Pants in St Pancras

New York started No Pants Subway Day, but today at St Pancras station we'll have Pants Day or a Pant Flash. Hundreds of people will brave the weather to make the largest gathering of people wearing underpants. It kicks off at 9.30am this morning (Thursday 13th November) at The Betjeman Arms, a pub inside the new St Pancras International railway station, on the Upper Concourse.


You get a free pairs of kecks (sadly not the Animals on the London Underground underpants above) if you join in and a shot of whisky to keep you warm.

I'd be surprised if people travel on the Tube in their underpants as it is a bit nippy today.


Full details of how to take part, plus the inevitable photo shoot at 10.30am are on the Pants to Poverty blog.

Perhaps this does mean we'll be getting closer to the first No Pants Tube Ride next year. It's just unfortunate that pants in the US and pants in the UK have different meanings as a No Pants Tube Ride would either lead to some serious chafing with people going commando. Or some arrests for indecency - if you really wanted to display yourself properly.

UPDATE - It's official the Pants people are record breakers - see the video on CNN!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, November 13, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tourism Minister apologises for London Transport Delays

Whenever people discover that I blog about the Tube, it gives them the opportunity to tell me their London Underground woes. On Monday night, while I was at bloggers rum cocktail tasting, one of the guys from Elements 8 said "Oh my God, the Olympics is going to be embarrassing. How are we going to cope? Wouldn't the money be better spent elsewhere? Have you blogged about that?"


Obviously I had blogged about 2012 & london transport (a number of times) and although it's still several years away, I currently have no more confidence in the system making us proud. Particularly with the recent mess at this week's World Travel Market. Yesterday, Tourism Minister Barbara Follett, issued an apology after problems with the DLR and heavy congestion on the buses delayed the arrival of 50,000 people attending the largest travel and tourism trade show in the world. This is being held at ExCel in East London which is an Olympics venue.

Follett said "I apologise on behalf of the Government for the difficult journey that you have had for the two days reaching here. The weather and transport system can be variable in this country."

The weather is variable in many other countries and their transport system doesn't have major delays whenever there's some heavy rain. It's not as rain is something unusual in the UK.

John Probyn, the festival director at Live Nation, the country's biggest events promoter, told The Times that London's transport system had an awful international reputation and felt it was getting worse. "For a major city, it's so frustrating in London sometimes. London Underground do try really hard but they are not allowed to get creative with their scheduling [for improvement works]. It's not good enough. You go to New York or Singapore and you can go anywhere you want, any time of the day."

I think that's going to surprise most visitors to London in 2012, the fact that the Tube doesn't run 24 hours or at least for much after 12.30am. When I was in New York recently, I saw loads of engineering and repair work being carried out late at night, and the subway ran perfectly well while this was going on.


Maybe I'll be proved wrong and the London Underground will run like clockwork in the summer of 2012. There'll be no threat of Tube strikes, it won't be hot, stuffy and overcrowded, we won't have cartoon giant fans as air conditioning and everyone will get to the games on time. But then again pigs might fly.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, November 12, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Strikes planned for November 16th

Just when you thought we hadn't had any threats of industrial action on the London Underground for a while, RMT have announced two 36 hour strikes.

After a 21 to two majority, 25 RMT "shift testers" responsible for fault-finding and maintaining the electrical supply to the Tube will not book for turns. That's "unless there is a direct and imminent danger to human life." If it's danger to pigeon or rat life, I guess they'll stay on strike.


On the RMT site union leader Bob Crow said "Shift testers at EDF Energy Powerlink are seeking nothing more than parity with their day-work colleagues, who some time ago received a £3,000 rise in exchange for flexibility in signing on and off. Shift testers have also displayed flexibility and have seen their work-life balance turned upside down by the change from 10-hour days and 14-hour nights to a 12-hour shift system."

If the pay agreement is not reached, this strike by 25 staff, has the potential to shut down large sections of the London Underground. The workers are planning to stop working from midnight on Sunday November 16th 2008 for 36 hours and again from Sunday December 7th.

Watch this space and the news for further updates.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, November 12, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Valuing the past - Vintage Railway Posters

On Saturday I visited the Antiquarian Book Fair at Chelsea Old Town Hall. Mainly to marvel at the old books on display, and also to see if I had any unexpected hidden gems on my own bookshelves. Turns out that some of the first editions I bought for ten quid are now worth about £50, but I was amazed at the value put on some posters & maps:


Sadly we couldn't take photos inside but there was an absolutely beautiful map of the District Line from 1898. It had hard covers & was printed on that hard wearing old map paper (the name of which completely escapes me) - that the very old Ordnance Survey maps were printed on. I was pretty scared to unfold it. It was being sold for £175 which you might think quite expensive for a London Underground map.

However, just round the corner I saw a signed first edition of District and Circle a collection of poems by Seamus Heaney which was first published in 2006. The title poem is about a journey on the District and Circle Lines. This was valued at £300. I think this is a huge amount of money in comparison. Clearly I would be rubbish at valuation.

Do you think you'd be any better? I took some pictures of some old British railway posters from the Vintage Travel Posters catalogue pictured above. As a guide, the lovely poster for National Railways of Mexico below is from 1950 and is £550.


The posters below are from 1922 to 1960 and promote the delights of travelling by rail to Southend; Greatstone by the world's smallest public railway (which I visited a few years ago); an exotic looking Cleethorpes; Portcawl (which has everything including mermaids) and Sunny Rhyl, where donkey hugging means a healthy happy holiday.






See if you can guess the price of some the posters. No prizes, but just the satisfaction of knowing whether you'd be able to give the Antiques Roadshow guys a run for their money.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, November 11, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Fashioning the Tube: posters and the new consumers

Speaking of old travel posters, the London Transport Museum are holding another of their fascinating talks for The art of the poster – a century of design. A few weeks ago a group of us went to one on the prolific graphic designer Abram Games.

On Tuesday 25th November, fashion historian, Emmanuelle Dirix, will discuss how London Underground posters were designed to appeal to women in the 1920s and 1930s.


"It became apparent that ‘posters accompanied the housewife all the way from her front door to the shop window’, resulting in a new style of poster emerging to cater for this new consumer audience."

It begins at 18.30 and tickets are £8.00 adults; £6.00 concessions; £4.00 student. They can be pre booked on 020 7565 7298 and full details are on their website.

The poster above made me think about how London Transport deal with shopping now. I can't say I've seen one recent poster about getting to the shops by Tube. There are a lot of posters on the London Underground for the new massive Westfield Shopping Centre.


But they're clearly designed by Westfield themselves and although there's some advice on the best stations to use to visit (Wood Lane, Shepherd's Bush Market & White City), it's almost tacked on as an afterthought. I wonder if Westfield will eventually work together with TfL to get something more like the older posters.

On the subject of shopping, you might have seen some Tweets where I was treated to a day out at Bicester Village. I've not been to Westfield yet (despite living quite close) but will be interesting to compare the two experiences. Bicester Village is about an hour away from London and has about 120 shops in it. They have designer outlets selling last season (or older) stuff very reduced prices. As I'm not a complete fashion victim (yet) it was fine for me & I grabbed some bargains.

I also had some "Handbag Therapy", where a lovely lady called Debbie Piercy looked at the contents of my bag and managed to be surprisingly insightful on what it said about my character. If you fancy uploading a photo of "What's in your Handbag", you can get "analysed" & also have the chance of winning £1,000 shopping spree too.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, November 11, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Queuing whilst drunk moaning about the rain - Makes us Brits

I'm not looking forward to the prospect of getting on the London Underground today because of the smell of wet coats and being dripped on & prodded by umbrellas. I got drunk at the weekend, but enjoyed it. I'm really looking forward to EastEnders. I spend much of my life in queues. I bought a shed-load of bargains last week (thanks to Bicester Village & Helen). Sadly all this just proves that I'm British.


It's official. The results of a poll (yep another one) of 5,000 people show 50 traits that make the British unique. There's nothing much in the top 10 to feel particularly proud about:

1. Talking about the weather

2. Great at queueing

3. Sarcasm

4. Watching soaps

5. Getting drunk

6. A love of bargains

7. A love of curtain twitching

8. Stiff upper lip

9. Love of all television

10. Moaning

Sadly I have virtually all of those characteristics (although I've never been a curtain twitcher - except you could call a love of reading blogs and a penchant of some reality TV - curtain twitching to an extent. Plus, I don't love all television). The full list can be viewed here, if you want to see how many you share.

Not surprisingly travel is mentioned a few times - "Obsession with the traffic" is 13th, "Road Rage" is 25th and "Asking people about their journey" is 33rd. Being "Great at Queuing" is second & something that's part and parcel with Tube travel. As is - Irony, Sarcasm and Moaning.

It's lucky for Transport for London that we also have "Stiff upper lip", "Inability to Complain", "An inability to express our emotions" and "The ability to laugh at ourselves", otherwise millions of us wouldn't use the London Underground, or there'd be daily riots on it.

I have a number of friends who are Parisian and they say that Metro commuters simply wouldn't put up with what we cope with on the Tube. There would be much more commuter rage, queue jumping and arguments. So just as well the more positive - "Being overly polite" and "Achieving against all odds" are also in the list.

If you're a Brit (or even if you're not a Brit) do you think it's a fair list? Anything else inherently British that's been left out?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, November 10, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Latest "most annoying commuter" poll

Since I started writing about the London Underground, I've seen loads of polls about who are the most annoying commuters. The type that top the polls (or are at least in the top three) time after time are people playing loud music on their personal walkmans, mp3's & now iPods.


So it's no surprise the latest poll by Jetsleeper has loud music players at number one, but I was slightly surprised at number three - "the early morning or late night traveller found asleep and leaving a trail of dribble on their neighbour's shoulder."

I'm sure this is poetic licence on the part of Jetsleeper or thelondonpaper who reported it last night. Falling asleep I don't doubt, but seriously how many people do you see dribbling in their sleep on the Tube?


I've taken a fair few pictures of people asleep on the Tube in my time. So have others like Chutney Bannister & Mike - with the rather cheeky one below - which is reality isn't as bad as it looks! But in both pictures the guys sleeping have managed to hold themselves upright and not dribble on someone's shoulder.


There's even a Facebook Group of pictures of People who fall asleep on Public Transport. I've not looked through all 100 odd pictures, but certainly after the first 50 there were none of people dribbling on other people's shoulders.

Maybe we just don't travel on the right lines and perhaps there's a special section of London which has a bunch of narcoleptics with saliva problems in it. Who knows?

So who would top your poll for the most annoying commuters? Answers welcome in the comments.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, November 07, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Fighting Fat Reminders on the Tube

I really need to go on a diet, but with winter approaching, I love warm comforting food and it's hard to resist roasts, Toad in the Hole & other insulating food. So I hate standing in front of this poster on the London Underground about Jelly Bellies:


Virgin Media's ads for Jelly Belly, Bingo Wings and Muffin Tops, I'm sure are personally directed at me, and if anyone knows Richard Branson can they make him stop these ads. Now. Please.

Especially when there are some great Tube ads seductively telling me to eat chips. In fact willing me to get the train to go faster so I can get home and cook them.


What's a person supposed to do in situations like this?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, November 06, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Holland Park Tube's Obama Celebrations

Great to see that some staff on the London Underground appreciated Barack Obama's victory:


This was taken by Andrew Grill today at Holland Park Station.

Great spot.

Update - Earlier in the day, a number of friends told me about the following Flickr Group - A Message for Obama which is on Flickr's blog.


The idea's to put your own personal message to Barack Obama on it. I think Metro's front cover summed it up for me and many others.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, November 05, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Let's hope we see this in reality

Remember this image of Barack Obama outside Number 10 Downing Street? It was a teaser London Underground poster that had us all puzzling in September. Well let's just hope this won't be just a photo shopped memory & an teaser campaign for The Times and that he wins!


America - most of the UK and indeed the world's thoughts are with you! Barack, hope we see you in London as President!

UPDATE - November 5th 2008

For once America you made the world proud. Barack Obama's presidential victory & acceptance speech below.


Whatever you think, it's a truly historic moment.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, November 04, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Bite Leads to Zombie Movie

Bryony Matthewman was bitten on the London Underground and the experience inspired her to create a Internet Zombie Movie. When I first heard about this through Channel 4's 4Talent, I thought that she'd had a mosquito bite. But it wasn't. A man who'd been asleep on the Tube, woke up, bit her arm and ran off. Rather than being totally freaked out by this, she ... errr ... naturally thought "Mmm maybe this guy was a zombie?". She explains what happened below:


Unfortunately the movie wasn't produced in time for Halloween, but it looks like "World Wide Dead" it's nearly finished and BBC3 have made a documentary about its making.

As it was created on the internet, you can expect a huge amount of arguments, discussion, change of direction, strops, artistic differences, toys being thrown out of prams etc etc. But I spose that's what makes the internet fun. Good luck to Bryony and the team behind the Internet Zombie Movie (perhaps it'll be the new Dead Set or at least better than other Tube Zombie / Horror films - Raw Meat aka Death Line & Creep). I just hope I'm not unlucky enough to sit next to the biting bloke on the Tube!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, November 04, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Microwave Safety on the Tube

No, this isn't a post about how to carry your microwave safely on the London Underground. Metronet, one of the two main Tube maintenance firms, have signed an 8 year, multimillion quid contract to provide a new passenger microwave-based safety surveillance system on the London Underground.

The system can take images from up to eight high-quality CCTV cameras on each platform, & using video processors can then transmit a combined view of the train's exterior to the driver via a microwave radio link.


Telent, the technology company behind the service, has already provided a similar wireless track-to-train system in Hong Kong, and said it could offer a clear view of trains regardless of whether they were travelling in a straight line or through a curved platform.


Moves for improved passenger safety and security are being driven by the upcoming introduction of faster trains on the District, Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City lines. Just so people travelling on other lines don't feel left out, telent is currently working, in partnership with Amey, to upgrade and modernise over 100 London Underground stations on the Piccadilly, Northern and Jubilee lines, under a 13-year contract awarded by TubeLines in 2005.

Commenting on the Metronet contract win, Mark Plato, telent's CEO said, "We're delighted at the confidence Metronet has shown in our ability to deliver what will be a leading-edge passenger safety system, the first one based on microwave technology to be introduced in the UK. With over 30 years experience in metro and rail, telent's domain knowledge and technical expertise is unrivalled in this sector."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, November 04, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Alternative to Penalty Fares

Thanks to Peter F who did a double take as he spotted a rather extreme solution to penalty fares on the London Underground. He said: "I thought you might be interested to see the following picture I took the other day on a Westbound Jubilee line Tube. Not quite believing my eyes I took this picture. Apparently London Underground are now executing fare dodgers!!"


Perhaps the powers that be were a little too influenced by Halloween's ghoulish Tube going on's. However with some closer inspection, we can see it's down to those pesky kids from Mix The Message.com.

They say "On a given day the average citizen of this big old world will be bombarded with over 20,000 messages, in the form of: signs, notices, posters and adverts. Government, corporations and the media, tell us what to do, what to think and how to feel. We say break free of the machine."

Their stickers are designed to "Make your fellow citizens look at things differently, make them think.". The "penalty fare" one is the best of the transport collection - which includes signs pointing the way to first class vs undesirables carriages and giving up your seat to drunks.







I still prefer the series of "No Talking", "No eye contact" and "No sitting" stickers, that were lurking around on the Tube a few years ago. They must have confused a fair few tourists on their journeys.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, November 03, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Welcome to Joe

Regular readers of this blog will know that Fimb has been a very regular contributor for years (literally years) and also got into Flickr as a result of taking part in Tube Relief - a Tube Challenge for the families & survivors of the London Transport Bombs in 2005.


If you've seen her more recent comments on the Tube Fashion Victims you'll have noticed she was pregnant - in fact over due and in hours of boredom would while away some time on this blog.

I'm delighted to announce she had a baby boy on the 30th October called Joe.


As both Fimb & her husband Kradlum are Tube Geeks & basically Geeks in general, I'm sure that poor Joe will receive a lot of Tube baby clothing and transport related toys as he grows up.

Congratulations to both Fimb & Kradlum and welcome to the world Joe!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, November 03, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Halloween on the Tube

As usual there were many many people looking like extras from Shaun of the Dead on the London Underground for Halloween. Many of them flitted through carriages like ghosts in the night but I managed to capture a few:

Make up on the District Line


You need a fairly steady hand to put on eyeliner on the Tube, but she did it pretty well. At this point she was drawing a spiderweb on her neck!

Socktastic at Glamoursmith


Loved this very brightly coloured girls at Hammersmith Tube, especially when I noticed a couple had been sock swapping.

You can see more of the full fluorescent outfit below:



Ghoulishly Green

In the evening I was travelling to the TrustedPlaces.com Day of the Dead Party and loved the look of the green guy on the District Line:


When I finally got to the party venue, I was slightly disappointed that I'd seen more people in fancy dress on the Tube than at the party. But fortunately LJ Rich, Dav and Walid kept the ghoulish theme going


I'll leave you to guess which one is which.




Thanks to Walid, Soks and Niamh from Trustedplaces.com for throwing such a great party at Chilango, where the Tequila, Burritos & Nachos were in full force. There's a few more pictures from the Day of the Dead party including my Devil Duck pictured above.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween & if you spotted any ghoulish zombies on the Tube last night let us know.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Saturday, November 01, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground Fashion Victims

Hurrah it's Friday and time for the Tube Fashion Victims or the TFV's, travellers on the London Underground who have "taken a style and made it their own" (to quote Louis Walsh out of X Factor) or have decided to go all out for "fashion for fashion's sake" and have the fashion police come rushing to their door.

However, this week I want to start with two poster campaigns for fashion brands which use the London Underground as part of the backdrop. Mainly because most advertisers think the Tube equals London, trendiness, edginess & uber coolness.

Top Shop on the Tube

Last time I featured a picture of Kate Moss peeking out from beneath old ads on the Tube and the shop she designs for - Top Shop have grabbed some models & got them to look all sulky in Tube carriages for their poster campaign.


You might want to have a guess at where the poster above was shot, as that moquette or Tube upholstery looks quite old.

Another poster which doesn't work as well for me, is the one for E & O - Skiwear on the Edge


Apparently it's edgy to stand in the middle of the lines at Caledonian Road Tube station, wearing your ski gear.

Now onto the TFV's - although I'm starting with a RFV or a Railway Fashion Victim.

Pirate Look at Richmond

I know it's the time of year where people do a lot of dressing up, but I spotted this guy at about 8.30am, which is a little early for fancy dress.


You don't often see pirates on your morning commute. Or maybe he was a highwayman. Either way I was lucky not to stand behind him on the train as that feather would have tickled my nose.

BTW speaking of dressing up for parties - Alfie spotted some pictures from a recent Tube Fancy Dress party on Moblog - with High Barnet & Green Park very well represented. If you're looking ideas for London Underground Fancy Dress party for Xmas there's a fair few in the comments on an old post of mine.

Super Gold Trainers

Spurred on by my spot of some dazzling gold shoes last time, Pete from the Londoneer spotted some more gold footwear.


He said "My eyes nearly popped out when I saw them". But like me, he thought that the pink shoelaces with them, really err ... set them off! The woman sitting next to gold shoe woman with the Gucci bag, also has an interesting take with their zipped jeans. I'm sure it's just me, but wouldn't you just buy a shorter pair of jeans if you were going to have them with zips at the bottom? Or perhaps the point is to have that messy "I'm too cool to care" scruffy turned up look.

Low Slung Jeans

Finally a couple of little Emo style teenagers with their low slung jeans


I seriously thought the guy with the blue T-shirt was going to expose all of his paisley pink underpants, but even he had the sense to try to pull down his T-shirt a bit as he approached the stairs & escalators.

Until next time, the previous fashion victim post is here and the complete picture gallery of all the TFV's can be seen on the following Flickr set.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, October 31, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Westfield Shopping Centre finally opens to Transport hitches

If you're a Londoner but have been living on Mars for the past couple of days, you might have missed the news that Westfield Shopping Centre finally opened today. Over the last few weeks I'd already blogged about all the new London Underground stations (Wood Lane & Shepherd's Bush stations), and transport links set up to support the masses of people who'll be heading over to Shepherd's Bush / White City for a shopping extravaganza at Europe's largest new shopping centre.

However, the transport system had some technical hitches this week. Safety technology and a lift were not working at Wood Lane Tube station today, and one of the new 3 million quid escalators at the new Shepherd's Bush station broke down on Monday. Meanwhile over on the Hammersmith & City Line, the screens which show drivers when it's safe to shut the doors aren't working at Wood Lane station.


The Evening Standard earlier reported that "The current problems come after the opening of the new Shepherd's Bush overground station had to be delayed because the platforms were 18 inches too narrow. A TfL spokeswoman dismissed the problems, saying: "Three of the lifts at Wood Lane Tube station have been commissioned and provide enough capacity to meet passenger demand. The fourth lift is waiting for a part."

She said that platform screens would be working "shortly". TfL insisted the two escalators at Shepherd's Bush would cope.

The broken escalator was "swiftly repaired" and the station remained open, the spokeswoman added.

Hammersmith & Fulham council leader Stephen Greenhalgh said: "We intend to hold TfL to its promise of providing step-free access. We will not let this matter rest."

Let's hope that TfL can keep up.

I love shopping and can shop till I drop, but like Debbie Davies, I was somewhat bemused to see the rather err... worshipful advert for Westfield Shopping Centre's opening.


I couldn't have put it better than Debbie who said "Oh get over yourself! It's a glorified shopping mall, not a cure for cancer."

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, October 30, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Not on the London Underground

It's been a while since I've written a post on London Underground roundels that you've found on your travels that are not in their natural Tube habitat.

As Halloween's around the corner it seemed appropriate to start with a ghoulish spot at Brick Lane in East London by Melissa


She said: "I snapped this on my way to work one morning. I have no idea what it means, but this was stuck to a road sign indicating the diversion away from Brick Lane (it's currently closed for East London line work but I continually see GPS idiots go up there anyway, and I laugh)."

If anyone has any idea, it would be appreciated!

Going a bit further afield now, Pete from the Londoneer spotted this in Poland.


He said: "Here's a roundel I saw one weekend while I was in Wroclaw (pronounced Vrots-waff) in Poland - cheeky or what! I think it's offering an internet service...".

Finally some sporting roundels. The strapping lads below are from the Putney Magpies, a team in the British Australian Rules Football League or BARFL.




Before TfL's solicitors go racing across to Putney to rip the shirts off these guys, I'm told by Peter O'Neill who sent them to me, that there were a number of complaints by opposing team members & referees, saying it was too hard to see the players' numbers against the roundels, so they no longer use these shirts.

Thanks to you all for sending the photos in. The full set of Roundels Not on the London Underground can be seen here. If you spot any more roundels in unusual places please email them to me and I'll put the best up on the next post I do on this.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, October 30, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Abram Games - London Transport Museum Event

Last night I was lucky to go along to a talk by Abram Games daughter - Naomi, on her father's life and his prolific work in graphic design. Even though I had seen lots of Games work around, I never knew he was the man behind the striking work such as the BBC's first animated logo, the Queen's Award emblem (he didn't like to call them logos), Penguin's first colour book covers from the 1950's and of course some amazing posters for the London Underground and London Transport.

I had no idea, that he produced one of the Victoria Line's mosaics - the beautiful swan at Stockwell Tube station below:


Games was trying to sell most of his works in the 1930's and he was continually told that it was "too modern", so hats off to London Transport who commissioned his first commercial poster - A Train every 90 seconds - and yes, he was well aware of the irony!



His school report said that he was "Lazy, careless & untidy and drawing was weak", fortunately he saw this as a challenge rather than a put down. However, he never really got on with formal artistic training and only spent two terms at Central St Martins College before dropping out.

He owed a lot of his success to travelling on the top of double decker buses in London and said he should have paid rent to London Transport. From the top of buses he got a great sense for how posters were seen by a lot of travellers. Fleeting glances from strange angles, so the message had to get across quickly. His motto was "Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means", and he used limited colours & limted typography but to striking effect.


He left his students at the Royal Academy of Art with three C's that they should apply to their work. Curiosity, Courage and Concentration. Sound advice for most work actually.

Naomi's book Poster Journeys: Abram Games and London Transport launched yesterday and contains all of Games work for London Transport with some fascinating sketches which led to all of the posters.

Thanks again to London Transport Museum for inviting me and also for having the courage to commission a difficult but brilliant artist who was seen by many as ahead of his time.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, October 29, 2008 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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