few weeks ago when we found out Boris Johnson was standing for mayor, we were looking forward to seeing what his transport policies were going to be. Well in true bumbling Boris style he's come up with a rather poetic look at Tube travel. Yesterday he was accused of not taking his application form very seriously and a labour MP said "he thinks the whole think is a jape and that causes heaps of laughter amongst old Etonians". But when you get asked questions like "In no more than 600 words state the most important challenges facing London and explain how you would approach them in your role as Mayor", you must be hard pressed to not take a schoolboy approach.


Transport is one of his big challenges though and he said "I see the hollow-eyed look of people emerging from the Tube after anothe (sic) miserable experience"


Wondered if he was thinking of the Sean of the Dead poster or the above old Munch inspired ad from 1992?

So how will he deal with the challenges? By "recruiting the ablest people across London - of whatever political affiliation to formulate new policies for the core problems that effect our everyday lives". Although he seems to have got cut off in his prime or perhaps he'd reached his 600 word limit, as this page ends with "As Mayor of London it will be my job". Or perhaps he's so confident that he feels the job's in the bag! We shall see.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, July 31, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Possible ban on using Piccadilly Line

You might have some problems using the Piccadilly Line towards Heathrow from the middle of August. And it won't be anything to do with signal failures. The British Airport Authority are trying to go ahead with a massive injunction to stop people attending a Camp for Climate Action protest taking place at Heathrow Airport between August 14 to 21.


They're seeking a ban on approaching the airport by 5 million people and this will include the Piccadilly Line, Heathrow Express & parts of the M25. See The Guardian, for more on this. Personally I don't see how this will be possible, as although they're aiming at the protesters including the National Trust, Woodland Trust, RSPB supporters, members of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Campaign to Protect Rural England - the injunction if carried out would effect anybody trying to get to the airport.

According to Greenpeace "'a source' who's spoken to BAA has just told us that BAA is deliberately making the ban as broad as possible, and leaving it up to the police to apply it with common sense. Which means, if BAA wins, the police will have the right to stop you, me or Her Maj from, say, getting on "all railway trains and carriages operating upon the Piccadilly line".

Sheriff Ken is none too happy about this and said "I regard BAA's proposed injunction as a serious infringement of civil liberties and an attack on the right to peaceful protest. It could have a significant impact upon London Underground operations. BAA did not consult Transport for London about this proposed injunction. Transport for London will be writing to BAA to demand that all reference to its property and services be removed from any such injunction and will oppose any attempt to restrict the lawful use of its public transport services in the courts."

In the meantime there's a party on the Piccadilly Line this Tuesday 31st July if you feel like a protest. If you have a Facebook account you can find out more about that here.

BTW - the commenting function with haloscan seems to be a bit screwed up at the moment although it works in IE but not in firefox (weird)

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, July 30, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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All stations to wedded bliss

It's just taken over two and a half hours to get home from Gatwick this evening (Gatwick Express is a misnomer, District Line to Richmond screwed with NO replacement buses), and I'm not best pleased with public transport, so it's nice to hear of a pleasant Tube story rather an one based on delays and today's strike action.

Raj Dabasia the station control operator at Paddington proposed to his girlfriend Nimisha Siyani, over the public address system, while she waited on the Circle line platform for her train to work. He then went on to the platform in front of cheering passengers, got down on one knee and gave her a ring. He said "I had planned a proposal in a hot air balloon in June, but bad weather prevented that".

Luckily, bad weather wasn't used as an excuse to stop the Tube today, and luckily he chose the morning otherwise his girlfriend would have been making an alternative route home as the Circle line was screwed this evening. By the way, she said yes.

I will be in the sunny (I hope) South of France for the next week or so, so can happily say bollox to the Tube. Look out for the new sponsorship of buskers on the London Underground from Monday (the londonpaper & Capital FM: "We want to establish buskers as individuals and champion the role they play in making everyone’s journey more entertaining", they said). Apparently breakfast DJ Johnny Vaughan will be busking on Monday morning too, so please give him some foreign coins if you happen to be going past his spot.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, July 20, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Photo of the Week

Dust, anyone, dust, dust?


Thanks to Owen Blacker for bringing this picture of a great excuse for Monday's problems on the Victoria Line. As j-sin who took this said:

"I've lived in the UK long enough to know that this is the only country where "leaves on the track" stop our trains but this seemed a new level of silliness. Was the dust "high in fat or low in fat" I wonder?"

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, July 18, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Is Commuting gambling with the devil?

So Boris Johnson is standing. If his thoughts on train travel are anything to go by, you could read the headline in thelondonpaper as standing for a train rather than standing for Mayor. After the 'is he? isn't he?' speculations last week Boris is putting himself up against Ken for the Sheriff's role.

As outspoken as Ken, Boris once said "To rely on a train in Blair's Britain is to engage in a crapshoot with the devil." Will he be able to make it any different in Brown's Britain?

If he does become Mayor, we might see an end to the "Mayor Tube Spots", as he'll probably stick to his bike. I saw him zooming down Shaftesbury Avenue on his bike one day and it had a similar shock value to seeing Ken on the Tube.

I'm looking forward to hearing more of Boris' thoughts on public transport as his campaign begins in earnest.

Perhaps we'll all get some dice with our Oystercards if he comes in power, or become experts in playing The London Game.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, July 17, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Metronet facing Adminstration

Down the drain for Metronet?


Thanks to the various people who sent emails about Metronet's woes - and almost to a person they said "try not to laugh too much". By the end of tonight or tomorow we'll find out if there as a last minute rescue attempt or whether the boys will be sent in to close Metronet down. One way or the other it appears as though it's not going to make a big difference to us as commuters - even though Metronet is responsible for maintaining the Bakerloo, Central, Victoria, District, Circle and Metropolitan lines.

However, TfL rather than Metronet would probably be left to pick up the bill for any overspending on maintenance or renovation work. Currently it's estimated that there will be an overspend of as much as £2bn by 2010 - and ultimately whether it's TfL or Metronet we'll be feeling the effect on fare inceases.

Obviously both organisations are blaming each other for the overspend - TfL as saying that Metronet are mismanaged and failed to control costs. Metronet's response is that London Underground & TfL have changed the specifications outlined in the contracts and asked for higher quality work and more expensive upgrades.

Metronet's website is tightlipped about the situation, so for the moment it's a case of keeping an eye on the news.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, July 16, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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